Croune, William

, an eminent physician and benefactor to the science, was born in London, and educated at Emanuel college, Cambridge, where he was admitted a pensioner May 13, 1647, and took the degree of B. A. in 1650. In 1651 he was elected a fellow, and commenced M. A. in 1654. In 1659, being now settled as a physician in London, he was chosen rhetoric professor in Gresham college, and at the first meeting of the royal society, Nov. 28, 1660, was (though absent) appointed their register, whose business was to make minutes of what passed at their meetings. In this office he remained till the grant of their charter, when Dr. Wilkins and Mr. Oldenburg were nominated joint secretaries. On Oct. 7, 162, he was created M. D. at Cambridge, by royal mandate; and in May 1663 was chosen one of the first fellows of the royal society, and frequently afterwards was one of the council. The same year he was admitted a candidate of the college of physicians. In 1665 he travelled into France, and became acquainted with several eminent and learned men of that nation. In August 1670, he was chosen by the company of surgeons their lecturer on anatomy, which he held to his death; but this year he resigned his Gresham professorship, which could be held only by a bachelor, and soon after married Mary, daughter of John Lorimer, of London, esq. In 1674 and 1675 he read his “Theory of Muscular Motion,” in the theatre of Surgeous’-hall, an abstract of which was afterwards published by Mr. Hooke in his “Philosophical Collections.” In July 1675, he was admitted a fellow of the college of physicians, after he had waited for a vacancy upwards of twelve years. He was much esteemed as a physician, and came into great practice in the latter part of his life, on which account the loss of him was much regretted by the citizens of London. He died of a fever Oct. 12, 1684, and was buried in St. Mildred’s church in the Poultry, in a vault belonging to the Lorimer family, with an inscription on black marble, on the pavement in the chancel. His funeral sermon was preached by Dr. John Scott, rector of St. Peter-le-Poor, Broad-street, in which he gives him. a very high character, not only for learning, but those | more amiable attributes of a physician, tenderness and kindness to the poor. He tiled rich, and besides many benevolent legacies, left his medical books to the college of physicians, and his mathematical collection to Emanuel college. His printed works are in the Philosophical Transactions; and many of his Mss. are in the British Museum (see Ayscough’s Cat. under the articles Crone, Croon, and Croun). He printed separately only one tract, “De ratione motus musculorum,” Lond. 1664, 4to Amst. 1667, 12mo, without his name in either edition. He left to Emanuel and six other colleges at Cambridge, a sum of money to found algebra lectures, which took place in 1710. This legacy, although a contingent on the death of his wife, was liberally settled by her in her life-time. He also left a plan of an annual lecture on museular motion before the royal society, which was also carried into execution by Mrs. Croun. The first lecture was read in 1738, by Dr. Alexander Stuart, physician to the queen, and has been continued ever since. These lectures, for a considerable number of years, have been regularly published in the Philosophical Transactions, and have been drawn up by the most eminent physiologists, who were members of the society, and contain a great collection of very curious and important facts, respecting the muscles and their motions. The Crounian lecture is endowed with the protits of a house in Old Fish-street. ¹