"Riding is certainly the most manly, the most healthy, and the least laborious and expensive of Spirits of any[exercise]; shaking the whole Machine, promoting an universal Persiration and Secretion of all the Fluids...and thereby, twitching the nervous Fibres, to brace and contract them, as... new Scenes amuse the Mind."
"George Cheyne was a Newtonian physician and Behmenist, deeply immersed in mysticism".
He was born in 1672 in Methlick, near Aberdeen in
Scotland, he was baptized in Mains of Kelly, Methlick, Aberdeenshire, on 24
February 1673.
Margaret Middleton married George Cheyne, son of James Cheyne and Marie Maitland, in about 1705.
They had three surviving children, Francis, who was baptized on 23 August 1713 at St Michael's parish in Bath, Peggy (Margaret), and John, possibly born in 1717. John became vicar of Brigstock in Northamptonshire
His clients included Alexander Pope, John Gay, Samuel
Richardson and the Goldsmith and Banker George Middlton who is also buried at Weston. (see my previous post)
"Cheyne did not believe that the present state of things is
"from all Eternity". Using the metaphor of "a Piece of
Clock-work",[5] he argues that when a thing depends upon another thing as
its cause, this implies that “the first thing exists that the second may
exist”. He adds: "remove the sun and there will be no fruit, take away the
moon and the seas would stagnate, destroy our Atmosphere and we should swell
like poison´d Rats". Therefore, it is absolutely impossible, according
to Cheyne, that “any of the Species of Animals or Vegetables should have
existed from all Eternity”.
Cheyne also wrote on fevers, nervous disorders, and hygiene.
In 1740 he wrote The Essay on Regimen and this work is often quoted by
vegetarians and animal rights activists, particularly the following passage:
"To see the convulsions, agonies and tortures of a poor
fellow-creature, whom they cannot restore nor recompense, dying to gratify
luxury and tickle callous and rank organs, must require a rocky heart, and a
great degree of cruelty and ferocity. I cannot find any great difference
between feeding on human flesh and feeding on animal flesh, except custom and
practice"
George Cheyne M.D. aged 59.
1732
from a painting by van Diest
Mezzotint John Faber.
......................
George Cheyne MD and Bath.
In the spring of 1706 Cheyne travelled to Bath to continue his cure with a course of the waters. The waters worked only too well, for he found himself again slipping into his old bad habits of excess.
Exchanging Bath water for Bristol water helped, but on his next return to Bath in the spring of 1707 he heard of a "wonderful Cure" administered by another self medicating doctor, a Dr. Taylor of Croydon, who had cured himself in an Epileptick Case" by a milk diet. In the winter of 1707—8 he visited Taylor at Croydon and became a convert to his dietary therapy.
He ate abstemiously and exercised regularly, usually by riding. Cheyne's resolutions, however, were characteristically short-lived, and his health and weight for the next decade seesawed back and forth with depressing regularity"
Cheyne nonetheless found in Bath a place where he could remake himself and, at last, build a medical practice. He followed the increasingly popular migration to Bath in the summer and back to London in the winter for the next dozen years, finally settling in Bath in 1718.
Keith wrote of him in that year, "Dr. Ch. is indeed extreamly fat but yet has pretty good health. He writes that he has for ever bid an adieu to London." During this period, Cheyne wrote, "1 followed the Business of my Profession, with great Diligence and Attention," and he began to specialize in the "low and nervous Cases" with Which he had gained close familiarity from his own sufferings."
From 1705—6, Cheyne lived quietly for a decade, assiduously avoiding controversy.
He settled into family life with his marriage to Margaret Middleton, daughter of a nonjuring Scottish Episcopalian clergyman, Patrick Middleton (1662—1736).
Middleton was related to George Middleton (1645—1726), principal of King's College, Aberdeen, from 1684 to 1717, when he was removed for Jacobitism. The Aberdeen Middletons were also related to the Gardens, whose mother was Isobel Middleton; George Middleton was probably their first cousin.
Margaret Middleton migrated to England with her brother John, a physician who settled in Bristol.
Another brother, George, was a London goldsmith. The Cheynes had three surviving children: two daughters, Frances and Margaret (known as Peggy), and the youngest, a son, John, born about 1717."
Although Oliver was his usual physician at Bath, (Alexander) Pope consulted Cheyne in the 1730s and was an ardent admirer. Chronically poor health, Pope followed a Cheynean regimen of little wine, few suppers,and much mineral water. He recommended the doctor to others, writing of him, "there lives not an Honester Man, nor a Truer Philosopher."" He often asked his Bath friend Ralph Allen to convey his "Religious Respects" to Cheyne, describing him in 1739 as "yet so very a child in true Simplicity of Heart," comparing him to Don Quixote?'
From around 1728, although still a big man, he no longer suffered from extreme obesity or the depression that accompanied it. The 1730s were a time of health, happiness and prosperity for Cheyne. He and his family including son John and daughters Frances and Peggy, lived in a grand new house in Monmouth Street adjacent to the Globe Inn, a new street just outside Bath's old west gate.
In the 1730s Monmouth Street was an expensive address near John Wood's contemporary development in Queen's Square. The Churchwarden's Accounts Book of Walcot Parish, in Bath City Archive, records Cheyne as a parish resident in 1735 and at Monmouth Street from 1737 when he paid a rate of ten shillings; by 1738 it was two pounds and in 1742 one pound and twelve shillings.
see Walter Ison, The Georgian Buildings of Bath: 1700-1830 (London: Faber and Faber, 1948), 33.
17 Daily Advertiser, November and December 1743 (nos. 4010—23).
Cheyne's house was demolished having been damaged or destroyed by bombing in World War Il.
In 1739 Pope wrote -The Correspondence of Alexander Pope, ed. G.Sherburn. 5v. (Oxford, 1956)), v.4, p.206, Pope to Hugh Bethel, Bath, 27 Nov 1739.
" I was forced hither & to Bristol on account of a Complaint I formerly mentiond to you. I believethe Bristol waters at the Hot Well would be serviceable, could I stay long enough, for they are apparently softer & as warm as New Milk, there, & known to be excellent in all Inflammatory Cases.
But the Rigor of the Season & the Want of all Conveniencies to guard against it, of Coaches, chairs,& even warm Lodging, is too great to bear without hazard of Colds &c., which would do me, ev’n in this Complaint, more harm than I could expect benefit. I have therfore after a Fortnights tryal returnd to Bath where Dr Oliver & Cheyne advise me to mix Bristol water with a small quantity of Bath at the Pump, & with some other Medicines, which Dr Mead prescribed me to add".
***Alexander Pope – see no.32. William Oliver, 1695-1764,
physician to Bath General Hospital 1740-61, wrote on gout and other cases –
see also nos.47, 56, 57, 64, 65, 72, 73, 75. George Cheyne – see no.22. Richard Mead – see no.28.
Obesity and depression in the enlightenment : the life and times of George Cheyne by Anita Guerrini, University of Oklahoma Press. 2000.
Partially available on line at -
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