Gilbert shall live till load-stones cease to draw
     Or British fleets the boundless ocean awe.

And the verse is true, for by the publication in 1600 of the “De Magnete” the science of electricity was founded.  William Gilbert was a fine type of the sixteenth-century physician, a Colchester man, educated at St. John’s College, Cambridge.  Silvanus Thompson says:  “He is beyond question rightfully regarded as the Father of Electric Science.  He founded the entire subject of Terrestrial Magnetism.  He also made notable contributions to Astronomy, being the earliest English expounder of Copernicus.  In an age given over to metaphysical obscurities and dogmatic sophistry, he cultivated the method of experiment and of reasoning from observation, with an insight and success which entitles him to be regarded as the father of the inductive method.  That method, so often accredited to Bacon, Gilbert was practicing years before him."(40)

     (40) Silvanus P. Thompson:  Gilbert of Colchester, Father of
     Electrical Science, London, Chiswick Press, 1903, p. 3.

CHAPTER V —­ THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN MEDICINE

The middle of the seventeenth century saw the profession thus far on its way—­certain objective features of disease were known, the art of careful observation had been cultivated, many empirical remedies had been discovered, the coarser structure of man’s body had been well worked out, and a good beginning had been made in the knowledge of how the machinery worked—­nothing more.  What disease really was, where it was, how it was caused, had not even begun to be discussed intelligently.

An empirical discovery of the first importance marks the middle of the century.  The story of cinchona is of special interest, as it was the first great specific in disease to be discovered.  In 1638, the wife of the Viceroy of Peru, the Countess of Chinchon, lay sick of an intermittent fever in the Palace of Lima.  A friend of her husband’s, who had become acquainted with the virtues, in fever, of the bark of a certain tree, sent a parcel of it to the Viceroy, and the remedy administered by her physician, Don Juan del Vego, rapidly effected a cure.  In 1640, the Countess returned to Spain, bringing with her a supply of quina bark, which thus became known in Europe as “the Countess’s Powder” (pulvis Comitissae).  A little later, her doctor followed, bringing additional quantities.  Later in the century, the Jesuit Fathers sent parcels of the bark to Rome, whence it was distributed to the priests of the community and used for the cure of ague; hence the name of “Jesuits’ bark.”  Its value was early recognized by Sydenham and by Locke.  At first there was a great deal of opposition, and the Protestants did not like it because of its introduction by the Jesuits.  The famous quack, Robert Talbor, sold the secret of preparing quinquina