VINTAGE RARE \"Scottish Pathologist\" Andrew Clark Hand Written Note COA For Sale

Up for sale RARE! "Scottish Pathologist" Andrew Clark Hand Written Note.  

ES - 6822

Sir

Andrew Clark, 1st Baronet FRS FRCPE (28 October 1826 – 6 November 1893), was

a Scottish physician and pathologist. He was born in Aberdeen, the illegitimate son of Amelia Anderson and Andrew

Clark. His mother died at his birth, and is father, who also was a physician,

died when he was seven years old. After attending school in Aberdeen, he was sent

by his guardians, two wealthy uncles, to Dundee, attending the High School of Dundee and

was then apprenticed to a pharmacist. On returning to Aberdeen, he began his medical

studies at the University of Aberdeen.

Soon, however, he went to Edinburgh, where in the extra-academical

school he had a student's career of the most brilliant description, ultimately

becoming assistant to Dr John Hughes of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and

assistant demonstrator of anatomy to Robert Knox. But symptoms of tuberculosis brought his academic life to a close and, in

the hope that the sea might benefit his health, he joined the medical

department of the Royal Navy in 1848.

In 1849 he became pathologist to the Haslar Hospital where T.H. Huxley was one

of his colleagues and in 1853 he was the successful candidate for the newly

instituted post of curator to the museum of the London Hospital. There he intended to devote all his energies

to pathology, but circumstances brought him into active medical practice. In

1854, the year in which he took his doctor's degree at Aberdeen, the post of

assistant physician to the hospital became vacant and he was prevailed upon to

apply for it. He was fond of telling how his tuberculosis tendencies gained him

the appointment. "He is only a poor Scotch doctor," it was said,

"with but a few months to live; let him have it." He had it, and two

years before his death publicly declared that of those who were on the staff of

the hospital at the time of his selection he was the only one remaining alive.

In 1854, he became a member of the Royal College of

Physicians, and in 1858 a fellow, and then went in succession

through all the offices of honour the college has to offer, ending in 1888 with

the presidency, which he continued to hold until his death. From the time of

his selection as assistant physician to the London Hospital, his fame rapidly

grew until he became a fashionable doctor with one of the largest practices in

London, counting among his patients some of the most distinguished men of the

day. The great number of persons who passed through his consulting-room every

morning rendered it inevitable that to a large extent his advice should become

stereotyped and his prescriptions often reduced to mere stock formulae, but in

really serious cases he was not to be surpassed in the skill and carefulness of

his diagnosis and in his attention to detail.

In spite of the claims of his practice he found time to produce a good

many books, all written in the precise and polished style on which he used to

pride himself. Doubtless owing largely to personal reasons, lung diseases and

especially lung fibrosis formed

his favourite theme, but he also discussed other subjects, such as kidney failure, anemia, constipation, etc.