century the medical profession of Great Britain was in a most unsatisfactory state. Humbuggery, ignorance and superstition were at that period of time the most prominent characteristics of the majority of physicians upon whom the people at large had to depend for the relief or cure of their bodily ailments, and there were very few and very untrustworthy measures in force for the production of a better class of practitioners. Just at this juncture there appeared on the scene a man who was eminently well equipped to rescue England from this lamentable state of affairs and to put her on the high road to the acquisition of an honorable body of medical men and of a corps of apothecaries who could be trusted to dispense pure drugs properly compounded. I refer to Thomas Linacre, who was born at Canterbury in 1461 or 1462, was a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and a graduate of the University of Padua, and whose biography is sketched by John Freind (1675-1728) in such an admirably clear, concise and appreciative manner that I cannot do better—in view of the great importance of this event in the history of medicine in England—than to reproduce it here in considerable fulness of detail.
Thomas Linacre was a man of a bright genius and a clear understanding,
as well as unusual knowledge in different parts of learning:
. . . and, being very desirous to make further improvements
by travelling, he thought he could no where succeed in his
designs so well as by going to Italy, which began then to be famous
for reviving the ancient Greek and Roman learning. There he
was treated with extraordinary kindness by Lorenzo de Medicis,
one of the politest men in his age and a great patron of letters;
who favoured him so far in his studies as to give him the privilege
of having the same preceptors with his own sons. Linacre knew
how to make all his advantages of so lucky an opportunity; and
accordingly, by the instructions of Demetrius Chalcondylas, a
native of Greece, he acquired a perfect knowledge of the Greek
tongue; and so far improved under his Latin master Politian, as
to arrive to a greater correctness of style than even Politian
himself. . . .
Having laid in such an uncommon stock of learning, he applied himself to the study of natural philosophy and physick; particu-
