Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 25.djvu/365

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Heberden
359
Heberden

Persii Flacci Satyræ, with Brewster's translation,’ London, 1790, 4to (250 copies printed by Bulmer, without title-page, neither completed nor published). 2. ‘C. Silii Italici Punica,’ Londini, impensis R. Faulder excud. G. Bulmer, 1792, 2 vols. sm. 8vo. 3. ‘Cl. Claudiani Carmina,’ London, 1793–6, 2 vols. sm. 8vo (unfinished and never published, completed and published under the care of H. Drury, Londini, typis Bulmerianis [1836], 2 vols. sm. 8vo, also large paper). 4. ‘Specimens of the Early English Poets, by George Ellis. The fourth edition corrected,’ London, 1811, 3 vols. sm. 8vo. 5. ‘Caltha Poetarum, or the Bumble Bee, by T. Cutwode,’ London, Roxburghe Club, 1815, 4to (reprinted from the edition of 1599).

[Biography in Gent. Mag. January 1834, pp. 105–9, and Ann. Biog. 1835, xix. 424–9. See also T. F. Dibdin's Reminiscences, 1836, i. 429–446; Bibliomania, 1842, i. 128–32; Bibliographical Decameron, 1817, ii. 384; and Bibliophobia, 1832, pp. 37, 93; R. Southey's Life and Correspondence, 1849, 6 vols. sm. 8vo; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1888, ii. 641; Notes and Queries, 5th ser. xii. 425; Nichols's Illustr. of Lit. Hist. viii. 378; J. Mitford's Sacred Specimens from the Early English Poets, 1827, preface; J. H. Burton's Book Hunter; E. Edwards's Memoirs of Libraries, ii. 135–8; Brunet's Manuel du Libraire, 1860, i. 923; Letters of Bishop Heber to his Brother are in the Life of the Bishop by his Widow, 1830, vol. i., and Journey through the Upper Provinces of India, 1829, iii. 403. Some of Heber's rare works are described in Clarke's Repertorium Bibliographicum, 1819, pp. 276–88; Dibdin's Library Companion, 1824; Gent. Mag. January and February 1835, pp. 79, 195, January and April 1836, pp. 78, 412; and Macray's Annals of the Bodleian Library, 2nd edit., 1890.]

H. R. T.

HEBERDEN, WILLIAM, the elder (1710–1801), physician, born in London in August 1710, and descended from an old family, was son of Richard Heberden, whose profession is not recorded. He was educated at St. Saviour's Grammar School, Southwark, and, showing considerable promise, was sent at an early age to St. John's College, Cambridge, in December 1724. He graduated B.A. 1728, was elected fellow of his college 6 April 1731, after which he studied medicine, partly in Cambridge and partly in a London hospital, and in 1739 proceeded M.D. He became senior fellow of his college 3 July 1749, and practised medicine for about ten years in the university. He gave an annual course of lectures on materia medica, a manuscript copy of which was formerly in the possession of Dr. Pettigrew. His tract on ‘Mithridatium and Theriaca,’ published in 1745, is supposed to contain the substance of one of these lectures. While at Cambridge he acquired the reputation of a good classical scholar, and contributed a letter from Cleander to Alexias on ‘Hippocrates and the state of Physic in Greece’ to the collection called ‘Athenian Letters’ (1741), written by a group of Cambridge scholars. Having been admitted candidate of the College of Physicians in 1745 and fellow in 1746, Heberden in 1748 came to London, on the advice of Sir Edward Hulse, and settled in Cecil Street, where he soon began to get into practice, and gave up his fellowship at St. John's in 1752, when he married. In 1761 he declined the king's offer of the post of physician to Queen Charlotte, then coming to England. In the College of Physicians Heberden held successively various important offices, such as Gulstonian lecturer in 1749, Harveian orator in 1750, Croonian lecturer in 1760, censor and elect. He was made fellow of the Royal Society in February 1749, and honorary member of the Royal Society of Medicine (Paris) in 1778. After more than thirty years' continuous practice in London, when in his seventy-third year, he gave himself partial rest by retiring for the summer months to a house which he had bought at Windsor, but returned to town for the winter. He retired completely from practice some years before his death, which happened at his house in Pall Mall, 17 May 1801. He was buried in the parish church at Windsor, where a monument was erected to his memory.

Heberden was one of the most eminent English physicians of the eighteenth century, and made valuable contributions to the science of medicine. Cowper, Johnson, and Warburton, among others, have commemorated his kindness and skill. It was always his custom to take careful written notes of all noteworthy cases under his care, and these records formed the basis of his famous ‘Commentaries,’ which he began to compile when over seventy years of age, and left to his son to publish after his death. They passed through several editions, English or Latin, both in this country and abroad. Earlier papers were published by him in the ‘Medical Transactions of the College of Physicians,’ a publication of which Heberden was, in 1763, the first promoter. Among these the account of angina pectoris is important as being the first description of that disease; and the paper on chicken-pox is hardly less original. Others with less novelty show conscientious accuracy. He wrote also four papers in the ‘Philosophical Transactions,’ two of which are on medical subjects. The writings of his Cambridge period, and the lectures of which