and opium in the treatment, to favour the use of purgatives, and to avoid that of astringents. In 1832 he came to England for a short time (manuscript note in his hand in copy of 'Observations 'in Library of Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, London), but returned to Russia, and was soon after knighted by patent as a reward for his services to the embassy. He settled in London in 1842, and was admitted a fellow of the College of Physicians, 30 Sept. In 1843 he published 'The Life of a Travelling Physician' in 3 vols. It is an account of his travels on the continent and residence in Poland and Russia, and is chiefly interesting for its description of social life in Poland and of that of the members of the English factory at St. Petersburg. It was published without his name, but is acknowledged in the preface to a later work (Apology for Nerves, p. v). In the same year he published 'Advantages of Thermal Comfort,' of which an enlarged edition came out in 1844. It is a short treatise on the temperature of rooms, clothing, and bedmaking, suggested by his Russian experience of the effect of a severe climate on health and on sick persons. In 1844 he published 'An Apology for the Nerves, or their Influence and Importance in Health and Disease,' a collection of medical notes, of which the most useful is his account of plica Polonica, but of which none are very valuable. He resided in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, and in 1845 delivered the Lumleian lectures at the College of Physicians. He was at times melancholic and, 12 Feb. 1846, killed himself by swallowing prussic acid, at the house of his friend Dr. Nathaniel Grant in Thayer Street, Manchester Square.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 246; Gent. Mag. 1846, i. 537; Dr. W. F. Chambers's Address to Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, 2 March 1846; Works.]
LEFEVRE, Sir JOHN GEORGE SHAW, K.C.B. (1797–1879), clerk of the parliaments. [See Shaw-Lefevre.]
LE FEVRE, NICASIUS or NICOLAS (d. 1669), chemist, studied at the university of Sedan. Vallot, first physician to Louis XIV, appointed him demonstrator of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi at Paris. Evelyn attended a course of his lectures in February 1647 (Diary, 1850–2, i. 244). He became professor of chemistry to Charles II on 15 Nov. 1660 (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1660–1, pp. 357, 432) and apothecary in ordinary to the royal household on 31 Dec. following (ib. 1663–4, p. 142). Charles entrusted him with the management of the laboratory at St. James's Palace (ib. Dom. 1664–6). On 20 May 1663 Le Fevre was elected F.R.S. (Thomson, Hist. of Royal Soc. App. iv.) He died in the parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, in the spring of 1669, for on 21 April of that year his estate was administered to by his widow, Philibert (Administration Act Book, P. C. C., 1669). His portrait has been engraved (Evans, Cat. of Engraved Portraits, ii. 150).
Le Fevre was an able chemist and a lucid, learned, and accurate author. He wrote:
- 'Traite de la Chymie,' 2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1660 (1669, 1674, Leyden, 1669). An English translation by 'P. D. C., Esq.,' one of the gentlemen of the privy chamber, was published at London in 1664 and again in 1670, 2 pts. 4to. German and Latin versions also appeared. Lenglet-Dufresnoy published an edition considerably augmented by Dumoustier, 5 vols. 12mo, Paris, 1751.
- 'Disputatio de Myrrhata Potione,' in vol. ix. of Pearson's ' Critic! Sacri,' fol., 1660.
- 'Discours sur le Grand Cordial de Sr. Walter Rawleigh,' 12mo, London, 1665 [1664] (English version by Peter Belon, 8vo, London, 1664).
Le Fevre also translated into French Sir Thomas Browne's 'Religio Medici,' 12mo, Hague, 1688.
[Nouvelle Biographie Generale, xxx. 342–3.]
LEFROY, SIR JOHN HENRY (1817–1890), governor of Bermuda and of Tasmania, born at Ashe, Hampshire, on 28 Jan. 1817, was son of J. H. G. Lefroy, rector of that place, and was grandson of Antony Lefroy of Leghorn, the catalogue of whose collection of coins and antiquities was printed in 1763. After his father's death in 1823, his mother moved with her family of six sons and five daughters to Itchel Manor, near Farnham, which had been left to her husband a few years before his death. Lefroy was sent to private schools at Alton and at Richmond. In 1828 two of his brothers accidentally discovered an important hoard of Merovingian and English gold coins and ornaments on Crondall Heath, and he thus acquired a taste for antiquarian research. In January 1831 he passed into the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and on 19 Dec. 1834 was gazetted a second lieutenant in the royal artillery, and stationed at Woolwich. He at once joined, with eight or nine young brother-officers, in a weekly meeting in one another's rooms for reading the bible and prayer, and, with the sanction of the commandant and chaplain, these young men opened an evening Sunday school for soldiers' children. He served at Woolwich for three years, varied by detachment duty
