SOME ESSEX DOCTORS.
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"the knee, either inside or out, cut off a short bit of the thread
"(for instance the eighth part of an inch, or less) and lay
"this on the little bleeding scratch; cover it with any kind
"of sticking plaster and the whole is done."
With an increasing practice and many other employments
Fothergill was an exceedingly busy man. Thus we find him
reading papers before the Royal Society, contributing meteoro-
logical data in relation to disease to the Gentleman's Magazine,
holding the clerkship to the Yearly Meeting of the Society of
Friends and in such spare time as fell to his lot cultivating
chemistry, Conchology, entomology, and, above all, botany.
The love and study of botany begat in Fothergill the idea of the
formation of a botanical garden for "the cultivation of plants
"and trees which were beautiful, remarkable for their figure
"or their fragrance, curious to the scientific mind, or useful
"in the arts, and especially the introduction of new species
"which might be to the advantage of medicine or serve as
"articles of food."
The idea was, of course, not new—botanical or physic gardens
had long been cultivated in England. The Barber-Surgeons
attached to their Hall in Monkwell Street had a herb garden
and the College of Physicians had three such gardens in succession
from 1587, the first under the charge of John Gerarde. The still
flourishing Physic Garden of the Society of Apothecaries in
Chelsea dates from 1673, and in Fothergill's time, under Philip
Miller, was said to excel all the gardens in Europe. Edinburgh
Botanic Gardens were founded about 1680, and that at Kew
was established by the Princess Dowager of Wales in 1760. A
letter in Latin from Fothergill to Linnaeus, dated 1774, now in
the Linnean Society's Library, gives the origin of his own
garden. In this he says:—
"Our Collinson taught me to love flowers, and who that
"shared his comradeship could do other than cultivate
"plants ? What manner of man he was I need not say to
"thee. It was he urged me to form a garden, himself giving
"me many things and opportunity favoured the collection of
"others. Thus has come into being a paradise of plants of
"small extent, whose master, if slenderly furnished with
"botanical science, has at least a burning love of botany
"itself."