acknowledge — that I will do so, I am resolved, determined,' He spared neither money nor labour. He availed himself of
every improvement in the machinery of printing and of distributing his sheet; he chartered vessels to go and meet the incoming ships and steamers from Europe to acquire the latest news; he hired special trains or express locomotives to bring intelligence from
all parts of the American continent. He was perhaps the first newspaper proprietor to employ the telegraph wires in transmitting a long political speech from a distance — Mr. Clay's speech on the Mexican war, delivered at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1840. The speech was sent by express a distance of eighty miles to Cincinnati, and then telegraphed to New York for publication in the 'Herald' next morning. Bennett acquired great wealth and a position of honour among his adopted
countrymen, in spite of the obloquy to which the rough encounters of his earlier career had exposed him. Of his wealth he made a
generous use. Many examples of his benevolence in private are related, but the public spirit he displayed in sending Mr. Stanley to Central Africa in search of Dr. Livingstone outshone all his other efforts of this kind. Stanley's mission lasted from January 1871
to May 1872, and cost Bennett 10,000l. sterling. In 1874 a second expedition was undertaken to Central Africa by Stanley at the
joint expense of the owner of the 'New York
Herald' (Bennett's son) and the owner of
the London 'Daily Telegraph' (Mr. E. L.
Lawson), and resulted in extensive additions
to geographical knowledge. Bennett died in New York on 1 June 1872. That timid reserve
was not a characteristic of Bennett's may be
gathered from the following pithy description of himself: 'Since I knew myself, all the real approbation I sought for was my own. If
my conscience was satisfied on the score of
morals, and my ambition on the matter of talent, I always felt easy. On this principle I have acted from my youth up, and on this principle I mean to die. Nothing can disturb my equanimity. I know myself, so does
the Almighty. Is not that enough?'
[Memoirs of James Gordon Bennett and his times by a Jonrnalist, New York, 1855; Foreign Quarterly Review, 1842-43; North American Review (article by Parton), 102; Stanley's How I found Livingstone.]
BENNETT, JOHN HUGHES, M.D. (1812–1875), physician and physiologist, was born in London on 31 Aug. 1812. He was educated at the grammar and Mount Radford schools, Exeter, but owed much to his mother's influence. She trained him both in literary and artistic tastes, and developed in him elocutionary talents of a high order. With his mother he spent much time on the continent, especially in France. After an apprenticeship with a surgeon at Maidstone, commencing in 1829, Bennett entered at Edinburgh in 1833. He was a zealous student of anatomy and physiology under Robert Knox and John Fletcher, both of whom influenced him greatly. The Goodsirs, Edward Forbes, J. H. Balfour, and John Reid were among his intimate associates, and he became one of the presidents of the Royal Medical Society. While a student he published a paper 'On the Anatomy and Physiology of the Otic Ganglion' {London Medical Gazette, 30 July 1836). He graduated M.D. in 1837, receiving a gold medal, on Syme's recommendation, for the best surgical report, while Sir Charles Bell declared his 'Dissertation on the Physiology and Pathology of the Brain' worthy of a second medal.
Bennett now proceeded to Paris, where he studied two years, and founded the Parisian Medical Society, becoming its first president. Another period of two years was spent in the principal German centres of medical study. Parisian methods of clinical study powerfully impressed him, and he acquired great skill in the application of the microscope in practical medicine. During his residence on the continent he wrote nearly a score of articles in Tweedie's 'Library of Medicine' (vol. ii.), including most of those on the diseases of the nervous system.
Returning to Edinburgh in 1841, Bennett published in October his 'Treatise on Codliver Oil as a Therapeutic Agent in certain forms of Gout, Rheumatism, and Scrofula.' He derived his knowledge on this subject from the German schools, although cod-liver oil had long been used as a remedy among the Scotch fishing populations, and had for many years been prescribed by Drs. Kay and Bardsley in the Manchester infirmary. Although this treatise excited much interest, a large part of the edition remained unsold in 1847, when an appendix of cases benefited by cod-liver oil was added, and it was stated that one house of druggists in Edinburgh had dispensed 600 gallons of it in the preceding twelvemonth, as compared with one gallon in 1841. In 1848 Dr. C. J. B. Williams of London published a series of cases in which he had prescribed cod-liver oil with benefit in phthisis, introducing a fresh and more palatable preparation; and the respective shares of praise due to Bennett and Williams in the introduction of the new drug were subsequently warmly disputed.
In November 1841 Bennett commenced
