Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/1077

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of a religious and earnest man. The titles of the works are as follows—"An Essay of Health and Long Life;" "An Essay of the true nature and due method of meeting the Gout: together with an account of the nature and quality of Bath Waters, the manner of using them, and the diseases in which they are proper;" "A New Theory of acute and slow-continued Fevers;" "Philosophical Principles of Religion, Natural and Revealed;" and "Fluxioni Methodus Inducta."—E. L.

CHEYNE, James, an eminent mathematician and philosopher, born in Aberdeenshire in the early part of the sixteenth century; died in 1602. With John Henderson, under whom he studied divinity at Aberdeen, he went over to France to escape the troubles of the Reformation period, and became professor of philosophy at the college of St. Barbe in Paris. He afterwards resided in the same capacity at Douay. His works are principally on scholastic subjects; commentaries on Aristotle, &c.

CHEYNE, John, a physician of great eminence, a descendant of Dr. George Cheyne, and belonging to a family connected with the medical profession for many generations. His father practised at Leith, where his son John was born on 3rd Feb., 1777. His mother was an ambitious woman of honourable principles, constantly stimulating her children to exertion, and intently occupied with their advancement in life. She was the daughter of Mr. William Edmonston, a fellow of the College of Surgeons, Edinburgh. After passing four years at the grammar school at Leith, young Cheyne was sent to the high school of Edinburgh, under the care of the rector, Dr. Adam, into whose class the boy was immediately introduced. Being totally unprepared for such a position, he was rendered very unhappy at not being able to keep up with his companions, and he often feigned sickness, in order to be kept from school. He was afterwards placed under the care of a clergyman of the episcopal church of Scotland, who proved to be a bad tutor and an idle dissipated man; so that the time spent with him was productive of no good to young Cheyne. In his twelfth year he began to attend his father's poor patients, and thus gained a certain knowledge of disease, which was useful to him afterwards. In his sixteenth year he attended lectures in the university of Edinburgh; and with a very imperfect knowledge of his profession, by the aid of a system technically called "grinding," he was enabled to take his medical degree in June, 1795. On the day after his graduation, having previously procured a surgeon's diploma, he left Edinburgh for Woolwich, where he joined a regiment of royal artillery, to which he had been appointed assistant-surgeon. From 1795 to 1799 he spent his time, as was the custom in the army, in reading novels, shooting, playing billiards, and such follies, gaining nothing but a certain ease of bearing and manner. At last he seems to have awakened to a sense of the folly of such a life, and to feel his own deficiencies in professional knowledge. He accordingly left his regiment, and returned to Scotland, resolved to become once more a medical student. He now commenced study in earnest, for the first time, and happily formed a friendship with Mr. Bell, who encouraged him in every good work and effort to attain knowledge. His attention was chiefly directed to the diseases of children, and acute diseases and epidemics. These he worked at laboriously in every way, and in 1801, at the age of twenty-four, wrote his first essay on "Cynanche Trachealis, or Croup." In the same year, he published a treatise on the "Bowel complaints of Children." These volumes have the advantage of being illustrated with beautifully-executed coloured plates, by Sir Charles Bell. In 1808 he published his third essay on the diseases of children, being "Hydrocephalus Acutus." In 1809 he determined on trying to establish himself in practice at Dublin; and in the year 1811 he became physician to the Meath hospital, and shortly after was appointed lecturer on the practice of physic to the Irish College of Surgeons. In 1812 he published a volume on "Apoplexy and Lethargy," and at this time he appears to have had an increasing and respectable practice. In 1815 he was appointed by the lord-lieutenant one of the physicians to the house of industry. The labour consequent on this office, however, was so great, that he was obliged after a little time to resign the lectureship at the College of Surgeons, as well as his charge of the Meath hospital. In 1816 his private practice yielded an annual income of about £1800, and he then removed into a house in Merion Square, Dublin, where he lived until he left that city in 1831. The course of Dr. Cheyne's prosperity was at last arrested by failing health. In the end of 1825 he became affected with a sort of nervous fever; he became depressed, feeble, and languid. He was obliged to relax as much as possible in his duties—sleeping out of town, and getting his friends to assist him in his work. By this means he was able to go on until 1831, when finding himself utterly unable to persevere in his medical practice, he resolved on relinquishing it altogether; which he did, much to the regret of his friends and patients in Dublin, and accompanied by the good wishes and kind feeling of all his medical brethren. Dr. Cheyne's chosen retreat was an estate he had purchased in the neighbourhood of Newport-Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, and here he established himself in the private and charitable exercise of his professional skill amongst the poor, which, however, in time extended to his being consulted by some of the more wealthy families in the neighbourhood. He undertook at this time to write some articles for the Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine, in compliance with the request of Dr. Tweedie, one of the editors. He thus began again to use his pen, which, however, was soon prevented by the formation of a cataract in his right eye, which from the year 1833 deprived him of the use of that organ. The general breaking up of the system went on gradually, evincing first one symptom and then another, until January, 1836, when after being confined to bed for six weeks he peacefully died. Dr. Cheyne was an extensive writer on medical subjects. He constantly contributed papers to the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, and to the Dublin hospital reports, as well as separate essays on interesting branches of medical science which appeared in the form of separate volumes. He was an earnestly religious man, and in his autobiography, which is preserved, there are many references to this all-absorbing subject from his own pen. His will containing directions for his burial, is singular and impressive. The features of his character were great penetration and decision, courtesy combined with rigidly honourable feelings; and under the appearance of indifference to the sufferings which he daily witnessed, an intense and almost overwhelming sympathy with the sorrows and pains of others. He was a warm admirer of art; and in his domestic relations most amiable, gentle, and wise. His wife was the daughter of the Rev. Dr. Macartney, vicar of Antrim in Ireland.—E. L.

CHEYNELL, Francis, a nonconformist divine, born at Oxford in 1608, became a member of the university in 1623, was elected probationer-fellow of Merton college in 1629, sided with the parliament in the civil war, and was made one of the assembly of divines in 1643, and visitor of Oxford in 1647. He is chiefly memorable for his scurrilous treatment of Chillingworth, whose work. The Religion of Protestants &c., he criticised in the "Rise, Growth, and Danger of Socinianism." Not content with profaning the obsequies of that illustrious divine (see Chillingworth), he printed in 1644, an attack upon his memory, entitled "Chillingworthi Novissima, or the Sickness, Heresy, Death, and Burial of William Chillingworth." He died at Preston in Sussex in 1665.—J. S., G.

CHIABRERA, Gabrielle, an Italian poet, called the Pindar of Italy, born at Savona in 1552; died in 1638. He was of an impetuous and irascible disposition, and once in Rome, and again in his native place, fought a duel, each time killing his opponent. He chiefly excelled in lyric measures; his canzones and sonnets are remarkably spirited, but his longer poems are deficient in animation.—A. C. M.

CHIARI, Pietro: the date of his birth is not recorded, but was about the beginning of the eighteenth century; he died in 1788. He bore the title of the poet of the duke of Modena, but resided at Venice. He wrote for the stage, and within ten or twelve years his prolific muse gave birth to more than sixty comedies, all of which, it would appear, were represented. There were also four tragedies, which, if they struggled to the birth, soon ceased to breathe. Chiari wrote prefaces to some of his plays, to prove that, if not as successful as those of Goldoni and Pozzi, it was owing to the bad taste of the public. At times he took a different tone, and asserted that if heads were reckoned, he had as many admirers as either of the poets above, whom perverse critics still insisted on preferring. Chiari wrote some amusing novels, and he published one or two letters on moral philosophy.—J. A., D.

CHIARINI, Lodovico: born in Tuscany in 1789; died at Warsaw in 1832. The Abbé Chiarini was educated at Pisa, was first made known by the publication of some poems, and was invited to a professorship of eastern languages and antiquities