# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Case, John (fl.1680-1700)

​CASE, JOHN (fl. 1680–1700), astrologer, was born about 1660 at Lyme Regis in Dorsetshire. We first hear of him as the author of ‘The Wards of the Key to Helmont proved unfit for the Lock, or the Principles of Mr. Wm. Bacon examined and refuted’ (London, 1682). In this he tells us that he has just attained his majority. The work is a protest against the theory in William Bacon's ‘Key to Helmont’ that water is the principle of all bodies, and prefixed thereto is a recommendatory epistle by John Partridge, the astrologer. At this time Case lived in Lambeth, and had not as yet adopted the style of M.D. His friendship with Partridge is noted by Swift (Works, iv. 120) in his account of the death of that astrologer, a passage on which John Nichols has made an interesting commentary. Case's best work (which in noticed by Haller) was his ‘Compendium Anatomicum nova methodo institutum,’ which, appearing in 1695, first made him a well-known character. It appeared again the following year in Amsterdam, and consists of a masterly defence of the opinion of Harvey and De Graaf upon the generation of animals ab ovo, in the same manner as birds. Indeed, it is so superior to his other works that Chalmers expresses some doubt as to whether he really wrote it. He followed this immediately with his ‘Ars Anatomica breviter elucidata’ (London, 1695), and in the following year with ‘Flos Ævi, or Cœlestial Observations’ (London, 1696). By this time he had placed the letters M.D. after his name, and was living close to Ludgate, having succeeded to the business of Salford, who had succeeded to that of William Lilly; by this means he was in possession of all the magical apparatus of these two noted astrologers. Especially he rejoiced in the darkened room and mystic apparatus by which Lilly had been wont to show people visions of their departed friends, which apparatus Case used to exhibit and ridicule to his friends in ‘melting moments.’ Over his door he had erased the signs of Lilly and Salford, and had inscribed the verse—
    Within this place
    lives Doctor Case,
and Addison tells us in the ‘Tatler’ (No. 240) that Case made more money by this distich than Dryden made by all his poetical works put together; round his pill-boxes also he used to inscribe—
    Here's fourteen pills for thirteen pence;
    Enough in any man's own conscience.
He was ridiculed again by Addison in the 216th ‘Tatler,’ and it is ‘Doctor Case’ who, in Pope's poem, is summoned to attend John Dennis in his ‘phrenzy.’
In 1697 Case published ‘The Angelical Guide, shewing men and women their lott or chance in this elementary life in IV books.’ This work, which was dedicated to his friend, John Tyson, the author of ‘The Way to Long Life, Health, and Happiness,’ Granger considered to have been ‘one of the most profound astrological pieces that the world ever saw.’ The only other serious work which we have of John Case's is ‘Ἐξηγητὴς Ἰατρικός; or the Medical Expositor in an Alphabetical Order in Latine, Greek, and English’ (London, 1698). John Case is the original of the story which is thus told by Granger (who heard it from the Rev. Mr. Gosling): ‘Dr. Maundy, formerly of Canterbury, told me that in his travels abroad some eminent physician who had been in England gave him a token to spend on his return with Dr. Radcliffe and Dr. Case. They fixed on an evening and were very merry, when Dr. Radcliffe thus began a ​ health: "Here's to all the fools, your patients, brother Case;" "I thank you, good brother," replied Case; "let me have all the fools, and you are heartily welcome to the rest of the practice."'
E. H.-A.