THE MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERIES AND IMPROVEMENTS IN MECHANICS AND THE USEFUL AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHY; ELECTRICITY; CHEMISTRY; ZOOLOGY AND BOTANY; GEOLOGY "The steam-engine in its manifold applications, the crime-decreasing gas-lamp, W. KENT & CO., (LATE D. BOGUE,) 86, FLEET STREET. M DCCC LIX. SIR BENJAMIN COLLINS BRODIE, BART., D. C. L. PRESIDENT OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY. (With a Portrait.*) THIS distinguished Surgeon has lately been elected to the Presidential Chair of the Royal Society, the highest honour which in this country can be bestowed upon a savant by his compeers. That such distinction has been nobly earned by Sir Benjamin Brodie, will be acknowledged by every one who glances at the published results of his long professional life, in his valuable contributions to Surgery and the collateral sciences. Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie is the grandson of a younger branch of the ancient Scottish family of Brodie, and is the third son of the late Rev. Peter Bellinger Brodie, M.A., Rector of Winterslow, near Salisbury, Wilts, by Sarah, daughter of Benjamin Collins, Esq., of Milford, also near Salisbury. "His father's sister was married to Dr. Denman, father of the late Chief Justice Lord Denman, and an elder sister of his mother was married to the late Sir George Staunton, Bart., author of the Narrative of Lord Macartney's Embassy to China.' The elder brother of Sir Benjamin was the late Mr. Brodie, well known as holding the highest rank in his profession as a Conveyancer;" and his second brother sat in Parliament for Salisbury. Sir Benjamin was born at Winterslow, in 1783; was educated at home by his father; and upon his removal to the metropolis, commenced his studies for his future profession by attending the Lectures on Anatomy at Mr. Wilson's Hunterian School in Great Windmillstreet. He next became a pupil of Mr. (afterwards Sir Everard) Home, at St. George's Hospital; and he was subsequently associated with Sir Everard in his dissections in Comparative Anatomy. For seven years (1805 to 1812), Mr. Brodie taught Anatomy at the Hunterian School, first as Demonstrator in the dissecting-room, and subsequently as Lecturer in the theatre; on retiring from which duties he was succeeded by Sir Charles Bell. In 1808, Mr. Brodie was appointed Assistant-Surgeon to St. George's Hospital. He was afterwards elected Surgeon, which office he filled until the year 1840. His Lectures on Surgery were well attended; and subsequent to 1830 he delivered Clinical Lectures to the Students gratuitously. In 1819, he was appointed Professor of Anatomy to the Royal College of Surgeons, which office he resigned in 1823. In 1837, he delivered the Annual Oration at the College, upon the birthday of *Engraved by permission, from the Photographic Portraits of Living Celebrities, by Messrs. Maull and Polyblank; and a few of the data in the following pages are from Mr. Walford's neatly-written Memoir in the same work. SIR BENJAMIN COLLINS BRODIE, P.R.S. John Hunter, whose character and genius Mr. Brodie illustrated with great felicity. Nearly half a century since (in 1810), he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society; and in the following year he received the Copley Medal, for various papers printed in the Philosophical Transactions. Thus, in 1809 he contributed an "Account of the Dissection of a Human Foetus, in which the Circulation of the Blood was carried on without a Heart;" "On some Physiological Researches respecting the Influence of the Brain on the Action of the Heart, and on the Generation of Animal Heat," 1811; "Experiments and Observations on the different modes in which Death is produced by certain Vegetable Poisons," 1811, on which he made further communications in the two following years. These papers were republished in a separate form, with notes, in 1851. In 1814 appeared his " Experiments and Observations on the Influence of the Nerves of the Eighth pair on the Secretions of the Stomach." Sir Benjamin Brodie appears to have taken considerable interest in the internal affairs of the Royal Society, for in the second volume of Mr. Weld's History, we find the following letter concerning Sir Joseph Banks's ideas as to the admission into the Society: "MY DEAR SIR, "14, Savile-row, April 7, 1848. "The view which Sir Joseph Banks took of the construction of the Royal Society was, that it shall consist of two classes :-the working men of science, and those who, from their position in society, or fortune, it might be desirable to retain as patrons of science. Sir Everard Home wished to propose Dr. Vaughan (who was then in very large practice as a metropolitan physician,) as a Fellow of the Society, but Sir Joseph would not agree to it. He said he would not allow a gentleman to be qualified for admission into the Society merely because he was a fashionable physician. After some years, Dr. Vaughan inherited a fortune, and became Sir Henry Halford. Sir Joseph then said that he might now be admitted as belonging to the other class. Sir Henry was accordingly elected. "Sir Everard Home at another time asked Sir Joseph's consent to his proposing Dr. Warren as a Fellow; but Sir Joseph gave the same answer. Dr. Warren was afterwards elected a Fellow with Sir Joseph's concurrence, as being a member of the Animal Chemistry Society. I am, &c., 66 "B. C. BRODIE." Sir Benjamin has for several years possessed the first surgical practice in the metropolis; and this success, more than a quarter of a century since, brought him the highest patronage. In 1828, he was appointed Surgeon in Ordinary to King George the Fourth; and he took part in the post-mortem examination and embalming of the Royal remains. In 1832, on the death of Sir Everard Home, Serjeant-Surgeon to King William the Fourth, the office was conferred upon Mr. Brodie, who, in 1834, received the honour of a Baronetcy. Sir Benjamin is now Surgeon to the Queen, and Surgeon to the Prince Consort. In 1856, Sir Benjamin Brodie received from the University of Oxford the honorary degree of D.C.L. He is a corresponding member of the Institute of France, and a foreign member of other learned Societies and Academies in Europe and America. Among Sir Benjamin Brodie's published works are his papers in the Transactions of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. His |