Piss Profits: Thomas Willis,His Diatribae Duae and the Formation of His Professional Identity

Wood Anthony , Athenae oxonienses … to which are added the Fasti, ed. by Bliss P. (New York, 1967), iii, 1051.

Plot Robert , Natural history of Oxfordshire (Oxford, 1677), sig. B3v.

Discussions of selected aspects of Willis's philosophy and significance can be found in Frank Robert Jr , Harvey and the Oxford physiologists: Scientific ideas and social interaction (Berkeley, 1980), 165–9, 221–3, 232–7, et passim; Brown Theodore , The mechanical philosophy and the ‘animal oeconomy’ (New York, 1981), 151–60; and Cook Harold , Decline of the old medical regime (Ithaca, 1986), 184–5. The quote is taken from W. Russell Brain, ” The concept of hysteria in the time of William Harvey”, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, section of the history of medicine, lvi (1963), 1963–24, p. 322.

Examples of these approaches include: Kassler Jamie , “Restraining the passions: Hydropneumatics and hierarchy in the philosophy of Thomas Willis”, in The soft underbelly of reason: The passions in the seventeenth century, ed. by Gaukroger S. (London, 1998), 147–64; Meier Richard , “Sympathy as a concept in early neurophysiology”, Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1979; idem, “‘Sympathy’ in the neurophysiology of Thomas Willis”, Clio medica, xvii (1982), 1982–111; Meyer Alfred Hierons Raymond , “On Thomas Willis's concepts of neurophysiology: Part I”, Medical history, ix (1965), 1965–15; idem, “On Thomas Willis's concepts of neurophysiology: Part II”, Medical history, ix (1965), 1965–53; Puklin Diane , “Medical psychology in the seventeenth century: The idea of neurological emotion in the thought of Thomas Willis”, Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1980; and even the fuller length studies of Willis's life and works, such as Hughes J. Trevor , Thomas Willis, 1621–1675: His life and work (London, 1991), and Isler Hansruedi , Thomas Willis, 1621–75, doctor and scientist (London, 1968).

Willis Thomas , Willis's Oxford casebook (1650–52), ed. by Dewhurst Kenneth (Oxford, 1981), and idem, Thomas Willis' Oxford lectures, ed. by Dewhurst Kenneth (Oxford, 1980).

Bynum William F. , “The anatomical method, natural theology, and the functions of the brain”, Isis, lxiv (1973), 445–68.

Frank Robert Jr , “Thomas Willis and his circle: Brain and mind in 17th-century medicine”, in Languages of psyche: Mind and body in Enlightenment thought, ed. by Rousseau G. S. (Los Angeles, 1990), 107–46.

Martensen Robert , “‘Habit of reason’: Anatomy and Anglicanism in Restoration England”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, lxvi (1992), 511–35; idem, The brain takes shape: An early history (Oxford, 2004), 118–21.

Hawkins Michael , “‘A great and difficult thing’: Understanding and explaining the human machine in Restoration England”, in Bodies / machines, ed. by Morus Iwan Rhys (Oxford, 2002), 15–38. For a fuller treatment of Willis's account of the passions, see idem, “The empire of passions: Thomas Willis's anatomy of the restoration soul”, Ph.D. diss., Imperial College London, 2004.

Willis , Casebook (ref. 5), 158.

Frank Jr , op. cit. (ref. 7), 129; Martensen , Brain takes shape (ref. 8), 109–12.

On these respective characterizations, see Frank Jr , op. cit. (ref. 3), 43, 288–91; Isler , op. cit. (ref. 4), 115–22; and Willis , Casebook (ref. 5), 159. Frank Jr offered a tantalizingly assertion that ” The strongest influence shaping Willis's ideas [before the early 1660s] … was Willis's laboratory”. However, he left this issue largely unexplored and instead focused on how the Oxford philosophers developed a shared set of beliefs and approaches to explore the ‘key’ physiological issues of post-Harveian medicine. Quote from Frank Jr, op. cit. (ref. 3), 169.

On Willis's manuscript, see Hartlib Samuel , Ephemerides 1656, HP 29/5/102A, in The Hartlib papers (UMI, Ann Arbor, 1995). On the persistence of manuscript culture, see Greengrass Mark , “Samuel Hartlib and scribal publication”, Acta comeniana, xii (1987), 1987–104; and Love Harold , The culture and commerce of texts: Scribal publication in seventeenth century England (Amherst, 1993), 177–23.

On religious aspects of chemical medicine, see Pagel Walter , Joan Baptista Van Helmont: Reformer of science and medicine (Cambridge, 1982); Hannaway Owen , The chemists and the word (Baltimore, 1975), esp. pp. 1–21, 75–91; Rattansi P. M. , “Paracelsus and the Puritan revolution”, Ambix, xi (1963), 1963–32; Webster Charles , The great instauration: Science, medicine and reform, 1626–1660 (London, 1975), 273–88; idem, “Paracelsus: Medicine as popular protest”, in Medicine and the reformation, ed. by Grell O. P. Cunningham A. (New York, 1993), 57–77. On medical empirics, see Porter Roy , Quacks: Fakers & charlatans in English medicine (Stroud, 2000).

On career strategies and self-fashioning during the early modern period, see Biagioli Mario , Galileo courtier: The practice of science in the culture of absolutism (Chicago, 1993), 11–99; Shapin Steven , A social history of truth: Civility and science in seventeenth-century England (Chicago, 1994), 127–84; and Hunter Michael “How Boyle became a scientist”, History of science, xxxiii (1995), 1995–103.

Fell John , “Postscript”, in Willis Thomas , Pharmaceutice rationalis sive diatriba de medicamentorum operationibus in humano corpore, pars secunda (Oxford, 1675), sig. b₃v.

Located near to the University, the participants at these gatherings included many members of the University, such as Henry Hammond and Robert Payne. They also included such notable figures as Lucius Cary (Lord Falkland), William Chillingworth (the godson of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury and Chancellor of the University of Oxford), and Edward Hyde (later Lord Clarendon). On Great Tew, see Trevor-Roper Hugh R. , “The Great Tew circle”, in Catholics, Anglicans and Puritans (London, 1987), 166–230; Stanwood Paul G. , “Community and social order in the Great Tew circle”, in Literary circles and cultural communities in Renaissance England, ed. by Summers Claude J. Pebworth Ted-Larry (London, 2000), 173–86; and Donnelly M. L. , “‘The great difference of time’: The Great Tew circle and the emergence of the neoclassical mode”, ibid., 187–209.

Roy Ian Reinhart Deitrich , “Oxford and the civil wars”, in The history of the University of Oxford, ed. by Tyacke N. , iv (Oxford, 1997), 694, 696, 701–7, 713, 715 et passim;, Fell John , The life of the most learned, reverend and pious Dr. H. Hammond (London, 1661), 184–5; and Varley Frederick J. , “Oxford army list for 1642–6”, Oxoniensia, ii (1937), 1937–51, p. 145.

Larminie Vivienne , “Fell, John (1625–1686)”, Oxford dictionary of national biography, online edn [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9257, accessed 1 February 2008]; Spurr John , “Allestree, Richard (1621/2–1681)”, ibid. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/395, accessed 1 February 2008]; Coleby Andrew M. , “Dolben, John (1625–1686)”, ibid. [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7775, accessed 1 February 2008]; Roy Reinhart , “Oxford and the civil wars” (ref. 18), 698; Varley Frederick J. , The siege of Oxford (London, 1932), 26, 29.

Willis had at least five brothers and three sisters from his father's two marriages. Hughes , op. cit. (ref. 4), 93.

Fell , “Postscript” (ref. 16), sig. b₃–b₃v.

For the original act outlining their mandate, see Firth C. H. Rait R. S. , Acts and ordinances of the Interregnum, 1642–1660 (London, 1911), i, 925–7. On the parliamentary debates concerning their powers, see 13 Jan. 1646/7 and 10 Feb. 1646/7, [House of Commons], Journals of the House of Commons (London, 1803), v, 51, 83.

[Convocation of the University of Oxford], Reasons of the present judgement of the Vniversity of Oxford, concerning The Solemne League and Covenant. The Negative Oath. The Ordinances concerning discipline and VVorship. Approved by generall consent in a full Convocation, 1. Jun. 1647. and Presented to Consideration (n.l., 1647); Burrows Montagu (ed.)., The register of the visitors of the University of Oxford, from A.D. 1647 to A.D. 1658 (London, 1881), p. lxiii; Roy Reinhart , op. cit. (ref. 18), 723–4.

These oaths included a confirmation of the terms of the University's surrender, the Solemn League and Covenant and the Engagement, reprinted respectively in Varley , op. cit. (ref. 19), 154–66; Firth Rait , Acts and ordinances (ref. 22), i, 298; ii, 325–9.

On the confirmation of their power, see 27 May 1648, [Commons], Journals (ref. 22), 574. On resistance to the Visitors, see Roy Reinhart , op. cit. (ref. 18), 721–32.

Burrows , Register (ref. 23), 92, 180–1, 185, 187–8.

Anon., Lord have mercy upon us, or the visitation at Oxford: Begun Aprill the 11.1648. ([London], 1648), 5–6.

It seems likely, given Willis's lack of a formal status within the University, that the “Willis” admitted to Christ Church mentioned in the Visitors' Register was his younger brother William, who was admitted on 21 Mar 1650/1. Burrows , Register (ref. 23), 170, 493, 592; Foster Joseph , Alumni oxoniensis: The members of the University of Oxford, 1500–1714 (Nendeln, Leichtenstein, 1968), iii, 1650.

Bodleian Library, Aubrey MS 12, ff. 294, 302.

On Bathurst's choice to study medicine, see Warton Thomas , The life and literary remains of Ralph Bathurst M.D. (London, 1761), 204–5.

Fell , Life of Hammond (ref. 18), 49.

Warton , Life (ref. 30), 205.

On the role of patronage in early modern European societies and the effects of the loss of a patron, see Biagioli , op. cit. (ref. 15), 15–36, 323–9.

On the structure of English society, see Marsh C. , “Order and place in England, 1580–1640: The view from the pew”, Journal of British studies, xliv (2005), 3–26; Wrightson Keith , “‘Sorts of People’ in Tudor and Stuart England”, in Barry Jonathan Brooks Christopher (eds), The middling sort of people: Culture, society and politics in England, 1550–1800 (London, 1994); French H. R. , “Social status, localism and the ‘Middle Sort of People’ in England 1620–1750”, Past and present, cxliv (2000), 2000–99; and Kent J. , “The rural ‘Middling Sort’ in early modern England c. 1640–1800: Some economic, political and socio-cultural characteristics”, Rural history, x (1999), 1999–54.

Wharton , Life (ref. 30), 205.

Willis , Casebook (ref. 5); Aubrey John , Brief lives, ed. by Clark A. (Oxford, 1898), ii, 302–4; and Wood , Athenae oxonienses (ref. 1), iii, 1048–53.

Willis , Casebook (ref. 5), 42.

Meara Edmund , Examen diatribae Thomae Willisy [sic] doctoris medici et professoris Oxoniensis de febribvs (London, 1665), 127; Lyons J. B. , “O'Meara, Edmund (c. 1614–1681)”, Oxford dictionary of national biography, online edn [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/18486, accessed 16 May 2009].

Aubrey , Brief lives (ref. 36), ii, 303–4.

Ibid., 303.

Ibid., 302.

Beddard Robert A. , “Restoration Oxford and the remaking of the Protestant establishment”, in Tyacke (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 18), 804–6; Keene Nicholas , “John Fell: Education, erudition and the English church in late seventeenth-century Oxford”, History of universities, xviii (2003), 62–101, pp. 63–4.

On Fell, Allestree and Dolben, see Fell John , “The Preface”, in Forty sermons whereof twenty one are now first publish'd, the greatest part preach'd before the king And on solemn occasions (Oxford, 1684), sigs. a2v—bv, b₂v—c, as well as the works cited in ref. 19 above. Fell's The privileges of the University of Oxford, in point of visitation, &c. (Oxford, 1647) must have been considered a significant challenge since William Prynne quickly responded to it with his The Vniversity of Oxfords plea refuted, or, a full answer to a late printed paper intituled, The priviledges of the University of Oxford in point of visitation (London, 1647).

Fell , “Preface” (ref. 43), sig. b₂v. Also see, Tyacke Nicholas , “Religious controversy”, in Tyacke (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 18), 595–6; Beddard Robert , “Restoration Oxford”, ibid., 804–6; and Worden Blair , “Cromwellian Oxford”, ibid., 767–8.

Jenkins Leoline , The life of Francis Mansell, D.D. Principal of Jesus College, in Oxford (London, 1854), 22–3.

Burrows , Register (ref. 23), 262; Willis , Casebook (ref. 5), 150–1, n2; Wharton , Life (ref. 30), 37.

British Library, Harleian MS 6942, f. 66; Packer John W. , The transformation of Anglicanism 1643–1660 with special reference to Henry Hammond (Manchester, 1969), 204.

Kenneth Dewhurst did an admirable job in ascertaining the identities of the named patients in Willis's Casebook. However his analysis of the significance of their relationship to Willis falls short since he was more concerned with stressing their broad — And sometimes nebulous — Allegiance to the royalist cause than with their more substantial direct connection to Willis's immediate social circle. Willis , Casebook (ref. 5), 158.

Ibid., 67–74, 100–1.

For example, see ibid., 64–5, 82–4, 149–50.

On the Finmores and Perrots, see ibid., 85, n2, and 150–1, n2. see also Toynbee Margaret , “Charles I and the Perrots of Northleigh”, Oxoniensia, xi–xii (1948), 132–46.

Bathurst submitted to the Visitors on 1 June 1648. Burrows , Register (ref. 23), 121.

Warton , Life (ref. 30), 205–6.

Willis Thomas , De urinis, in Diatribae duae medico-philosophicae (London, 1659), sigs. Z₃–Z₃v.

10 Feb. 1646/7, [Commons], Journals (ref. 22), 83.

Wren Matthew , Considerations on Mr. Harrington's Common-wealth of Oceana (London, 1657), sig. A.

The most comprehensive accounts of Petty and Wilkins's lives are Sharp Lindsay , “Sir William Petty and some aspects of seventeenth-century natural philosophy”, D.Phil. diss., University of Oxford, 1976, and Shapiro Barbara , John Wilkins, 1614–72: An intellectual biography (Los Angeles, 1969). On their activities in Oxford, see Frank Jr , op. cit. (ref. 3), 23–4, 51–9, 101–3; Jardine Lisa , “The 2003 Wilkins Lecture: Dr Wilkins's boy wonders”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, lviii (2004), 2004–29; Feingold Mordechai , “The mathematical sciences and new philosophies”, in Tyacke (ed.), op. cit. (ref. 18), 394ff; and Frank Robert Jr , “Medicine”, ibid., 544–51. On Petty's political connections, see Webster , Great instauration (ref. 14), 81–2, 155.

Aubrey , Brief lives (ref. 36), ii, 303.

Frank Jr , op. cit. (ref. 3), 102.

Willis , Casebook (ref. 5), 132.

On Petty and Willis's actions, see [ Watkins Richard ], Newes from the dead (Oxford, 1651), 2–6. On the contemporary significance of the printed accounts of Greene's ‘resurrection’, see Mandelbrote Scott , “William Petty and Anne Greene: Medical and political reform in Commonwealth Oxford”, in The practice of reform in health, medicine, and science, 1500–2000, ed. by Pelling M. Mandelbrote S. (Aldershot, 2005), 125–49.

Robinson H. W. , “An unpublished letter of Dr Seth Ward relating to the early meetings of the Oxford Philosophical Society”, Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, vii (1949), 68–70.

Willis , Casebook (ref. 5), 153.

Ward Seth , Vindiciae academiarum containing, some briefe animadversions upon Mr Websters book, stiled, The Examination of Academies. Together with an appendix concerning what M. Hobbs, and M. Dell have published on this argument (Oxford, 1654), 35.

On Willis's use of these materials, see Willis , Casebook (ref. 5), 68, 73, 80, 83, 89, 92, 94, 105, 106, 113, 114, 121, 130, 132, 137, 144.

On Broghill, see John Patrick Little Seymour , “The political career of Roger Boyle, Lord Broghill, 1636–1660”, Ph.D. diss., University of London, 2000, 113–50; Lynch Kathleen , Roger Boyle, first Earl of Orrery (Knoxville, 1965), 70–105. On Hartlib, see Webster , Great instauration (ref. 14). On Lady Ranelagh, see ibid., 62–9.

Hartlib Samuel , Ephemerides 1654 (ref. 13), HP 29/4/28A.

On Hooke's relation to the Fell family, see Jardine Lisa , The curious life of Robert Hooke: The man who measured London (New York, 2004), 66. On Willis's recommendation, see Shapin , Social history of truth (ref. 15), 401.

Willis , Casebook (ref. 5), 67–9, 98, 109, 115–16.

Ibid., 98.

Ibid., 98.

Ibid., 109.

Ibid., 110.

Ibid., 98.

Ibid., 110.

Ibid., 79, n50.

Ibid., 98.

Ibid., 110.

Ibid., 67–8.

Ibid., 69.

Ibid., 116, 115.

Ibid., 69, 98, 110.

Philosophers used aurum fulminans throughout the later half of the century to investigate heat. Willis considered it an important compound “inasmuch as many other natural operations [of heat] are performed by the motion of these kind of sulphurous particles”. Willis Thomas , De fermentatione, in Diatribae duae medico-philosophicae (London, 1659), 75. On Willis's preparation of it for the Oxford Philosophers, see Bodleian Library, Aubrey MS 12, ff. 294, 302. see also Frank Robert Jr , “John Aubrey, F.R.S., John Lydall, and science at Commonwealth Oxford”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxvii (1973), 1973–217, p. 197.

Willis Thomas , De febribus, in Diatribae duae medico-philosophicae (London, 1659), 9.

Ibid., 9–10, 13–14.

Willis , De fermentatione (ref. 83), sig. A3v—A4.

As a candidate of the London College of Physicians, Walter Charleton had published three chemical medical texts: Deliramenta catarrhi, Ternary of paradoxes and Spiritus gorgonicus (all of 1650), in an attempt to show the modernity of the College's Fellows. On Charleton's early chemical writings and the College at this time, see Gelbart Nina , “The intellectual development of Walter Charleton”, Ambix, xviii (1971), 151–69; Rattansi , op. cit. (ref. 14), 23–32; and Sharp Lindsay , “Walter Charleton's early life, 1620–1659, and relationship to natural philosophy in mid-17th century England”, Annals of science, xxx (1973), 1973–23. On attempts to modernise the College at this time, see Cook , Decline (ref. 3), 102–15.

Hartlib Samuel , Ephemerides 1656 (ref. 13), HP 29/5/102A.

Lansdowne Henry (ed.), The Petty—Southwell correspondence, 1676–1687 (London, 1928), 214.

Willis , De fermentatione (ref. 83), sig. A₂–A₃v.

This problem was not unique to Willis. Many medical practitioners advocating newer experimental or chemical approaches faced similar challenges. On these issues, see Cook Harold , “The new philosophy and medicine in seventeenth-century England”, in Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, ed. by Lindberg D. C. Westman R. S. (Cambridge, 1990), 397–436; idem, Decline (ref. 3), 133–82, esp. pp. 151–2; Wear Andrew , Knowledge and practice in English medicine, 1550–1680 (Cambridge, 2000), 353–98.

On religious aspects of chemical medicine, see the works cited in ref. 14 above. On the responses to chemical philosophies and medicine, see Brown , op. cit. (ref. 3), 134–52; Cook , op. cit. (ref. 3), 145–62; and Wear , Knowledge and practice (ref. 91), 353–433.

See, for example, Frank , op. cit. (ref. 3), 165–9, and Dewhurst's prefatory matter to Willis , Casebook (ref. 5), 23–40.

This dating is predicated on the fact that De febribus concluded with an account (“taken the 13^th of September”) of an epidemic fever that struck the Oxford area in ” The beginning of Autumn of 1658”. The Diatribae duae was apparently available by March 1658/9, to judge from correspondence between Robert Wood and Samuel Hartlib. Hartlib , Ephemerides 1656 (ref. 13), HP 33/1/45A.

Hutton Ronald , The Restoration: A political and religious history of England and Wales, 1658–1667 (Oxford, 1985), 21–41; Woolrych Austin , “Historical introduction”, in The complete prose works of John Milton, ed. by Ayers R. W. (London, 1980), vii, 4–26, 58–73.

On the self-fashioning of identities, see the works cited in ref. 15 above. A compelling example of the re-writing one's history can be found in Cunningham Andrew , “Thomas Sydenham: Epidemics, experiment and the ‘Good Old Cause’”, in The medical revolution of the seventeenth century, ed. by French R. Wear A. (Cambridge, 1989), 164–90.

On the complex relations between learned physic, experimental and chemical philosophies and empirical medicine during this time, see the works cited in ref. 91 above.

Willis , De febribus (ref. 84), sigs. H₄*–H₄*v.

Idem, Casebook (ref. 5), 92, 103, 112, 124 bis, 127, 130, 135, 138, 143 and 147.

Idem, De urinis (ref. 54), sig. Z₂v.

Ibid., 45–6. On uroscopy as a diagnostic tool, see Wear , Knowledge and practice (ref. 91), 120–1.

Willis , De febribus (ref. 84), sig. H₄*v. On learned conceptions of health and illness, see Wear , Knowledge and practice (ref. 91), 37–40, 116–19, and Harold Cook, “Good advice and little medicine: The professional authority of early modern English physicians”, Journal of British studies, xxxiii (1994), 1–31.

Willis , De febribus (ref. 84), sig. H₄*.

Ibid.

On traditional conceptions of the origins of fever in distempered blood, see Lonie I. , “Fever pathology in the sixteenth century: Tradition and innovation”, Medical history supplement, i (1981), 19–44. For an excellent account of Willis's De febribus, see Bates Donald , “Willis and the fevers literature of the seventeenth century”, Medical history supplement, i (1981), 1981–70.

Davis Audrey , Circulation physiology and medical chemistry in England 1650–1680 (Lawrence, 1973), 134–41, esp. p. 138.

Wear , Knowledge and practice (ref. 91), 120–1; Record Robert , The vrinal of physick. composed by Mayster Robert Recorde: Doctor of physicke (London, 1548), ff. 11v–12.

Willis , De fermentatione (ref. 83), sig. A₃v.

On the events of 1658–60, see Hutton , The Restoration (ref. 95), 21–118, and especially Woolrych , op. cit. (ref. 95), 1–228.

Willis , Lectures (ref. 5), 12.

Hammond's will is reprinted in Packer , Transformation of Anglicanism (ref. 47), 204–5. On wages at the time, see Sharpe J. A. , Early modern England: A social history 1550–1760, 2nd edn (London, 1997), 207; van Zanden Jan Luiten , Wages and the cost of living in southern England (London) 1450–1700 [http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/dover.xls, accessed 3 June 2009].

Willis , Lectures (ref. 5), 12.

Ibid., 16.