Henrie Tomes, and are to be sold at his Shop, ouer against Graies Inne Gate in Holburne, 1607,’ 4to. In this work, after descanting with some learning on the antiquity of the amusement, he launches into a eulogy of the manly qualities which it fostered, and concludes with some instances of prowess which he himself had witnessed, mentioning with especial commendation a gamecock named Tarlton after the famous comedian, because before combat it was accustomed to drum loudly with its wings. The tract was written partly with the object of reviving public interest in the sport. It was dedicated to Sir Henry Bedingfield, and was several times reprinted, reaching a third edition in 1631, and a tenth in 1655.
[Wilson's Commendation of Cockes; Collier's Bibliogr. Cat. ii. 529; Hazlitt's Handbook to the Literature of Great Britain; Allibone's Dict. of Engl. Lit.; Blackwood's Mag. 1827, xxii. 587.]
WILSON, GEORGE (1818–1859), chemist and religious writer, son of Archibald Wilson, a wine merchant—who came from Argyllshire—and his wife Janet, was born at Edinburgh on 21 Feb. 1818 with a twin-brother, John, who died in 1836. His elder brother, (Sir) Daniel, is noticed separately. Wilson went to school first to a Mr. Knight, and, with Philip Maclagan and John Alexander Smith, founded a ‘juvenile society for the advancement of knowledge.’ He went in 1828 to the high school, which he left in 1832 to enter the university as a medical student. He was apprenticed at the same time for four years at the laboratory of the Royal Infirmary. He attended the classes of Thomas Charles Hope [q. v.] and Kenneth Kemp for chemistry, and that of (Sir) Robert Christison [q. v.] for materia medica. In September 1837 he passed the examination of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, ‘fell over head and ears in love’ with chemistry (Memoir, p. 98), and became assistant to Christison. About this time he contributed to ‘Maga,’ a university magazine edited by Edward Forbes [q. v.] In 1838 he joined his brother Daniel in London, and shortly after became unpaid assistant to Thomas Graham (1805–1869) [q. v.] at University College, the other assistants being James Young (1811–1883) [q. v.] and Lyon (afterwards Baron) Playfair. With David Livingstone [q. v.], who was a student, Wilson formed a friendship. In Graham's laboratory he prepared his doctor's thesis, ‘On the Existence of Haloid Salts of the Electro-negative Metals’ in solution, an ingenious investigation of the action of hydrobromic acid on gold chloride.
Somewhat disappointed with his position in London, he returned to Edinburgh in April 1839, and in the following June proceeded M.D. In the autumn he went to the British Association meeting at Birmingham, and was present at the first ‘Red Lion’ dinner. He was elected in the same year to the ‘Order’ in Edinburgh founded by Forbes, which included many of the most brilliant students of the university (ib. pp. 225 et seq.).
For medicine Wilson had no taste whatever, and, after some futile applications for other chemical posts and the rejection of a chemical lectureship in one of the smaller schools in London, he received in 1840 a license from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh to lecture on chemistry, attendance at these lectures being recognised on behalf of candidates for their diploma. His lectures were the first chemistry lectures in what has developed since into the ‘extra-mural’ school. Simultaneously with the beginning of his professional career his health began to fail, and he writes of himself about this time as ‘bankrupt in health, hopes, and fortune.’ A slight injury to his left foot, followed by severe rheumatism, led to its amputation at the ankle by James Syme [q. v.] in January 1843. In a letter to (Sir) James Young Simpson [q. v.] in advocacy of the use of anæsthetics—then strongly combated by some, who regarded them as ‘needless luxuries’—(Simpson, Obstetric Memoirs, ii. 796), he speaks of ‘the black whirlwind of emotion, the horror of great darkness, and the sense of desertion by God and man’ that ‘swept through’ him during the operation. A little later he was attacked by phthisis, of which he realised the gravity, and the rest of his life is the record of an extraordinary and cheerful fight against ill-health. He soon won success as a lecturer, obtained private work as an analyst, and in 1843 was appointed lecturer at several Edinburgh institutions—the Edinburgh Veterinary College, the School of Arts, and the Scottish Institution, a girls' school. In 1844 he joined a congregational church belonging to the independent section, although he still considered himself a baptist. In 1845 he was elected fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. To the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, of which he became president later, among other papers he contributed in 1845 one ‘On the Employment of Oxygen as a Means of Resuscitation in Asphyxia.’ In the same year he began a long series of researches on the distribution of fluorides, which he showed to be present in small quantities in animal and vegetable tissues, in many minerals, and in sea-water.
