Combe's health only permitted him to resume practice to a limited extent in 1833-5. Early in 1836 he received the appointment of physician to King Leopold of Belgium, by Dr. (afterwards Sir James) Clark's [q. v.] recommendation, and removed to Brussels; but his health again failed, and he returned to Edinburgh in the same year. He soon completed and published his 'Physiology of Digestion' (1836), which reached a ninth edition in 1849. A very considerable practice now tasked his energies, and in 1838 he was appointed physician extraordinary to the queen in Scotland. In 1840 he published his last, and he considered his best book, 'The Physiological and Moral Management of Infancy.' The sixth edition appeared in 1847. During his later years the disease under which he had long suffered, pulmonary consumption, made serious advances, combated by unremittingly careful hygiene. Two winters in Madeira and a voyage to the United States failed to restore him, and he died while on a visit to a nephew at Gorgie, near Edinburgh, on 9 Aug. 1847. A long letter on ship-fever, written just before his death, appeared in the ' Times ' of 17 Sept. 1847, and was reprinted in the 'Journal of Public Health,' No. v. March 1848. Several of its suggestions were afterwards made imperative on owners of emigrant ships. Combe was never married. A list of Combe's very numerous contributions to the 'Phrenological Journal,' some of which were reprinted in a volume of selections in 1836, is given in his ' Life,' pp. 553-7. His contributions to the 'British and Foreign Medical Review' are enumerated, ib. p. 560. Many additional writings and letters are included in the 'Life.'
The popularity of Combe's writings depends on their simplicity, their practicality, and their tone of good sense. He has recorded that most of his writings were directly founded on or extracted from his correspondence in medical consultation, and thus related to actual cases under observation. Mingled with a few errors common to phrenologists was a great amount of sound physiology, both mental and general, and his principal works are still read with pleasure and profit. It is singular that the publishers to whom he applied would not risk publishing his books, and that Murray even declined the ' Physiology ' when the third edition was already being printed. Thus, fortunately for himself, Combe retained the copyright in all his books; and he had the discernment to know that he wrote best when 'not fettered by another person's design or time.' He frequently states that he had not a versatile mind, and that writing was a great labour to him. But he was animated by a sincere desire to improve both knowledge and practice in regard to health, and a strong belief that the laws of nature were the expression of divine wisdom, and ought to be studied by every human being.
In person Combe was six feet two inches in height, very slender, and he stooped much in later years. His face was remarkable for its keen and beaming eyes and earnest expression. A good portrait of him was painted by Macnee in 1836. He is described as a quick and penetrating judge of character, a model of temperance, benevolent, independent and impartial, but fond of mirth, especially with children.
[Life, by George Combe, 1850; Memoir by R. Cox, Phrenological Journal, xx. 373, reprinted with additions for private circulation; Scotsman, 21 Aug. 1847; Harriet Martineau in Once a Week, iv. (1861), 575.]
COMBE, CHARLES, M.D. (1743–1817), physician and numismatist, was born on 23 Sept. 1743, in Southampton Street, Bloomsbury, where his father, John Combe, carried on business as an apothecary. He was educated at Harrow, and among his schoolfellows were Sir William Jones (with whom he afterwards continued to be intimate) and Dr. Parr. He rose to the sixth form, but did not proceed to the university. Coming to London, he studied medicine, and on his father's death in 1768 succeeded to his business. In 1783 the degree of doctor of medicine was conferred on him by the university of Glasgow, and he began to practise as an obstetric physician. On 5 April 1784 he was admitted by the College of Physicians a licentiate in midwifery; on 30 June he was nominated a governor of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1789 he was chosen physician to the British Lying-in-Hospital in Brownlow Street, and on resigning the post in 1810 was appointed consulting physician to the institution. He had also some considerable private practice, and made a valuable collection in materia medica, which was purchased by the College of Physicians shortly after his death. He died, after a short illness, at his house in Vernon Place, Bloomsbury Square, on 18 March 1817, in the seventy-fourth year of his age, and was buried in Bloomsbury cemetery, Brunswick Square. A portrait of Combe was painted by Medley, and engraved by N. Branwhite. He married, in 1769, Arthey, only daughter of Henry Taylor, by whom he had four children. His eldest son was Taylor Combe, the numismatist and archæologist [q. v.]
Combe had a taste for classical studies,
