Kansas agitator. [volume] (Garnett, Kan.) 1890-1905, 1899-01-06

The work of the 126th session of
the London Medical society, says the
London Telegraph, was begun on Mon
day evening at the rooms Of the So
ciety, In Chandos street, by a short
Introductory address from the presi-
dent. Edmund Owen, surgeon to St.
Mary's hospital, who remarked that
among the many treasures Of their
library were fifteen volumes of manu-
script which formed the diary or COM
monplace book Of the Rev. John Ward,
M. A., Oxon, who was vicar of STRAIT
ford-on-Avon from 1862 to 1851. Hav-
ing taken his M. A. degree in 1852,
Ward left Oxford for London to study
anatomy at the Barber-Chyrurgeons'
hall in Monkwell street (where DR..
Scarborough, the friend of Harvey,
was giving demonstrations), and to
acquire general knowledge Of the
healing art. Not very many years
ago 1t was quite usual for the pro-
fessions Of divinity and medicine to
be combined in the one individual, and
1t was to be admitted that the custom
still fingered in the persons Of certain
Wears and vicaresses, who were I'M
able to keep themselves from dabbling
In parochial medicine and quack rem
edies. Not few country villages still
contain such unorthodox practitioners,
who dispensed medical advice, to the
peril of their too-confiding parishion-
ers and often to the annoyance Of the
local doctor. But the Rev. John Ward
was not an empiric of this sort. He
had worked diligently to acquire a
knowledge Of the medical profession,
and was doubtless well fitted to prac-
tice 1t under the license which he
probably received from his bishop at
the time that he entered upon his
clerical duties. In his diary Ward ask
ed himself specially to remember that
he must "studie such diseases as are
peculiar to women and also to chill
dren, so as to be ready at them when
I come into the country" He EVIL
IDENTIFY meant to be a good, all-round
man. But the point to which Mr..
Owen specially referred was that on
taking up his work in Stratford-on-
Avon in the 46th year after Shakes
peare's death, Ward must, both as
vicar and doctor, have been told Of
many facts concerning the bard by
those who had been intimately &C.
Quainted with him. Unfortunately he
did not record much about him In
those memorandum books; what he
did say had been seized upon by the
Industrious NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. and
duly recorded in his Life of Shakes
peare." This was one of the extracts
and, coming as it did from a highly
educated man, who had lived in the
village of the Shakespeares, it was
of undoubted biographical value: 81
have heard that Mr.. Shakespeare was
a natural wit, without any art at all;
he frequented the plays all his younger
time, but in his elder days lived at
Stratford and supplied the stage with
two plays every year, and for that
had an allowance so large that he
spent at the rate Of $1,000 a year"-
which in those times was a very con-
siderable amount, corresponding, per-
haps to $4,000 or $4,000 of today.
extract ran as follows:
Shakespeare, Drayton and Ben John
son had a merry meeting. and, 1t
seems, drank too hard, for Shakes
peare died of Favour there contract
ed" In those times, said Mr.. Owen,
It was customary to call obscure dis
eases "feavours," just as they were
now called "influenzas" or "neuroses,"
but whatever the actual cause OF
death might have been
It was evident that local tradition as
cribed it, rightly or wrongly, to the
effects Of that merry meeting" And
doubtless 1t was merry meeting"
One had only to think of those three
CHEEKY friends together, Shakespeare,
Ben Jonson and Drayton, to be as
'ured that 1t was. A pity, however,
hat Ward, unperceived, could not
ave been there with his notebook.