Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 23.djvu/342

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Gull
334
Gulliver

public notice. He was created a baronet in January 1872, and physician extraordinary to the queen, and in 1887 physician in ordinary. In the autumn of 1887 he was attacked with paralysis, which compelled him to retire from practice; a third attack caused his death on 29 Jan. 1890. He married in 1848 a daughter of Colonel Lacey, who survives him, together with a son, William Cameron—his successor in the baronetcy—and a daughter. He left personalty worth over 344,000l., besides landed estates.

Gull was pre-eminent as a clinical physician. His penetration was remarkable, and he exercised a sort of fascination over his patients. His great powers of endurance enabled him to see a succession of patients for long hours together, and he prided himself on the deliberate care with which he examined each case. In consultation his individuality was at times too self-assertive, and he was less popular among the leaders of his profession than with his patients. He consequently never attained the presidency of the College of Physicians. He was a great clinical teacher, an impressive lecturer, and a first-rate public speaker. Although he wrote no treatise, his numerous original papers in Guy's 'Hospital Reports' are all of value. Among these the most striking are those on paraplegia and diseases of the spinal cord, on abscess of the brain and on rheumatic fever (with Dr. W. G. Sutton), and on vitiligoidea (with Dr. W. Addison). In 1854 he drew up for the College of Physicians a report with Dr. W. Baly on epidemic cholera, and he wrote the articles 'Hypochondriasis and Abscess of the Brain' in Reynolds's 'System of Medicine.' His papers on 'Arterio-capillary Fibrosis' (with Dr. Sutton), read before the Medico-Chirurgical Society in 1872, and 'On a Cretinoid State in Adults,' now known as myxœdema (1873), read before the Clinical Society, marked important stages in the study of those diseases. He delivered the Gulstonian Lectures before the College of Physicians in 1849, the Hunterian Oration before the Hunterian Society in 1861, the Address on Medicine before the British Medical Association in 1868, and the Harveian Oration before the College of Physicians in 1870. His paper on 'Vivisection' in the 'Nineteenth Century' (1882), and his evidence before the Lords' Committee on Intemperance in 1877 are both instructive, as illustrating different aspects of his mind.

Personally somewhat dark-complexioned, and with a strong resemblance in face to Napoleon I, Gull was of robust and powerful frame. He was very liberal and generous, though at times strongly sarcastic in speech. He was a close friend of James Hinton [q. v.], (to whose 'Life and Letters' he contributed an introduction), and prone, like him, to tilt against current dogmas in religion, politics, and medicine. His sense of the mystery of the universe was deep, and he devised a motto for his seal which emphasised his somewhat mystical views, 'Conceptio Dei Negatio mei Ratio rei.'

[Brit. Med. Journal, 1 Feb. 1890; Lancet, 8 Feb. 1890; Bettany and Wilks's Biog. Hist. of Guy's Hospital.]

G. T. B.

GULLIVER, GEORGE (1804–1882), anatomist and physiologist, was born at Banbury, Oxfordshire, on 4 June 1804, and after an apprenticeship with local surgeons entered at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, where he became prosector to Abernethy and dresser to Lawrence (afterwards Sir William). Becoming M.R.C.S. in June 1826 he was gazetted hospital assistant to the forces in May 1827, and afterwards became surgeon to the royal horse guards (Blues). He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1838, of the College of Surgeons in 1843, and in 1852 member of the council of the latter body. In 1861 he was Hunterian professor of comparative anatomy and physiology, and in 1863 delivered the Hunterian oration, in which he strongly put forward the neglected claims of William Hewson [q. v.] and John Quekett as discoverers. For some years before his death he had retired from the army, and devoted himself to research and writing, but became gradually enfeebled by gout. Many of his later papers were written when he was confined to his bed. He died at Canterbury on 17 Nov. 1882, leaving one son, George, assistant physician to St. Thomas's Hospital.

Gulliver wrote no systematic work, although he edited an English translation of Gerber's 'General and Minute Anatomy of Man and the Mammalia' in 1842, adding, besides numerous notes, an appendix giving an account of his own researches on the blood, chyle, lymph, &c. In 1846 he edited for the Sydenham Society 'The Works of William Hewson, F.R.S.,' with copious notes and a biography of Hewson. He also supplied notes to Rudolph Wagner's 'Physiology,' translated by Dr. Willis (1844). His Hunterian lectures on the 'Blood, Lymph, and Chyle of Vertebrates' were published in the 'Medical Times and Gazette' from 2 Aug. 1862 to 13 June 1863. Most of his work is scattered through various periodicals; a list of them is given in the Royal Society's 'Catalogue of Scientific Papers.' He was the first to give extensive tables of measurements and full observations on the shape and structure of