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_This Edition consists of 84 copies, of which 75 copies are for sale._

                             _This is No._




                                  TWO

                            MEDICAL TRACTS

                                  BY
                           J. P. MARAT, M.D.




                         Reprint of Two Tracts

                        1. AN ESSAY ON GLEETS.

                    2. AN ENQUIRY INTO THE NATURE,
                 CAUSE, AND CURE OF A SINGULAR DISEASE
                             OF THE EYES.

                       By JEAN PAUL MARAT, M.D.

                      EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION

                                  BY

                          JAMES BLAKE BAILEY

         LIBRARIAN OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND

                 PRINTED FOR PRIVATE CIRCULATION ONLY

                                  BY

                            PERCIVAL & CO.

                                LONDON

                                 1891




INTRODUCTION


The two tracts here reprinted were written in English by Jean Paul Marat
during his residence in Church Street, Soho, where he practised as a
Physician.

Both of the tracts are exceedingly rare. Speaking of the former one, Mr.
Morse Stephens, in his article on “Marat” in the _Encyclopædia
Britannica_,[1] says, “no copy is to be found.” Since the date of Mr.
Stephens’s notice of Marat a copy has come to light, and is now in the
possession of Dr. J. F. Payne. Of the latter tract there is only one
known copy: this is in the Library of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical
Society of London. I have to thank the Council of the Society and Dr.
Payne for their kindness in allowing copies of the pamphlets to be made
for the purpose of publication.

The first tract is dedicated to the Worshipful Company of Surgeons in
London, and is dated November 1775. As the type is broken the day of the
month cannot be read with certainty in the copy from which this was
reprinted: there is no other known copy to which reference can be made.
The date is either the 21st or 24th: as regards the month and the year
there is no doubt. The second tract has an address to the Royal Society,
and is dated January 1st, 1776: as Marat returned to Paris in 1777 both
these works were issued towards the end of his residence in London.

A few months before the publication of the Essay on Gleets, Marat had
received an M.D. degree from the University of St. Andrews. The degree
was equivalent to an honorary one, and, as was the custom of the time,
was given on the recommendation of two medical men known to the Senate.
The two who recommended Marat were Hugh James and William Buchan,
doctors of medicine in Edinburgh. Marat passed no examination for the
degree, and probably did not even go to St. Andrews to receive it. At
that time it was customary to forward the Diploma on receipt of the
graduation fee. Mr. Morse Stephens[2] is of opinion that Marat received
degrees from other universities, because in 1777 on his appointment as
physician to the body-guard of the Comte d’Artois he is described as
“docteur en médecine de plusieurs facultés d’Angleterre.” It may,
however, be pointed out that at this date there were very few
universities or faculties granting an M.D. degree, and also that the
older universities did not give the Doctor of Medicine as an honorary
degree. It is known that Marat resided for some time at Edinburgh and at
Dublin, but there is no record of his having received a degree from
either of these Universities.

Although diligent search has been made by historians no record of any
other qualification has been found, and it may fairly be assumed that
the above description is an exaggeration of the St. Andrews degree.

There is evidence in both pamphlets that Marat practised medicine in
Paris before coming to London. In the Essay on Gleets[3] he speaks of
his “ten years practice”; this probably gives a clue to the actual date
of the beginning of his professional life. The duration of his practice
in France before his coming to England must have been short. He took up
his residence in England in 1766; the Essay is dated November 1775, and
Marat was born in 1742: allowing for the ten years he mentions, he would
have started practice about 1765, at which date he was twenty-three
years of age.

The “Gleet” Tract shows that Marat’s early work was not devoted entirely
to this department of practice. Mr. Morse Stephens[4] says, “from
Bordeaux he went to Paris, where he effected a remarkable cure of a
disease of the eyes, which had been abandoned as hopeless both by
physicians and quacks, by means of electricity.” This, no doubt, is the
case of _Charlotte Blondel_, described on page 34 of this reprint. Marat
himself says, speaking of the employment of bougies for the treatment of
gleet, “as it was not my province to treat venereal diseases, this
method had not engaged my attention.”

Marat evidently had in mind other medical works. In the Essay on
Gleets[5] he says, “If this essay should meet with approbation, I shall
offer to the public a new method of radically curing gonorrhœas in a
short time.” And again, in the tract on Diseases of the Eye,[6] speaking
of the action of mercury, “A complete Examination of them would swell
these Sheets beyond the proposed Size; I therefore reserve it for the
Subject of a future Publication.” It may, I think, be safely said that
these intentions were never carried out. Watt, in his _Bibliotheca
Britannica_, gives the titles of the two tracts here reprinted, but
makes no mention of the others; and, so far as I can find, they never
saw the light.

The _Daran_ under whose care the cases described in the first tract were
before they came under Marat’s observation, was Jacques Daran
[1701-1784], a man who greatly distinguished himself whilst in the army
during an epidemic of the Plague at Messina: after travelling all over
Europe he lived at Marseilles, but finally settled in Paris. He was
chiefly celebrated for his bougies for the treatment of diseases of the
urethra: the composition of the bougie he kept a secret, and thus
amassed a very large fortune. He ultimately, however, died at Paris in
very poor circumstances.

The famous _T_***, under whose care the case described on page 17
was, I cannot identify with any degree of certainty.

The “ingenious Mr. _Miller_, Oculist,” mentioned on page 44, was
probably John Miller, an optician, who died at Edinburgh in 1815, having
occupied for forty-eight years a leading position in that city. He was
originally in business at 7 Parliament Close, and afterwards was in
company as Miller and Adie in Nicolson Street.

The original tracts are printed in 4to without any running title; the
top of each page simply having the pagination in square brackets. The
reprints follow the originals exactly as regards orthography,
punctuation, etc. Obvious errors have not been corrected: the pamphlets
are reproduced exactly as Marat wrote them.

Marat’s nationality comes out very strongly in more than one passage,
where, whilst using English words, he has kept entirely to the French
idiom. In the preface to the first tract he apologises for his imperfect
knowledge of the