In memoriam : Henry Power, M.B. Lond., F.R.C.S. / W.H.H.J.

Date:
[1911?]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: In memoriam : Henry Power, M.B. Lond., F.R.C.S. / W.H.H.J. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    in Gloucester, Cheltenham, Leamington, Whitby, and never stayed long enough at one school to receive a thorough ground¬ ing in classics and mathematics. This fact had its bright side, as it made him rely on his own resources and opened his eyes to science, which was hardly taught in schools at that time. At Cheltenham his name appears as a day boy, admitted at Easter term 1842, the college having only been opened in the previous autumn. He remained there for two years, and, besides the ordinary subjects, learnt a little German, and could manage to read simple stories in French. He was on the modern side, and was making good progress when he left. As his own description relates : “I, about as ignorant a lad as existed in Great Britain, was asked whether I should like to be apprenticed to a doctor. I was only fourteen years and a half old, and was, of course, delighted to escape the drudgery of lessons and see London again. It was a great mistake and has reacted badly on my whole life.” In 1844 he was apprenticed for five years to Mr. Thomas Lowe Wheeler, afterwards chairman of the Board of Examiners at the Apothecaries Hall, who lived at 61 Gracechurch Street E.C. A few details of his apprenticeship in the hungry forties are interesting as showing the privations undergone then “I was well fed, though some economy was practised. I remember when, after having had a bit of bacon, I took a little butter, the exclamation, ‘ Butter and bacon, that is extravagant, Henry ! I took it really for food, because I wanted some fat with my slice or two of bread. They liked salads, I did not, and to have cold, boiled, salted, or corned beef Monday, Tues¬ day and Wednesday without potatoes was insufficient for the needs of growth and development.1’ Living with Mr. Wheeler was his father, Thomas Wheeler, the botanist, who had been apothecary (resident medical officer) to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Though ninety years of age, Thomas Wheeler taught the young pupil botany and materia medica, and helped him with Celsus and Gregory’s Conspectus. The apprentice attended the lectures and practice of St. Bar¬ tholomew s Hospital, and for five years made up the medicines, and looked after the surgery of Mr. Wheeler. a As an illustration of the practice of apothecaries in those days, I remember my master ordered for a gentleman a couple of 1^ oz. bottles of water with a drachm of syrup of roses and a few minims of dilute sulphuric acid, which suited him well. A few days after I was ordered to send him 8 oz. more. I