Richard Lower

the late eminent Physitian, was born of a gentile family at Tremere near Blissland and Bodmin in Cornwal, elected from the College School at Westminster a Student of Ch. Ch. an. 1649, aged 18 years or thereabouts, took the degrees in Arts, that of Master being compleated in 1655, entred upon the Physick Line, and practised that Faculty under Dr. Tho. Willis, whom he helped, or rather instructed, in some parts of Anatomy, especially when he was meditating his book De Cerebro, as I have elsewhere told you. In Apr. 1664, he, in his travels with the said Doctor to visit Patients, made a discovery of the medicinal water at East Throp commonly Astrop near Kings-Sutton in Northamptonshire, the Doctor being then, as usually, asleep or in a sleepy condition on horsback. Afterwards, our author Lower imparting his discovery to the Doctor, they in their return, or when they went that way again, made experiments of it, and thereupon understanding the virtue thereof, the Doctor commended the drinking of it to his Patients. Soon after the water was contracted into a Well, and upon the said commendations, ’twas yearly, as to this time it is, frequented by all sorts of people. In 1665 our author Lower took the degrees in Physick, practised the transfusion of blood from one Animal into another, and as if he had been the first discoverer, took the invention of it to himself in his book De Corde, but mistaken, as I have told you elsewhere. See my discourse of Franc. Potter, under the year 1678. p. 454. However the members of the Royal Society took the hint from his practice and made experiments of it in the year following. In 1666 he followed Dr. Willis to the great City, and setling at first in Hatton Garden, practised under him and became Fellow of the said Society. Afterwards, growing famous, he removed to Salisbury Court near Fleetstreet, and thence to Bowstreet, and afterwards to Kingstreet near Covent Garden; where being much resorted to for his succesful practice, especially after the death of Dr. Willis, an. 1675, he was esteemed the most noted Physitian in Westminster and London, and no mans name was more cried up at Court than his, he being then also Fellow of the Coll. of Physitians. At length upon the breaking out of the Popish Plot in 1678. (about which time he left the Royal Society, and thereupon their experiments did in some manner decay) he closed with the Whiggs, supposing that party would carry all before them: But being mistaken, he thereby lost much of his Practice at and near the Court, and so consequently his Credit. At that time a certain Physitian named Tho. Short a R. C. struck in, carried all before him there, and got riches as he pleased; but he dying in the latter end of Sept. 1685, most of his Practice devolved on Dr. Joh. Radcliffe. The works of Dr. Lower are these

Diatribae Thomae Willisii Med. Doct. & Profess. Oxon de Febribus vindicatio, contra Edm. de Meara. Lond. 1665 oct. Amstel. 1666. in tw. An account of this book you may see in the Philos. Transactions, num. 4. p. 77.

Letter concerning the present state of Physick, and the regulation of the practice of it in this Kingdom, by way of Letter to a Doct. of Phys. Lond. 1665.

Tractatus de corde; item de motu & colore sanguinis & chyli in eum transitu. Lond. 1669, 70. oct. &c. ibid. 1680. oct. fourth edit. Amstel. 1669. 71. oct. An account also of this book you may see in the said Transactions, num. 45. p. 909. &c. num. 73. p. 2211.

Dissertatio de origine catarrhi & de venae sectione. This was printed at first with the book De Corde, and afterwards by it self—Lond. 1672. oct. An account also of it, is in the said Transactions. This learned Doctor Lower died in his house in Kingstreet near Covent Garden, on Saturday the 17. day of January in sixteen hundred and ninety;169 [•] /1. whereupon his body being conveyed to St. Tudy near Bodmin in Cornwall, (where some years before he had purchased an Estate) was buried in a vault under part of the south side of the Church there. By his last Will and Test. he gave (as it was then said) a 1000 l. to St. Bartholomews Hospital in London, 500 l. to the French Protestant Refuges, 500 l. to the Irish Prot. Refuges, 50 l. to the poor of the Parish of S. Paul in Cov. Garden, 40 l. to the poor of two Parishes in Cornwall where he had land, &c. He then left behind him two daughters, one called Loveday, the other Philippa, both then unmarried. Sir Will. Lower the Poet was of the same family and born also at Tremere, but when he died his Estate did not go either to the Father or Brethren of the Doctor, which was then much regretted by the Family.