James Keill of Northampton, physician, anatomist and physiologist.

JAMES KEILL (1673-1719), author ofthe most popular English anatomical compendium of the close of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centuries, also enjoyed renown in the latter century as one of Britain's leadingiatromathematical physiologists. A biographical account of Keill appeared in the Biographia Britannica,1 and Haller,2 Portal,3 Diderot,4 and Mangetus5 considered his work sufficiently significant to merit extended discussion. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, Keill's anatomy had been eclipsed by subsequent and more up-to-date compendia, and because of the new vitalistic trend in physiological thought, his efforts to reduce the processes of physiology to mathematical terms were discounted as mere idle speculation. In consequence, and unfairly in view of his earlier recognition, Keill's achievements suffered an almost total disregard. With the exception of a brief article by J. F. Payne in the Dictionary of National Biography, this neglect of Keill has continued down to the present day. Although he was by no means on the level of the great seventeenth-century English anatomists and physiologists-Harvey, Willis, and Lower-his anatomical treatise may be said to have displayed a respectable competence at a time when anatomical instruction in the medical faculties of Oxford and Cambridge declined precipitously and in fact reached its nadir, and his physiological studies revealed a genuine interest and sincerity even if the problems he sought to solve were beyond the capabilities of anyone of his day. In addition Keill practised medicine in Northampton and the surrounding area of the county. Through a series of letters that he wrote to the celebrated London practitioner Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753)-unfortunately Sloane's replies are not known to be extant-one is able to obtain a picture of the provincial physician, in Keill's case possibly as capable as his London colleagues, but simply because he was a provincial physician, often questioned as to his judgment by his patients who demanded that his medical decisions be confirmed by consultation with some Fellow of the august Royal College of Physicians. Keill's letters seem to indicate that at least some of his practice, especially patients in the higher ranks of society, were in fact Sloane's patients who happened to have estates somewhere in the neighbourhood of Northampton. Treated by Sloane when in London, when in residence in Northamptonshire their medical problems were handled by Keill. He was in consequence obliged to send reports and queries regarding their treatment to Sloane who would Biographia Britanica, London, 1757, vol. 4, pp. 2809-11. 'A. von Haller, Elementa physiologiae corporis lwmi, Lausanne 1757 vol. 1, pp. 448-52. ' A. Portal, Histoire de l'anatomie et de la chirurgie, Paris, 1770, vol. 4, pp. 217-20. ' D. Diderot, Encyclopedie, [article: 'Coeur'], Paris, 1753, vol. 3, pp. 596-60. 'i J. J. Mangetus, Bib iotheca scriptorum medicorum, Geneva, 1731, vol. 3, pp. 45-48.