|
See also: British See also: collector and physician, was See also: born on the 16th of See also: April i66o at See also: Killyleagh in county Down, See also: Ireland, where his See also: father had settled at the See also: head of a Scotch colony sent over by See also: James I
.
He had as a youth a taste for
See also: collecting See also: objects of natural See also: history and other curiosities
.
This led him to the study of See also: medicine, which he went to See also: London to pursue, directing his See also: attention to botany, materia medica and See also: pharmacy
.
His collecting propensities made him useful to See also: John Ray and Robert Boyle
.
After four years in London he travelled through
See also: France, spending some See also: time at See also: Paris and See also: Montpellier, and taking his M.D. degree at the university of Orange in 1683
.
He returned to London with a considerable collection of See also: plants and other curiosities, of which the former were sent to Ray and utilized by him for his History of Plants
.
See also: Sloane was quickly elected into the Royal Society, and at the same time he attracted the See also: notice of See also: Thomas Sydenham, who gave him valuable introductions to practice
.
In 1687 he became
See also: fellow of the See also: College of Physicians, and proceeded to See also: Jamaica the same See also: year as physician in the suite of the duke of See also: Albemarle
.
The duke died soon after landing, and Sloane's visit lasted only fifteen months; but during that time he got together about Soo new See also: species of plants, the See also: island being virgin ground to the botanist
.
Of these he published an elaborate See also: catalogue in Latin in 1696; and at a later date (1707–1725) he made the experiences of his visit the subject of two folio volumes
.
He became secretary to the Royal Society in 1693, and edited the Philosophical Transactions for twenty years
.
His practice as a physician among the upper classes was large
.
In the See also: pamphlets written concerning the sale by Dr See also: William
See also: Cockburn (1669–1739) of his secret remedy for dysentery and other fluxes, it was stated for the defence that Sloane himself did not disdain the same kind of professional conduct; and some colour is given to that See also: charge by the fact that his only medical publication, an Account of a Medicine for Soreness, Weakness and other Distempers of the Eyes (London, 1745) was not given to the See also: world until its author was in his eighty-fifth year and had retired from practice
.
In 1716 Sloane was created a See also: baronet, being the first medical practitioner to receive an hereditary title, and in 1719 he became president of the College of Physicians, holding the office sixteen years
.
In 1722 he was appointed physician-general to the army, and in 1727 first physician to See also: George II
.
In 1727 also he succeeded See also: Sir Isaac See also: Newton inthe presidential chair of the Royal Society; he retired from it at the age of eighty
.
Sloane's memory survives more by his judicious investments than by anything that he contributed to the subject See also: matter of natural science or even of his own profession
.
His See also: purchase of the See also: manor of See also: Chelsea in 1712 has perpetuated his memory in the name of a " place, " a street, and a square
.
His See also: great stroke as a collector was to acquire (by bequest, conditional on paying off
See also: SLODTZ 243
certain debts) in 17or the See also: cabinet of William Courten, who had made collecting the business of his See also: life
.
When Sloane retired from active See also: work in 1741 his library and cabinet of curiosities,' which he took with him from Bloomsbury to his See also: house in Chelsea, had grown to be of unique value
.
On his See also: death on the 11th of See also: January 1753 he bequeathed his books, See also: manuscripts, prints, drawings, pictures, medals, coins, See also: seals, cameos and other curiosities to the nation, on condition that parliament should pay to his executors £20,000, which was a See also: good See also: deal less than the value of the collection
.
The bequest was accepted on those terms by an See also: act passed the same year, and the collection, together with George II.'s royal library, &c., was opened to the public at Bloomsbury as the British Museum in 1759
.
Among his other acts of munificence may be mentioned his gift to the Apothecaries' See also: Company of the botanical or physic garden, which they had rented from the Chelsea estate since 1673
.
See Weld, History of the Royal Society, i
.
45o (London, 1848); and Munk, See also: Roll of the College of Physicians, 2nd ed., i
.
466 (London, 1878)
.
|
|
|
[back] SLIVEN |
[next] HENRY WARNER SLOCUM (1827-1894) |
There are no comments yet for this article.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.
Links to articles and home page are encouraged.