n s. iv. NOV. 25, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.
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thing he would give was repose and rest to my
friend."
Thicknesse was dissatisfied, called in another doctor, but was now convinced, as was the patient, that Nicholls was right. His " disinclination to give medicine in some instances " was, in the opinion of Thick- nesse, the reason of his banishment from royalty ('Valetudinarian's Bath Guide,' 2nded., 1780, pp. 9-10).
Nicholls did not continue in his profession after the loss of his appointment at Court. His son John matriculated at Oxford in 1761, and the father soon took up his residence in his old haunts at that University. The son, a year or two later, began to study in London, whereupon the father settled in Surrey, and busied himself in making experi- ments " quid laetas segetes in agro feraci faciat, quid agrum sterilem fcecundet." He owned the estate of Eversheds in Ockley, and for some years made the house his summer residence. Later he lived in a house which he had bought at Epsom, and he also acquired property in Lingfield.
Nicholls was small in stature, but compact in frame and agile. He possessed a charm- ing countenance, expressing dignity and benevolence, but his constitution never had been robust, and in his youth at Oxford he was dangerously ill of fever, from which he was rescued by the skill of two doctors Frampton and Frewen. In after life he was afflicted with an " inveterate asthmatic cough." Dr. Johnson says that he hurt himself " extremely in his old age by lavish phlebotomy," no doubt in the hope that he might free himself from this malady. Still, he lived to a good old age, dying at Epsom on 7 January, 1778. His widow is said to have died at Epsom in the closing months of 1803 (Gent. Mag., 1803, Suppl., 1255). They had five children, three of whom died young. There survived a son John, to whom I may return at a later date, and a daughter Elizabeth, who married William Martin Trinder, at first M.D., and then in orders.
By his will, dated 14 March, 1770, and proved 29 January, 1778, Nicholls confirmed his wife's jointure of 6,269Z. 12s. Old South Sea annuities, and of his property in Ockley, Rusper, and Ifield parishes, and left to her his lands in the parish of S$. Giles-in-the- Fields. At her death everything came to John ; to his daughter and her husband he left 20Z. each.
Dr. Munk calls Nicholls the " inventor of corroded anatomical preparations. He was one of the first to study and teach the
minute anatomy of tissues. He was also the
first to give a correct description of the mode of
production of aneurism, and he distinctly recog-
nized the existence and office of the vaso-motor
nerves."
His writings are set out in the ' Bibliotheca Cornub.,' the most important of them being his 'Compendium Anatomicum ' (1733, 1736, 1738, and 1742). The Latin of Nicholls in his * De Anima Medica ' is praised by Sir Egerton Brydges as " perspicuous, classical, and elegant " (' Censura Literaria,' i. 192- 204).
In 1751 Nicholls brought a swarm of hornets about his head by publishing anonymously ' The Petition of the Unborn Babes to the Censors of the Royal College of Physicians,' in which he condemned the practice of man-midwifery by members of the College, and satirized the Scotch as well as some of his principal colleagues* An account of this pamphlet is contained in the life (pp. 124-6) by John Glaister of William Smellie, who speaks of him as " my old friend and preceptor Dr. Nicholls." The midwives applauded him, and one of them is said to have presented him with a bank-note for 5001.
The basis of the biography of Dr. Frank Nicholls is the Latin life of him by his pupil, Dr. Thomas Lawrence. Parr claimed to have found one fault in its Latinity, and he told Dr. Haviland to read and find it out by the next time he saw him (E. H. Barker, ' Lit. Anecdotes,' ii. 58). To this biography is prefixed an engraving of Nicholls by John Hall from a model by Isaac Gosset.
W. P. COUBTNEY.
JUBILEE OF THE POST OFFICE
SAVINGS BANK.
A NOTE should be made of the jubilee of this institution, the only bank in the world which has 15,000 branch estab- lishments, as stated by the Postmaster- General at the celebration at the Guildhall on the 3rd inst. To Gladstone its origin is due, and so rapidly did the working classes take advantage of it that within two years the amount deposited was nearly 3,500,000^. Scotland, however, had been in advance of England, for last year the Scotch Trustee Savings Bank celebrated its centenary. The last Report of the Postmaster- General shows what a marvellous success the Post Office Savings Bank has been. There were at the end of 1910 19,975,375 deposits, and the sum deposited in the year amounted to 46,205, 870/., the deposits exceeding the-
