Biography of Daniel Whistler -1684

Daniel Whistler -1684 is in Doctors.

Pepy's Diary. 04 Feb 1661. Home, and then with my wife to see Sir W. Batten (age 60), who could not be with us this day being ill, but we found him at cards, and here we sat late, talking with my Lady and others and Dr. Whistler1, who I found good company and a very ingenious man. So home and to bed.

Note 1. Daniel Whistler, M.D., Fellow of Merton College, whose inaugural dissertation on rickets in 1645 contains the earliest printed account of that disease. He was Gresham Professor of Geometry, 1648-57, and held several offices at the College of Physicians, being elected President in 1683. He was one of the original Fellows of the Royal Society. Dr. Munk, in his "Roll of the Royal College of Physicians", speaks very unfavourably of Whistler, and says that he defrauded the college. He died May 11th, 1684.

Pepy's Diary. 13 Jan 1664. So to the Coffee House where extraordinary good discourse of Dr. Whistler's' upon my question concerning the keeping of masts, he arguing against keeping them dry, by showing the nature of corruption in bodies and the several ways thereof.

Pepy's Diary. 19 Sep 1664. Up, my wife and I having a little anger about her woman already, she thinking that I take too much care of her at table to mind her (my wife) of cutting for her, but it soon over, and so up and with Sir W. Batten (age 63) and Sir W. Pen (age 43) to St. James's, and there did our business with the Duke (age 30), and thence homeward straight, calling at the Coffee-house, and there had very good discourse with Sir--Blunt and Dr. Whistler about Egypt and other things.

Pepy's Diary. 05 Oct 1664. And thither anon come all the Gresham College, and a great deal of noble company: and the new instrument was brought called the Arched Viall1, where being tuned with lute-strings, and played on with kees like an organ, a piece of parchment is always kept moving; and the strings, which by the kees are pressed down upon it, are grated in imitation of a bow, by the parchment; and so it is intended to resemble several vyalls played on with one bow, but so basely and harshly, that it will never do. But after three hours' stay it could not be fixed in tune; and so they were fain to go to some other musique of instruments, which I am grown quite out of love with, and so I, after some good discourse with Mr. Spong, Hill, Grant (age 44), and Dr. Whistler, and others by turns, I home to my office and there late, and so home, where I understand my wife has spoke to Jane and ended matters of difference between her and her, and she stays with us, which I am glad of; for her fault is nothing but sleepiness and forgetfulness, otherwise a good-natured, quiet, well-meaning, honest servant, and one that will do as she is bid, so one called upon her and will see her do it.

Note 1. "There seems to be a curious fate reigning over the instruments which have the word 'arch' prefixed to their name. They have no vitality, and somehow or other come to grief. Even the famous archlute, which was still a living thing in the time of Handel, has now disappeared from the concert room and joined Mr. Pepys's 'Arched Viall' in the limbo of things forgotten.... Mr. Pepys's verdict that it would never do... has been fully confirmed by the event, as his predictions usually were, being indeed always founded on calm judgment and close observation". B. (Hueffer's Italian and other Studies, 1883, p. 263).

Pepy's Diary. 15 Feb 1665. Thence with Creed to Gresham College, where I had been by Mr. Povy (age 51) the last week proposed to be admitted a member1 and was this day admitted, by signing a book and being taken by the hand by the President, my Lord Brunkard (age 45), and some words of admittance said to me. But it is a most acceptable thing to hear their discourse, and see their experiments; which were this day upon the nature of fire, and how it goes out in a place where the ayre is not free, and sooner out where the ayre is exhausted, which they showed by an engine on purpose. After this being done, they to the Crowne Taverne, behind the 'Change [Map], and there my Lord and most of the company to a club supper; Sir P. Neale (age 52), Sir R. Murrey, Dr. Clerke, Dr. Whistler, Dr. Goddard, and others of most eminent worth. Above all, Mr. Boyle (age 38) to-day was at the meeting, and above him Mr. Hooke (age 29), who is the most, and promises the least, of any man in the world that ever I saw. Here excellent discourse till ten at night, and then home, and to Sir W. Batten's (age 64), where I hear that Sir Thos. Harvy intends to put Mr. Turner out of his house and come in himself, which will be very hard to them, and though I love him not, yet for his family's sake I pity him. So home and to bed.

Note 1. According to the minutes of the Royal Society for February 15th, 1664-65, "Mr. Pepys was unanimously elected and admitted". Notes of the experiments shown by Hooke and Boyle are given in Birch's "History of the Royal Society", vol. ii., p. 15.

Pepy's Diary. 11 Jan 1666. Up and to the office. By and by to the Custome House to the Farmers, there with a letter of Sir G. Carteret's (age 56) for £3000, which they ordered to be paid me. So away back again to the office, and at noon to dinner all of us by invitation to Sir W. Pen's (age 44), and much other company. Among others, Lieutenant of the Tower (age 51), and Broome, his poet, and Dr. Whistler, and his (Sir W. Pen's) son-in-law Lowder (age 25), servant [lover] to Mrs. Margaret Pen, and Sir Edward Spragg (age 46), a merry man, that sang a pleasant song pleasantly. Rose from table before half dined, and with Mr. Mountney of the Custome House to the East India House, and there delivered to him tallys for £3000 and received a note for the money on Sir R. Viner (age 35).

Pepy's Diary. 29 Jan 1666. He set me down at Mr. Gawden's, where nobody yet come home, I having left him and his sons and Creed at Court, so I took a book and into the gardens, and there walked and read till darke with great pleasure, and then in and in comes Osborne, and he and I to talk of Mr. Jaggard, who comes from London, and great hopes there is of a decrease this week also of the plague. Anon comes in Creed, and after that Mr. Gawden and his sons, and then they bringing in three ladies, who were in the house, but I do not know them, his daughter and two nieces, daughters of Dr. Whistler's, with whom and Creed mighty sport at supper, the ladies very pretty and mirthfull. I perceive they know Creed's gut and stomach as well as I, and made as much mirthe as I with it at supper.

Pepy's Diary. 03 Jul 1666. So with my heart full of content to bed. Newes come yesterday from Harwich, Essex [Map], that the Dutch had appeared upon our coast with their fleete, and we believe did go to the Gun-fleete, and they are supposed to be there now; but I have heard nothing of them to-day. Yesterday Dr. Whistler, at Sir W. Pen's (age 45), told me that Alexander Broome, a the great song-maker, is lately dead.

Pepy's Diary. 16 Nov 1666. At noon to the 'Change [Map], and thence back to the new taverne come by us; the Three Tuns [Map], where D. Gawden did feast us all with a chine of beef and other good things, and an infinite dish of fowl, but all spoiled in the dressing. This noon I met with Mr. Hooke (age 31), and he tells me the dog which was filled with another dog's blood, at the College the other day, is very well, and like to be so as ever, and doubts not its being found of great use to men; and so do Dr. Whistler, who dined with us at the taverne.

Pepy's Diary. 21 Nov 1667. From this we fell to other discourse, and very good; among the rest they discourse of a man that is a little frantic, that hath been a kind of minister, Dr. Wilkins (age 53) saying that he hath read for him in his church, that is poor and a debauched man, that the College' have hired for 20s. to have some of the blood of a sheep let into his body; and it is to be done on Saturday next1. They purpose to let in about twelve ounces; which, they compute, is what will be let in in a minute's time by a watch. They differ in the opinion they have of the effects of it; some think it may have a good effect upon him as a frantic man by cooling his blood, others that it will not have any effect at all. But the man is a healthy man, and by this means will be able to give an account what alteration, if any, he do find in himself, and so may be usefull. On this occasion, Dr. Whistler told a pretty story related by Muffet, a good author, of Dr. Caius, that built Keys College; that, being very old, and living only at that time upon woman's milk, he, while he fed upon the milk of an angry, fretful woman, was so himself; and then, being advised to take it of a good-natured, patient woman, he did become so, beyond the common temper of his age. Thus much nutriment, they observed, might do. Their discourse was very fine; and if I should be put out of my office, I do take great content in the liberty I shall be at of frequenting these gentlemen's company. Broke up thence and home, and there to my wife in her chamber, who is not well (of those), and there she tells me great stories of the gossiping women of the parish-what this, and what that woman was; and, among the rest, how Mrs. Hollworthy is the veriest confident bragging gossip of them all, which I should not have believed; but that Sir R. Brookes (age 30), her partner, was mighty civil to her, and taken with her, and what not. My eyes being bad I spent the evening with her in her chamber talking and inventing a cypher to put on a piece of plate, which I must give, better than ordinary, to the Parson's child, and so to bed, and through my wife's illness had a bad night of it, and she a worse, poor wretch!

Note 1. This was Arthur Coga, who had studied at Cambridge, and was said to be a bachelor of divinity. He was indigent, and "looked upon as a very freakish and extravagant man". Dr. King, in a letter to the Hon. Robert Boyle (age 40), remarks "that Mr. Coga was about thirty-two years of age; that he spoke Latin well, when he was in company, which he liked, but that his brain was sometimes a little too warm". The experiment was performed on November 23rd, 1667, by Dr. King, at Arundel House, in the presence of many spectators of quality, and four or five physicians. Coga wrote a description of his own case in Latin, and when asked why he had not the blood of some other creature, instead of that of a sheep, transfused into him, answered, "Sanguis ovis symbolicam quandam facultatem habet cum sanguine Christi, quia Christus est agnus Dei" [Note. "Sheep's blood has some symbolic power, like the blood of Christ, for Christ is the Lamb of God."] (Birch's "History of the Royal Society", vol. ii., pp. 214-16). Coga was the first person in England to be experimented upon; previous experiments were made by the transfusion of the blood of one dog into another. See November 14th, 1666 (vol. vi., p. 64).

Pepy's Diary. 21 Nov 1667. Up, and to the office, where all the morning, and at noon home, where my wife not very well, but is to go to Mr. Mills's child's christening, where she is godmother, Sir J. Minnes (age 68) and Sir R. Brookes (age 30) her companions. I left her after dinner (my clerks dining with me) to go with Sir J. Minnes, and I to the office, where did much business till after candlelight, and then my eyes beginning to fail me, I out and took coach to Arundell House [Map], where the meeting of Gresham College was broke up; but there meeting Creed, I with him to the taverne in St. Clement's Churchyard, where was Deane Wilkins (age 53), Dr. Whistler, Dr. Floyd (age 40), a divine admitted, I perceive, this day, and other brave men; and there, among other things of news, I do hear, that upon the reading of the House of Commons's Reasons of the manner of their proceedings in the business of my Chancellor (age 58), the Reasons were so bad, that my Lord Bristoll (age 55) himself did declare that he would not stand to what he had, and did still, advise the Lords to concur to, upon any of the Reasons of the House of Commons; but if it was put to the question whether it should be done on their Reasons, he would be against them; and indeed it seems the Reasons-however they come to escape the House of Commons, which shews how slightly the greatest matters are done in this world, and even in Parliaments were none of them of strength, but the principle of them untrue; they saying, that where any man is brought before a judge, accused of Treason in general, without specifying the particular, the judge do there constantly and is obliged to commit him. Whereas the question being put by the Lords to my Lord Keeper, he said that quite the contrary was true: and then, in the Sixth Article (I will get a copy of them if I can) there are two or three things strangely asserted to the diminishing of the King's power, as is said, at least things that heretofore would not have been heard of. But then the question being put among the Lords, as my Lord Bristoll advised, whether, upon the whole matter and Reasons that had been laid before them, they would commit my Lord Clarendon, it was carried five to one against it; there being but three Bishops against him, of whom Cosens (age 72) and Dr. Reynolds were two, and I know not the third. This made the opposite Lords, as Bristoll and Buckingham (age 39), so mad, that they declared and protested against it, speaking very broad that there was mutiny and rebellion in the hearts of the Lords, and that they desired they might enter their dissents, which they did do, in great fury.

Pepy's Diary. 12 Mar 1668. Up, and to the office, where all the morning, at noon home, and after dinner with wife and Deb., carried them to Unthanke's, and I to Westminster Hall [Map] expecting our being with the Committee this afternoon about Victualling business, but once more waited in vain. So after a turn or two with Lord Brouncker (age 48), I took my wife up and left her at the 'Change [Map] while I to Gresham College, there to shew myself; and was there greeted by Dr. Wilkins (age 54), Whistler, and others, as the patron of the Navy Office, and one that got great fame by my late speech to the Parliament. Here I saw a great trial of the goodness of a burning glass, made of a new figure, not spherical (by one Smithys, I think, they call him), that did burn a glove of my Lord Brouncker's from the heat of a very little fire, which a burning glass of the old form, or much bigger, could not do, which was mighty pretty. Here I heard Sir Robert Southwell (age 32) give an account of some things committed to him by the Society at his going to Portugall, which he did deliver in a mighty handsome manner1. Thence went away home, and there at my office as long as my eyes would endure, and then home to supper, and to talk with Mr. Pelling, who tells me what a fame I have in the City for my late performance; and upon the whole I bless God for it. I think I have, if I can keep it, done myself a great deal of repute. So by and by to bed.

Note 1. At the meeting of the Royal Society on March 12th, 1668, "Mr. Smethwick's glasses were tried again; and his telescope being compared with another longer telescope, and the object-glasses exchanged, was still found to exceed the other in goodness; and his burning concave being compared with a spherical burning-glass of almost twice the diameter, and held to the fire, it burnt gloves, whereas the other spherical ones would not burn at all".-"Sir Robert Southwell being lately returned from Portugal, where he had been ambassador from the King (age 37), and being desired to acquaint the society with what he had done with respect to the instructions, which he had received from them before his departure from England, related, that he had lodged the astronomical quadrant, which the society had sent to Portugal to make observations with there, with a body of men at Lisbon, who had applied themselves among other kinds of literature to mathematics" (Birch's "History of the Royal Society", vol. ii., p. 256).

Evelyn's Diary. 29 Jan 1683. Supped at Sir Joseph Williamson's (age 49), where was a select company of our Society, Sir William Petty (age 59), Dr. Gale (age 48) (that learned schoolmaster of St. Paul's), Dr. Whistler, Mr. Hill, etc. The conversation was philosophical and cheerful, on divers considerable questions proposed; as of the hereditary succession of the Roman Emperors; the Pica mentioned in the preface to our Common Prayer, which signifies only the Greek Kalendarium. These were mixed with lighter subjects.

Evelyn's Diary. 20 Mar 1683. Dined at Dr. Whistler's, at the Physicians' College, with Sir Thomas Millington (age 55), both learned men; Dr. W. the most facetious man in nature, and now Censor of the college. I was here consulted where they should build their library; it is a pity this college is built so near Newgate Prison [Map], and in so obscure a hole, a fault in placing most of our public buildings and churches in the city, through the avarice of some few men, and his Majesty (age 52) not overruling it, when it was in his power after the dreadful conflagration.

On 11 May 1684 Daniel Whistler died.

Daniel Whistler was born at Walthamstow, Essex [Map].