FORDYCE, G.[EORGE]

Dr. G. Fordyce's Lectures in Chemistry. [Caption title]. Manuscript on paper, written in brown-black ink in a legible hand of the period. Two volumes, period tree calf. 367, 281, [1], 27 [of 28] pp. indices. The bindings with some wear, the title-page of the second volume largely torn away, with loss to the text on that leaf, and also lacking the final index leaf. Both volumes inscribed "From Richard Franklin Esq. to the City Limerick Infirmary Library 1834."

Fordyce was a "physician-chemist and eccentric." "His work was highly regarded in his lifetime, but an eccentric lifestyle and a lack of concern for the social graces tended to reduce his standing among medical colleagues. He made no significant discoveries and although his contributions to medical education were important, he has been largely neglected."—Noel G. Coley from Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London. For all the emphasis on his eccentricities, he published extensively (Elements of Agriculture and Vegetation (1765); Elements of the Practice of Physic (1770); A Treatise on Digestion and Food (1791); and four volumes of Dissertations on Fever between 1794 and 1802) and his course of lectures, recorded here, lasted four months and was repeated thrice annually, what must have been an exhausting schedule (he apparently ate but once a day, dining on rump steak, port and brandy). He died in 1802.

The Richard Franklin Esq. who inscribed these books on the occasion of their gift to the Limerick Infirmary Library is certainly Sir Richard Franklin (d. 1845), who was surgeon to Barrington's Hospital and the City of Limerick Infirmary, and a mayor of the city of Limerick. These are likely his own notes from the period of his medical education and (though we have been unable to ascertain his date of birth) are most likely to date from the 1780s.