Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/1201

VAUGHAN 1179 VAUGHAN Ireland, who ever practised medicine in Maine, ■was Dr. Benjamin Vaughan of Hallowell. Owing to that historical position, his career deserves onr notice. Much has been written concerning his political adventures, but noth- ing about him as a physician. As I have just had the chance to discover items hitherto un- known concerning his medical interests, a re- vision of former lives of Dr. Vaughan now becomes imperative. Dr. Vaughan was born in the island of Jamaica, April 19, 1751 ; the son of Samuel Vaughan, a merchant of that island, and of his wife, Sarah Hallowell of Boston, MassacHu- setts. Judging from the medical books of Samuel Vaughan, he must have cared for medicine, at least so far as to have owned treatises on cholera, yellow fever, and small- pox inoculation. The family moved to London, and Benjamin was educated at Hackney, at Warrington under Priestly, and then at Cambridge, where, however, he could not obtain a degree, being a Unitarian. Wishing then to marry Sarah Manning of London, her father refused his consent until Vaughan had obtained a degree. Under such amatory pressure, Vaughan ma- triculated as a medical student at Edinburgh under Monro Secundus, — the Monro of the "Foramen," and Alexander Fyfe, who drew beautiful anatomical plates, but was "horrid" as a lecturer. Obtaining his degree in 1781, Vaughan was married and is said to have gone at once into business, or according to other accounts into politics, as a private secre- tary to Lord Shelburne. For all that, I have discovered an "Open Letter" written to Vaughan in 1790 by Dr. John Collins of the Island of St. Vincent on "Angina Maligna," and "Capsicum in Tropical Diseases." From such publications we have the right to believe that Dr. Vaughan was interested in medicine, even if not publicly practising that art. However this may be, Vaughan soon went whole-heartedly into politics and from his American connections came into touch with Franklin and Laurens, peace commissioners from the American Colonies, at the end of the Revolution. He was not only intimate with Franklin, but followed through the English press an edition of Franklin's works, and in later life an edition in the United States. While the commissioners were negotiating, Vaughan made several journeys on their be- half to France and lived there many months. From this time onward he went deep into European politics, became a member of Par- liament, and with the outbreak of the French Revolution his sympathies and activities were all in favor of the revolutionists. He carried on a brisk correspondence with men who were plotting to set up a republic in England, mod- elled on that of France. Incriminating letters from them to him as a member of Parliament were discovered and he left England for good. While in France during the following years he was imprisoned, released, again arrested as a spy, tried and acquitted, and after escaping to Switzerland and to Strassburg, he sailed for America, notwithstanding a permit from the English Government to resume his seat in Parliament. The Hallowells of Boston owned lands in Maine, and a village was named for the fam- ily. There, then, in the town of Hallowell, about 1798, Dr. Benjamin Vaughan settled for life. With his large library about him in a spacious mansion, he devoted his time to study, wrote much on politics, gave abundant thought to the elucidation of the authorship of the "Letters of Junius," cultivated his farm and elegant garden, kept open house for the famous men of the nation, enjoyed a delight- ful visit from Talleyrand, came to Portland to meet once more the great La Fayette whom he had known so well in France, and formed a close friendship with Dr. Benjamin Page, Jr., of Hallowell (q.v.) and with another doctor, General Henry Dearborn (q.v.) of the Army, of Gardiner, close at hand. Amidst such surroundings, with a devoted wife and growing family, he enjoyed life, reached serene old age and died December 8, 1835, in his eighty-fifth year. After his death his books were scattered, but from many of them dealing with medicine, those which have as of yesterday fallen into my hands a chance has offered to cull the fruits of his opinions on treatment and of his adventures in medical practice and study. The first book to which the student of biog- raphy instinctively turns is a well-thumbed copy of James' "British Dispensatory," once the property in succession of two students, Sharpe and Hoare, and then descending to Vaughan. The only autobiographical item in its pages is this : "When dissecting with Monro and Fyfe in 1789-81, I found the very rare in- stance of muscles in the inner coat of the gall- bladder." The book is copiously annotated concerning the SIMPLES employed in that era. As an instance of this, I find an inky finger pointing to the odd fact of the plant salvia (Latin, salvus-safe) being found in every garden and quoted beside this, a quaint motto "Cur moriatur homo, cui crescit salvia in horto?" or as we might say in English,