Marvodia [: being an account of the last illness of James I and of the post-mortem examination of his body] / by William Munk.

Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Marvodia [: being an account of the last illness of James I and of the post-mortem examination of his body] / by William Munk. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    Apothecary in London, containing the copies vn extenso of the prescriptions he compounded for the physicians who patronized and the persons who employed him. He may even have been “ Apothecary to the Person.” As such he would have been in immediate attendance on the King, as glysters and cupping had to be employed. Or, lastly, the report of the illness and of the post mortem examination may have been merely copied by the writer of the volume from the notes of one of the many physicians who were present throughout. It is clear that the author of the Report was a medical man, and one thoroughly conversant with the habiis of the king and the whole course of his illness. I have no doubt that this MS. volume came into the possession of Dr. Marwood, and has been in the family ever since. At a time when forms of complex prescriptions were more regarded than they have been during the last century or more, such a Thesaurus Medicaminum, or repertory of prescriptions, as is this volume—and these, too, of the most eminent physicians of the time—must have been considered valuable by a provincial physician, and have been of frequent use to him in the w'ay of reference and suggestion. When, or under w’bat circumstances the MS. came into the hands of Dr. Marwood there is nothing to show. But what then, after all, of Dr. Marwood’s medical attendance on James I., and of the freehold estate said to have been given to him by the King ? I must leave it as I found it, a family tradition, which my inquiries neither confirm nor confute, [m] John Marwood, M.D., the elder son of the loyal physician. Dr. Thomas Marwood, by his wife Mary Thatcher, was baptized at Honiton G Nov., lG23.i Of his earlier education I can recover no particulars. He passed over to Leyden, and as I gather from the Album Shuliosomim Academice Lugduno Batavioe MDLXXV-MDCCCLXXV [^.to. Hagw Comitum, 187.5], was inscribed on the philosophy line there 12 March’ 1G44, being then twenty years of age.* He studied under Vorstius, Otho Hearnius, and Johannes Walmus, the last-named one of the soundest and most practical’ teachers of his time, and he had as a fellow student at Leyden the future Sir William Petty, m.d. He graduated Doctor of Medicine at Leyden, and re- turning from the Continent settled at Honiton. Prince, who collected the materials for his account of the Marwoods but a few years after this Dr. John Marwood’s death,^ tells us that— being studiously dispos d lie spent liis time in acquiring of ‘ 1623. Novr. 6. John the son of Af Thoin.ns Marwood.—i/oniton Jieg • 1644. Mart ; 12. Joannes Marwood, Anglus, 20. P. ’ Prince wrote his account of the Marwoods about 1702, for, speaking of Eustachius de Merwood anno Hen. III., 1242, he adds, “ now above 460 years ago ”-«-yo 1702.