Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the doctors.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, the tenth child of the learned and eccentric Vicar of Ottery St. Mary, was an object of concern to many doctors throughout his life, and he himself showed more than a passing interest in things medical. Two medical contacts from his infancy are recalled, one when he burnt his hand at the age of two, and the pain of having it dressed stung him to exclaim 'Nasty Dr. Young', and so to embark on a lifetime of conversational eloquence of which he was to be a master, and another, when after a quarrel with his brother he stayed out all night to avoid punishment and caught an 'ague'; he claimed that his health suffered from then on. If this was so it was a pity that his widowed mother, who had been ambitious for her other children, understood him so little as to accept a place for him at a school in London and in 1782 signed her declaration,' witnessed by her husband's successor as Vicar of Ottery, that she could in no way provide for Samuel's proper education, and so, at the age of nine he was separated from his country homestead to become, as he described it, a friendless half-starved poor orphan at Christ's Hospital. The young genius was soon to experience the pangs of hunger and of isolation from his family when the promised 'plumb cake'2 failed to materialize, and also the morbidity risks of a crowded school, and the limitations of eighteenth-century medicine. Before long his delicate white skin, which remained easily sensitized all his life, was over-treated for the 'itch' with sulphur ointment by one of the 'Dames', and later he was to fall ill after bathing in his clothes and letting them dry on him. Coping with these sorts of difficulties in his own way by retreating into the world of his own imagination and ceaselessly reading, Coleridge bore his schooldays with resignation under an outstanding headmaster3 with a propensity for flogging, but who nevertheless recognized his pupil's gifts and gave him that intense classical education that was his pride and joy; hardships he had but they were shared; friends he had and amongst them were exceptional men who achieved distinction in later life, and remained his friends. Later, when he had become head boy at this religious, royal and ancient foundation, he was again a source of anxiety to the medical staff of the school, needing to spend half his last year in the sick ward with jaundice and rheumatic fever. At that time the boys were looked after by an elderly surgeon, Gail Ingram, who had his house provided. There was also the apothecary, Joseph Roberts, and his assistant, Thomas Wheeler, but the physician, who was on the staff of nearby St. Bartholomew's as well, was none other than the then President of the Royal College of Physicians, William Pitcairn.' Although elderly, Pitcairn took his duties seriously, attended meetings of the committee, where he was no doubt to be seen leaning on the gold-headed cane; and with