Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 703

HANS SLOANE (1660-1753) An account of a most efficacious medicine for soreness, weakness, and several other distempers of the eyes. Printed for Dan. Browne 1745 vi, 17 pp. 19.6 cm.

Sloane, a native of northern Ireland, studied medicine at Paris and Montpellier before receiving his degree from the University of Orange in 1683. Soon thereafter he took up residence in London, where he was befriended by Sydenham (see No. 549 ff.), who assisted him in establishing a private practice. Sloane subsequently became a fellow of the Royal Society and, in 1727, succeeded Newton as its president. Likewise, he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and served as its president for sixteen years. Sloane enjoyed a highly successful practice, was physician to Christ's Hospital for many years, and was also first physician to King George II. He was an ardent naturalist and, while in Jamaica as physician to the Duke of Albemarle, assembled a large collection of plant and animal specimens which he later described in an important two-volume work. He was an enthusiastic collector of books, manuscripts, prints, medals, coins, drawings, and paintings and his collections became the nucleus of the British Museum after his death. Sloane wrote many articles for the Philosophical transactions, which he revived while president of the Royal Society, but the present pamphlet is his only separately published work. He published it in order to share a remedy he found very effective for just about any eye complaint. Sloane commented that he found "it so surprizingly beneficial, that by the right Use of it not one in five Hundred missed of a Cure: unless their Disorder proceeded from a Venereal Taint" (p. 4). Although today it is hardly commendable for sore eyes or any other useful purpose, it is an indication of the state of medical therapeutics at that time. The remedy contains tutty (zinc oxide), lapis haematities, aloes, and ground pearls which are combined with enough viper grease to make a liniment.

See Related Record(s): 549

Gift of John Martin, M.D.