Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/161

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Mineral Water of Tunbridge Wells.’ In the same year he published the book by which he is best known at the present day, ‘A Treatise on the Nature and Cure of Gout,’ dedicated to Matthew Baillie [q. v.] It is based on the author's observation of about one hundred cases of gout, and contains one of the first contributions to the study of the distribution of gouty changes throughout the body. He mentions that there were at the date of his graduation only five hackney carriages and less than twenty private carriages in Glasgow, and attributes the rarity of gout there to the constant walking even of the rich citizens.

He is the first English author who mentions the frequent presence of a circular chest, instead of an elliptical one, in persons subject to gout. These original observations are accompanied by an abstract of the chief books on gout and by many pages of obsolete pathological theories. He showed little capacity for observing disease at the bedside, but had acquaintance with morbid anatomy. A second edition appeared in 1817, a third in 1819, and a fourth in 1823. In 1820 he published ‘A Chemical and Medical Report’ on several English mineral springs, and in that year was appointed physician to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Gotha. In 1824 he wrote ‘An Essay on the Blood,’ in 1825 one ‘On Colchicum,’ in 1826 ‘Observations on Laennec's Diagnosis,’ and in 1827 ‘A Treatise on Rheumatism,’ which is an interesting picture of the period when rheumatic fever was beginning to be separated in medical writings from chronic rheumatism, and when the relation of heart-disease to rheumatic fever, though known from the clinical teaching of David Pitcairn [q. v.], was but imperfectly observed. Scudamore treated rheumatic fever by bleeding, purgatives, colchicum, tartar emetic, opium, and quinine. He went to Ireland in March 1829 in attendance on the Duke of Northumberland, then appointed lord-lieutenant, who knighted him at Dublin on 30 Sept. 1829. He was also admitted an honorary member of Trinity College, Dublin, during his stay in Ireland. In 1830 he published a book of ‘Cases illustrating the Remedial Power of the Inhalation of Iodine and Conium in Tubercular Phthisis,’ of which a second edition appeared in 1834. He spent part of every year at Buxton, and was physician to the Bath Charity there, and published ‘An Analysis of the Tepid Springs of Buxton’ (1820). In 1839 he printed a ‘Letter to Dr. Chambers’ on gout, repeating his former views. In April and May 1843 he visited Gräfenberg, and on his return published a small book on the water-cure treatment. His last work, published in 1847, was ‘On Pulmonary Consumption,’ in which notes of cases of small value are embedded in a mass of compilation. He married, in 1811, Georgiana Johnson, but had no children. He died in his London house, 6 Wimpole Street, of disease of the heart, 4 Aug. 1849.

[Munk's Coll. of Phys. iii. 127; Medical Times, London, 1849, xx. 168; Works.]

N. M.


SCUDAMORE, FRANK IVES (1823–1884), post-office reformer and writer, the son of John Scudamore, solicitor, of an old Herefordshire family [see Scudamore, John, first Viscount Scudamore], by his wife Charlotte, daughter of Colonel Francis Downman, R.A. and niece of Sir Thomas Downman [q. v.], was born at Eltham in February 1823, and educated at Christ's Hospital. Sir Charles Scudamore, M.D. [q. v.], was his uncle. On leaving school he at once entered the post office (1841), and, on the amalgamation of the receiver-general's and the accountant-general's offices in 1852, was appointed chief examiner of the united department. In 1856 he became receiver and accountant general, and while holding that post was, after George Chetwynd of the money-order office, mainly instrumental in the elaboration of the scheme for government savings banks. Scudamore explained the proposed machinery to Mr. Gladstone, who, as chancellor of the exchequer, warmly adopted his scheme, and obtained the necessary authorisation from parliament in 1861. He wrote several small tracts to explain and popularise the inducements to thrift which the savings banks offered. A treasury minute of 5 July 1866 testified to the value of his services to this and to the kindred schemes of government insurance and annuities. In 1865 he drew up a report upon the advisability of the state acquiring the telegraphs (which were then in the hands of a few private companies) upon the lines of a scheme first suggested by Mr. F. E. Baines. Throughout a series of delicate negotiations Scudamore was employed as chief agent, and it was mainly due to his exertions that the way was prepared for the acts of 1868 and 1869; the first entitling the state to acquire all the telegraphic undertakings in the kingdom, and the second giving the post office the monopoly of telegraphic communication. In 1870 the Irish telegraphs were successfully transferred to the post office by Scudamore, under whose directions they were completely reorganised and brought into one harmonious system. In the meantime he had been promoted assis-