LIBRARIAN AT BART’S HOSPITAL

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 234, 1 July 1939, Page 6 (Supplement)

LIBRARIAN AT BART’S HOSPITAL

Curious And Historic Volumes

Mr. A. 11. Coughtrey, who joined St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1895, is retiring from the position of librarian after 44 years’ service. During that time he has sat on the .small, raised rostrum in the library, giving out books to generations of students. Most of the volumes in the library are text books, but a few of the older ones are as much for the collector of curiosities as for the student.

For instance, in 1653 there was issued “The Complete Herbal,” written by Nicholas Culpeper, who explained in his introduction that: —

You may oppose diseases by herbs of the planet, opposite to the planet that causes them: as diseases by Jupiter by herbs of Mercury, and the contrary: diseases of the Luminaries by herbs of Saturn, and the contrary: diseases of Mars by herbs of Venus, and the contrary. Culpeper warned bis readers against artichokes, for “They are under the dominion of Venus, and therefore it is no marvel that they provoke lust, as indeed they do, being somewhat windy meat.

In his "medicinal aphorisms and receipts for any diseases our frail natures are incident to” he advocated the following cure “for eyes that are blasted” :—

Take of fennel, eyebright, roses, celandine, vervain and rue, of each a handful, the liver of a ghoate chopt small, infuse them well In an alembic, and you shall have a water that will clear the sight beyond comparison. Equally curious is “The Englishman’s Treasure,” which was brought out in 1641. Like Culpeper’s work, it has a number of "aphorisms and receipts.” “To make haire grow” the author advises us to

Take and seeth mallowes, rootes and all, and wash the place where the halve lacketh, and it shall grow. A grim drink is advocated "for the Collicke and stone”:—

Take half a pint of white wine, and a good quantity of white sope. Scrape it, and put it into the white wine and make it luke warm, and drinke it once, twice, and thrice as the patient needs. But perhaps the most interesting volume in the hospital is the Cartulary, or Charter Book. A book of this kind was made for every corporate body in medieval times, and contains “a record of all rents due to the hospital, of the lands whence they were paid, and of all the deeds of gift and other charters relating to those lands, as well as of the papal bulls and Royal charters granting or confirming the property and privileges of the hospital.”

The volume is a large folio of 636 vellum leaves, It was compiled and written by Brother John Cok, who began his labours at Easter, 1456, at the age of 64, and laid down his pen, as he himself says, “in the evening of his life,” in 1468. He was born in 1392, and was apprenticed early in the reign of Henry V to Thomas Lamporte, a goldsmith. He records iu the Cartulary that on April 9, 1413, “which was Passion Sunday and a very rainy day,” he witnessed the Coronation of Henry V at Westminster. After spending a few years at his craft he was employed in 1418 as a scribe by Robert Newton, a former master of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. In 1421 he became a brother of this foundation, and here he worked for the remainder of his life. He was Renter of the hospital at the time.when he was writing the Cartulary. The book contains two elaborately illuminated capitals, one of which contains a portrait of Brother John Cok. He is represented as an elderly man iu a red gown and a black cap, the livery of the trade to which he had formerly belonged. He is kneeling before a cross supported by’ three angels, and at the foot of the cross appear his arms—gable between three coks, a chevron argent bearing an annulet for difference.

The pleasure with which he laboured at the writing of the Cartulary is expressed in the numerous capital letters with which he ornamented the margins of his pages. These are carefully drawn according to the dictates of bis fancy, and represent all manner of curious animals and conventionalised heads and figures. Mr. Coughtrey has seen a great many changes in Bart’s since he became librarian 44 years ago, but he does not seem to think that the students have greatly altered, except in dress. “The practical and comfortable dress of today leads to a comparison with that worn in the hospital 40 years ago. Members of the senior medical staff invariably dressed in black frock coat and silk hat. Indeed, it was the sine qua non of the medical man. but in tbe hospital was not confined to him by any means. “It used to be an interesting daily spectacle when each of the senior staff arrived in carriage and pair in the hospital square, and at 1.30 precisely, with his house man, headed a procession of students into his ward. On at least one or two occasions Mr. (later Sir Henry) Baffin drove in with a four-in-hand, and the smart equipage immediately became the cynosure of all eyes in the hospital.”