Cromwell Mortimer, F. R. S

Apart from the accounts of his life given in standard works of reference such as Munk and the D.N.B., the career of Cromwell Mortimer, second son of John Mortimer, appears to have attracted but little attention. The following notes deal with what are, perhaps, the less familiar aspects of his training and ideas. At the age of twenty-one Cromwell Mortimer was enrolled in the Leyden medical faculty on 7 September 1719. A t that time Sir Hans Sloane was the chief link between the British students of medicine wishing to continue their studies abroad and Boerhaave in Leyden, to whom they were generally recommended by letter. Boerhaave was then in complete control of the medical curriculum, giving concurrent courses in mechanics and other branches of physics, chemistry, botany, and the theory and practice of medicine. Mortimer greatly admired Boerhaave, and lost no time in endeavouring to attract his attention. During the first session Boerhaave delivered a course of public lectures on heat, which prompted Mortimer to attempt an explanation of the fact that in health the temperature of the body remained constant and higher than that of its surroundings. In his reply Boerhaave did not commit himself, but remarked that it was 'a pretty hypothesis.' This pleased Mortimer, who remained Boerhaave’s staunch friend and disciple for the rest of his life

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