rose Abbey by Ralph, bishop of Down. All that is known of his rule at Fountains is that he prosecuted the work of his predecessor vigorously, continuing the erection of the choir and lady chapel. He made himself useful to King John, from whom there are several letters extant to him, one showing that the king had entrusted many of his valuables to the care of the abbey. On 24 Dec. 1219 he was elected bishop of Ely, after the two elections of Geoffrey de Burgh and Robert of York had been quashed by the pope. This was chiefly through Pandulf's influence (Annal. Monast. iv. 412), whose letter to the king in his favour is given by Prynne (Walbran, Memorials of Fountains Abbey, i. 171). He was consecrated at Westminster by Archbishop Langton on 8 March 1219–20, and enthroned on 25 March. In 1221, in conjunction with the Bishop of Salisbury, Richard le Poore, he was appointed by Honorius III to investigate the complaints of the monks of Durham against their bishop, Richard de Marisco. He went to Durham, summoned the bishop to appear before him, and seems to have found the accusations true (Dunstable Annals, iii. 62, 67). The bishop appealed to the pope, but the pope referred the matter back to the two bishops (R. Wendover in Matt. Paris, iii. 62, 63). While still abbat of Fountains he had been appointed by the pope one of a commission to inquire into the merits of Hugh, bishop of Lincoln, before his canonisation. In 1223, in conjunction with his successor at Fountains and the abbat of Rievaulx, he received a similar injunction with respect to William, archbishop of York. In 1225 he witnessed Magna Charta (Burton Annals, i. 231). He died at his palace at Downham on 6 May 1225, and was buried in Ely Cathedral. He gave the tithes of Hadham to the Ely monks to provide for his anniversary, and endowed them with the churches of Witchford and Meldreth, with a view to their hospitality. His skeleton was found entire in 1770, when the choir was repaired and altered (Stevenson's supplement to James Bentham's Ely, Notes, p. 76).
[Annales Monastici, i. 231, iii. 62, 67, iv. 412; Roger of Wendover and Matt. Paris, iii. 58, 62, 63, 93; Chron. de Mailros (Fulman), p. 184; Historia Eliensis, in Wharton's Anglia Sacra, i. 634–5; Hardy's Le Neve, i. 328; Walbran's Memorials of Fountains Abbey, i. pp. lxiv, lxv, 134–6, 164–5, 171.]
FOOT, JESSE (1744–1826), surgeon, was born at Charlton in Wiltshire in 1744. He received a medical education in London, becoming a member of the Surgeons' Company, and about 1766 went to the West Indies, where he practised for three years in the island of Nevis, returning in 1769. After this he went to St. Petersburg, where he became ‘a privileged practitioner of the College of St. Petersburg,’ as he afterwards described himself, and practised there some time profitably. Returning to England, he was appointed house-surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, and on the conclusion of his term of office began practice in Salisbury Street, Strand, afterwards removing to Dean Street, Soho, where he had a large practice for many years. He died at Ilfracombe on 27 Oct. 1826.
Foot's principal branch of practice may be gathered from the titles of his numerous professional books and pamphlets. His belief in his own merits was great, and he aspired to surpass John Hunter in fame; but finding himself unable to succeed, he endeavoured to defame his rival, to prove that his discoveries were plagiarisms or of little merit, to denounce him as an embittered, ill-tempered man, and to represent that his works were written by Smollett. His ‘Life of Hunter’ shows in almost every page the intense jealousy by which he was actuated. Foot's inclination to biography is also seen in his lives of the seducer and duellist Bowes and his wife, Mary Eleanor, countess of Strathmore [q. v.], whom he attended professionally for thirty-three years, and of his friend Arthur Murphy [q. v.], whose executor he was. He was also strongly prejudiced in favour of the West Indian planters and their treatment of their slaves, and his vigorous ‘Defence’ ran through three large editions in three weeks. He attacked Wilberforce and the abolition party on several occasions.
Foot wrote: 1. ‘A Critical Inquiry into the Ancient and Modern Manner of Treating Diseases of the Urethra, and an Improved Method of Cure,’ London, 1774; 6th edit. 1811. 2. ‘Observations on the New Opinions of John Hunter in his Treatise on the Venereal Disease,’ in three parts, 1786–7. 3. ‘An Essay on the Bite of a Mad Dog, with Observations on John Hunter's Treatment of the Case of Master R—— [Rowley], and also a Recital of the Successful Treatment of Two Cases,’ 1788; 2nd edit. 1791. 4. ‘A New Discovered Fact of a relative nature in the Venereal Poison,’ 1790. 5. ‘A Defence of the Planters in the West Indies, comprised in Four Arguments,’ &c., 1792. 6. ‘A Complete Treatise on the Origin, Theory, and Cure of the Lues Venerea and Obstruction in the Urethra, illustrated by a great variety of Cases, being a course of twenty-three
