WHITEHAVEN

WHITEHAVEN, a sea-port town of Cumberland, with a market on Thursdays, and one fair on August 1st for merchandise and toys. It is seated on a creek of the sea, on the north end of a great berg or hill, washed by the tide of flood on the west side, where there is a large rock or quarry of hard white stone, which gives name to the place, and which, with the help of a strong stone-wall, secures the harbour, into which small barks may enter. It is lately much improved in its buildings, and noted for its trade in pit-coal and salt, there being near it a prodigious coal-mine, which runs a considerable way under the sea. They have a custom-house here; and they carry on a good trade to Ireland, Scotland, Chester, Bristol, and other parts. It is 10 miles south-west of Cockermouth, and 289 north-west of London. W. Long. 3. 6. N. Lat. 54. 30.

Whytt. the opportunities of information which he had enjoyed, and by all the discernment which he was capable of exerting, they were justly considered as his most finished production.

For a period of more than twenty years, during which he was justly held in the highest esteem as a lecturer at Edinburgh, it may readily be supposed that the extent of his practice corresponded to his reputation. In fact, he received both the first emoluments, and the highest honours, which could here be obtained. With extensive practice in Edinburgh, he had numerous consultations from other places. His opinion on medical subjects was daily requested by his most eminent contemporaries in every part of Britain. Foreigners of the first distinction, and celebrated physicians in the most remote parts of the British empire, courted an intercourse with him by letter. Besides private testimonies of esteem, many public marks of honour were conferred upon him both at home and abroad. In 1752, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London; in 1761, he was appointed first physician to the king in Scotland; and in 1764, he was chosen president of the Royal College of Physicians at Edinburgh.

But the fame which Dr Whytt acquired as a practitioner and teacher of medicine, were not a little increased by the information which he communicated to the medical world in different publications. His celebrity as an author was still more extensive than his reputation as a professor.

His first publication, An Essay on the Vital and other Involuntary Motions of Animals, although it had been begun soon after he had finished his academical course of medical education, did not come from the press till 1751; a period of fifteen years from the time that he had finished his academical course, and obtained a degree in medicine: but the delay of this publication was fully compensated by the matter which it contained, and the improved form under which it appeared.

The next subject which employed the pen of Dr Whytt was one of a nature more immediately practical. His Essay on the Virtues of Lime-water and Soda in the Cure of the Stone, first made its appearance in a separate volume in 1752. Part of this second work had appeared several years before in the Edinburgh Medical Essays: but it was now presented to the world as a distinct publication with many improvements and additions.

His third work, intitled Physiological Essays, was first published in the year 1755. This treatise consisted of two parts; 1st, An Inquiry into the Causes which promote the Circulation of the Fluids in the very small Vessels of Animals; and 2dly, Observations on the Sensibility and Irritability of the Parts of Men and other Animals, occasioned by Dr Haller's treatise on that subject. The former of these may be considered as an extension and farther illustration of the sentiments which he had already delivered in his Essay on the Vital Motions, while the latter was on a subject of a controversial nature. In both he displayed that acuteness of genius and strength of judgment which appeared in his former writings.

From the time at which his Physiological Essays were published, several years were probably employed by our author in preparing for the press a larger and perhaps a more important work than any yet mentioned, his Observations on the Nature, Causes, and Cure of those Disorders which are commonly called nervous, hypochondriac, and hysterical. This elaborate and useful work was published in the year 1764.

The last of Dr Whytt's writings is intitled, Observations on the Dropsy in the Brain. This treatise did not appear till two years after his death; when all his other works were collected and published in one quarto volume, under

the direction of his son and of his intimate friend the late Sir John Pringle.

Besides these five works, he wrote many other papers, which appeared in different periodical publications; particularly in the Philosophical Transactions, the Medical Essays, the Medical Observations, and the Physical and Literary Essays.

At an early period of life, soon after he had settled as a medical practitioner in Edinburgh, he entered into the married state. His first wife was Miss Robertson, sister to General Robertson governor of New York. By her he had two children; both of whom died in early infancy, and their mother did not long survive them. A few years after the death of his first wife, he married as a second wife Miss Balfour, sister to James Balfour, Esq; of Pirrig. By her he had fourteen children; but in these also he was in some respects unfortunate; for six of them only survived him, three sons and three daughters, and of the former two are since dead. Although the feeling heart of Dr Whytt, amidst the distresses of his family, must have often suffered that uneasiness and anxiety which in such circumstances is the unavoidable consequence of parental affection and conjugal love; yet he enjoyed a large share of matrimonial felicity. But his course of happiness was terminated by the death of his wife, which happened in the year 1764; and it is not improbable that this event had some share in hastening his own death; for in the beginning of the year 1765 his health was so far impaired, that he became incapable of his former exertions. A tedious complication of chronic ailments, which chiefly appeared under the form of diabetes, was not to be resisted by all the medical skill which Edinburgh could afford; and at length terminated in death, on the 13th of April 1766, in the 52d year of his age.