Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 05.djvu/404

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Borgarucci
396
Borland

sure fireworks' on the Thames on 7 July 1713 in Gent. Mag. for 1749, p. 202.]

H. M. S.


BORGARUCCI, GIULIO, M.D. (fl. 1564–1579), court physician, was one of four sons of Carlo Borgarucci. Of his brothers, the eldest Borgaruccio edited several works of history and science; Prospero became professor of anatomy at Padua in January 1564, and obtained great reputation by his writings; and Giulio his elder brother, who was a physician, came to England as a Protestant refugee, and was a member of the Italian branch of the 'Strangers' Church' in London, under the ministry of Girolamo Jerlito. In 1563, when London was visited by the plague, Borgrucci successfully treated the epidemic by bleeding. His brother Bernardino, a juris-consult, was also then in London. Prospero also came to London during the plague, and learned from Giulio the use of a ball (pomo) compounded of balsamic substances, to be held in the hand, that its odour might counteract the effects of foul air. Borgarucci was admitted a member of the College of Physicians, and on 2 July 1572 was incorporated M.D. in the university of Cambridge. He was physician to the Earl of Leicester, who (Leicester's Commonwealth) is said to have made evil use of his knowledge of poisons, By patent of 21 Sept. 1573 he was made physician to the royal household for life, with an honorarium of 50l. per annum. The last trace of him is his letter of 21 Feb. 1578–9 to Lord Burghley (in whose house the Italian church originally assembled), asking the grant of a lease from the crown of the reversion of the parsonage of Middlewich, Cheshire. He is supposed to have died about 1581, and was succeeded as court physician by Roderigo Lopez. Borgarucci was married, and in October 1573 he wrote to Lord Burghley complaining that Sir William Cordell, master of the rolls, had for five months detained his wife from him in his house, nourishing her in his popish superstitions. The lady was not anxious to return, and a commission of delegates was appointed to inquire whether she was really Borgarucci's wife or the wife of another person. The case lasted several years; ultimately Borgarucci seems to have established his conjugal rights, From the fact that Archbishop Grindal took sides against Borgarucci, it is perhaps not unreasonable to suppose that the court physician was one of those who regarded as 'popish superstitions' some of the positions of anglican orthodoxy. He wrote a short commendatory epistle in Latin, following the 'Proeme' to John Banister's 'The Historie of Man, sucked from the sappe of the most approved Anathomistes,' &c. 1578, for (Cooper gives 1572 as the date of the work).

[Dedication (dated 4 Dec. 1564) to Prospero Borgarucci's 'De Peste perbrevis tractatus,' Venice, 1565, 8vo; see also the Italian edition, Trattato di Piste, 1565, 8vo, pp. 59. 105; Rose's Biog. Dict. 1857, art Borgarucci, Prosper; Cooper's Ath. Cantab, i. 460; Bonet-Maury's Early Sources of Eng. Unit. Christianity (trans. Hall), 1884, p. 134.]

A. G.


BORLAND, JAMES, M.D. (1774–1863), inspector-general of army hospitals, was born at Ayr, N.B., in April 1774, and entered the army medical department as surgeons-mate in the 42nd Highlanders in 1792. Having been promoted on the staff next year, he made two campaigns under the Duke of York in Flanders, after which he proceeded to the West Indies as surgeon, 23rd royal Welsh fusiliers. He was then again transferred to the staff, and did duty in St. Domingo from 1796 until the last remnant of the British army was withdrawn from that pestilential shore in 1798. In 1799 he accompanied the expedition to the Helder, and after its failure was sent by the Duke of York to the headquarters of the French general, Brune, with a flag of truce, to arrange for the exchange of the wounded. For this service he was promoted to the then newly constituted rank of deputy-inspector of army hospitals. He was also attached to the Russian troops, which had co-operated with the British in North Holland, and had been ordered to winter in the Channel Islands until the breaking up of the ice in the Baltic should allow of their return home. For this service, rendered more onerous by an outbreak of malignant fever in Guernsey, he received the thanks of the czar, accompanied by an invitation to of the imperial service in the highest rank, which he declined. Borland was chief medical officer of the army in the southern counties, under command of Sir David Dundas, at the time of the threatened French invasion. Having attained the rank of inspector-general of hospitals in 1807, he was employed at head-quarters in London for some time, at a period when many improvements in army hospital organisation were essayed. During the unfortunate expedition to the Scheldt, he volunteered for the duty of inquiring into the causes of the terrible sickness and mortality then prevalent at Walcheren. In this service he was associated with Dr. Lempriere, one of the physicians to the army, and Sir Gilbert Blane [q. v.], who had then left the navy and was in practice in London. The report of these commissioners at whose recommendation the troops were