Abstract
Dr James Copland (1791–1870) was born in the Orkney Islands and studied medicine at Edinburgh where he graduated in 1815. The following year was spent in Paris to acquire knowledge of the latest developments in pathology and he then travelled for a year along the coast of West Africa gaining practical experience of treating tropical diseases. After establishing his medical practice in London, which eventually became extremely successful, he contributed to medical journals and also became editor of the London Medical Repository from 1822 to 1825. His greatest work was The Dictionary of Practical Medicine written entirely by himself which was completed between 1832 and 1858. More than 10,000 copies of the dictionary were sold and its author became world famous during his lifetime. In 1833, Copland was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and from 1837 onwards he played a prominent role in the proceedings of The Royal College of Physicians. This article shows how his extensive professional and literary work was combined with an unusual private life.
Early life
James Copland was born in the Orkney Islands, on 7 November 1791, the son of James Copland (1752–1832) and Jean Potinger (1763–1852). He was the eldest of nine children. Soon after his birth, his father took on a tenancy of the farm on Noss Island. This island was remote and is uninhabited today. To give him a good education James was sent to live with a clergyman in Lerwick (the capital of the Orkneys) and in November 1807, at the age of 16, he went to the University of Edinburgh to study theology but in 1811 he diverted to medicine.
His graduation thesis, De Rheumatismo, composed in Latin as required and presented for the MD degree in 1815, advanced the doctrine that the origin of inflammation resided in lesions of the nerves supplying the capillary vessels. 1
After graduating he went to London and on to Paris, after the Napoleonic Wars had ended, when he was one of the earliest of an increasing flow of medical students keen to learn from the advanced teaching of anatomical pathology by Laennec and others with frequent demonstrations based on dissection. 2 (Copland described this visit and his experience of attending post mortems when giving evidence as an expert witness in a murder case in 1859 at The Old Bailey. 3 )
Back in London and finding it difficult to secure a satisfactory position, Copland was offered the post of Medical Officer to the settlements of the African Company of Merchants in the Gold Coast (Ghana) and decided to go out there to see what the duties would involve. 4 Before setting sail for West Africa, he married Martha Grace Syeds at St James Church, Clerkenwell, London, on 16 December 1816. Martha was born in December 1789, the daughter of Stephen Syeds, a ship’s captain from Scotland and Martha Woolcot from Middlesex. Martha was left to stay with her mother when her new husband departed early in 1817.
Copland visited Goree Island and then Senegal, The Gambia and Sierra Leone studying the tropical diseases. On his leaving Sierra Leone, three-quarters of the ship’s crew went down with fever which he succeeded in treating but the vessel was then dismasted by a tornado. Copland landed and made his way along the coast, sometimes on foot, sometimes in small trading vessels or in canoes, until he reached Cape Coast Castle (the headquarters of the African Company in the Gold Coast), where he stayed for some months, before returning to London early in 1818. 5
Sadly, Copland’s new wife, Martha, was by then seriously ill. She died in April 1818, aged 28, and was buried at St James Clerkenwell on 27 April. Copland had arrived back in London full of ambition. He intended to be a successful physician; he also wanted to advance medical education and to establish medical services for the poor. He was to achieve all these ambitions during his life but in 1818 he must have felt distraught by the loss of his wife.
However, also living in Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell was Mrs Ann Nicholls, the widow of John Nicholls, a clockmaker. Mrs Nicholls had been Ann Clark, born on 9 June 1782, the daughter of James and Sarah Clark. James Clark was obviously successful in business as he provided well for his three daughters. John Nicholls’ will reveals that his wife had £1400 in the ‘Navy five per cents’ which came to him on marriage but was originally hers and was invested in their joint names. 6 This produced an income of £70 p.a. in addition to the income from her husband's business. (When a middle-class family could live comfortably on £100 p.a. 7 ) Ann Clark had married John Nicholls on 2 March 1800, when she was aged 17 and her husband was 32. They had no children and John Nicholls died at the age of 49 in February 1817.
Second marriage
The widowed Mrs Ann Nicholls, aged 35, had a lot to offer Copland, who was aged 26 when his first wife died. She was much more experienced in business and professional life in London and she had a good investment income. After a decent interval, Dr James Copland and Mrs Ann Nicholls were married on 2 March 1819 at the parish church of St George the Martyr, Queen Square. Prior to the marriage her assets were, on 28 February 1819, put into a separate settlement ‘for her own use’. As far as can be seen her assets were about £4000, which in today's values is in excess of £4 million. 8
Publications
Copland started to make his name by writing articles in learned journals, such as the Quarterly Journal of Foreign Medicine and Surgery. His first articles were on the Medical Topography of the Western Coast of Africa, on Yellow Fever and on Rabies. He also contributed to the London Medical Repository and the London Medical and Physical Journal. In 1821, he published a case of chorea, consequent on rheumatic carditis, which was taken up by other researchers. 9 From 1822 to 1825 he became the editor of the London Medical Repository and also contributed numerous articles to this journal, such as ‘On the Pathology of Fever’, ‘On Life and Organisation’, ‘On Artificial Eruptions in the Cure of Disease’, ‘On Intestinal Worms’, ‘Outlines of a Series of Researches into the Anatomy’ 5 and ‘Physiology and Pathology of the Ganglionic Nervous System’. 10
In 1820, he had become a member of the London Medical Society and co-operated with others in re-establishing the South London Dispensary which provided free medical advice to the poor of the Lambeth, Walworth and Kennington districts. 11
Pigot’s London Directory for 1822 shows him as a physician in Walworth, but in that year he took a house in Jermyn Street, possibly one owned by Hammond Nicholls, his wife's relative. In 1820, he had been appointed physician to the Royal Infirmary for Diseases of Children and in 1823 he was elected Consulting Physician to Queen Charlotte’s lying in hospital. By 1825 he had moved to 1 Bulstrode Street, Cavendish Square. 12 He also started lecturing at the Middlesex Hospital.
The Dictionary
For some years, Copland had been trying to interest publishers in his idea for an Encyclopaedia of Medicine and had drawn up a prospectus in 1825. Previously the only works of this nature published in English had been the four dictionaries by Drs James, Motherby, Morris and Parr. The first of these had been published in three volumes in 1743 and 1745. Dr Motherby's work was a single volume in 1776 but was updated in 1791, 1795 and 1801 and its final form was considered superior to that of Dr James. Dr Morris had published in 1807 The Edinburgh Medical and Physical Dictionary. Dr Parr's work, entitled The London Medical Dictionary was published in 1809 but was largely based on the work of his predecessors. By 1825 most of these were out of date. 13 Copland had circulated his prospectus widely and in 1829 was in discussions with the publishers, Baldwin and Cradock but they refused to proceed. Shortly after he learned that they had decided to publish a Cyclopedia of Practical Medicine, edited by John Forbes, Alexander Tweedie and John Connolly. This had a more limited scope than Copland's plan and consisted of articles written by 67 contributors (all physicians). This publication was issued in parts that were consolidated into four volumes in 1832, 1833, 1834 and 1835. A total of 3000 copies were sold.
Copland's disappointment was relieved when in 1830 Longmans agreed to adopt his scheme. The Dictionary of Practical Medicine was issued in parts commencing in 1832 and when eventually finished in 1858, consisted of three stout volumes containing 3509 closely printed pages. Over 10,000 copies of the English edition were sold; it was reprinted (pirated) in America and translated into German. It earned him £4000 and a further £1000 for a supplement, the total being equivalent to more than £500,000 in today’s money. 8 The full title of the work gives an idea of its scope: A Dictionary of Practical Medicine. Comprising General Pathology, the Nature and Treatment of Diseases, Morbid Structures, and the Disorders Especially Incidental to Climates, to the Sex, and to the Different Epochs of Life. With Numerous Prescriptions for the Medicines Recommended; A Classification of Diseases According to Pathological Principles; A Copious Bibliography, With References; and An Appendix of Approved Formulae. The Whole Forming a Library of Pathology and Practical Medicine and a Digest of Medical Literature.
The first part appeared in September 1832 price 9 shillings. The next part in September 1833; part III in September 1834 and part IV in May 1837. The delay had been caused by illness brought on by overwork and when part V was issued in January 1844, Longmans were advertising that:
The Author assures the Subscribers that the materials for the remainder of the work are in such a state of forwardness as to enable him henceforward to bring out a half part every three months until the whole is completed.
In January 1848, part XII was issued price 4 s 6 d and by then the first two compete volumes were on sale at £3 each. It was not until August 1858 that the final parts XIX and XX were issued with Volume III price £2 11 s.
In his preface dated July 1858, Copland dedicated his work to six of his friends with affection and gratitude for their long and intimate friendship. He also deeply regretted the long period he has required to complete his undertaking and said:
Thus endeavouring to economise and to regulate his time between the active duties of practice and the not less important duties of teaching, orally and by his writings, the Author believes that he has succeeded in fulfilling the engagements he undertook in the Prospectus which he offered to the Profession when he entered upon his undertaking. Every line in it was written by his own hand and all the proofs were carefully read and corrected by himself. 14
Dr J.F. Clarke, who was on the staff of The Lancet, wrote:
When Copland had finished his dictionary he invited to his hospitable table many of his literary friends to dinner. Those who were ever present at Copland’s gatherings may readily conceive what a magnificent feast was spread for us. I had the honour of proposing his health on this occasion. We were in reality celebrating a great event. The wines.. were of the highest quality. – Dr Copland was in the habit of writing at night. He dined between five and six; took two or three glasses of wine and had half an hours nap until tea. He went to work at eight and continued without intermission until two or even three in the morning. 15
Contemporary reviews of the final work were positive and were used by the publishers to promote sales:
In Dr Copland’s Dictionary of Practical Medicine we see a reflex of German erudition, French acuteness and British practical common sense. It has long had an European reputation, and will, we have no doubt, successfully maintain what has taken its author so much patient trouble to acquire. – Lancet
His ideas, his doctrines. his descriptions, and his instructions are conveyed in language at once terse, clear, forcible and condensed; and his whole work is in itself a library of pathological doctrine and therapeutical lore, of which English literature has every reason to be proud. – Medical Times and Gazette. 16
Copland's contribution to the understanding of cholera
From early times the word cholera was used to describe various forms of gastrointestinal disease while deadly cholera from India was called Asiatic cholera or cholera morbus. Copland followed this distinction in his dictionary so under ‘Cholera’ in Volume I, he deals with ‘Bilious Cholera’ and ‘Flatulent Cholera’, while the deadly form was described by him as ‘Pestilential Cholera’ and appears under ‘P’ in the first part of Volume III.
He had already prepared his research notes on the topic, so when cholera arrived in Sunderland in October 1831, Copland was ready. He had also previously written on the subject in 1822 as editor of The London Medical Repository. 17 Most of what subsequently appeared in his dictionary was published as a separate book in December 1831, ‘Pestilential Cholera, its Nature, Prevention and Curative Treatment’. Copland said ‘I am entirely convinced that the pestilence which has ravaged the East and is gradually extending itself over Europe is altogether a new disease and totally unknown to medical science previously to the year 1817’. 18
Copland goes on to describe the outbreak in Bengal in 1817, which was the first time the disease had been scientifically recorded in detail, and to explain why he believed this strain of the disease was different from spasmodic cholera which had been known for centuries. The book included opinions from doctors in other parts of the world particularly from India and ran to 163 pages. Copland dedicated his book to Dr David Barry and Dr William Russell who had bravely travelled to study the epidemic in St Petersburg.
Copland also said ‘There are few subjects which have given rise to greater diversity of opinion than the causes of this disease’. 18 The diversity of opinion fell into two main camps – The anticontagionists who believed the disease was carried in the atmosphere and from miasma due to rotting animal or vegetable material and therefore supported public sanitation – and The contagionists who believed the disease was transmitted directly from sick persons either by exhalation of a virus or by touch and therefore supported quarantines.
Copland said ‘It was not caused or propagated by contact or a virus but by an effluvium or miasma which emanating from the body of the affected, contaminated the surrounding air and infected the healthy who inspired the contaminated air’. 18
(Copland was using the word virus in its original Latin meaning of poison or venom; the modern use of the word was not developed until 1892). In taking this view Copland was following the evidence which was that quarantines were useless in combatting cholera. As Ackernecht explained: ‘The anticontagionists were motivated by the new critical scientific spirit of their time’. 19
Ackernecht also quoted from Winslow:
Until the theory of inanimate contagion was replaced by a theory of living germs, and until to that theory was added the concepts of long distance transmission by water and food supplies, and above all of human and animal carriers – the hypothesis of contagion simply would not work. 20
Copland was present at the meeting of the Westminster Medical Society on Saturday, 13 October 1849 when Dr Snow read his paper On the Pathology and Mode of Communication of Cholera. Some speakers agreed with Dr Snow but others did not. Copland said that he:
considered cholera to be an affection of the whole system but directing its chief virulence on the alimentary canal. He was greatly interested in the discovery of the microscopic bodies. He had long been of opinion that the decomposing effluvia given off in infectious diseases might take on special organised forms peculiar to each disease and had recommended this subject to the notice of histologists some years ago. 21
Other works
On 16 April 1834 Copland gave evidence before the House of Commons Select Committee on Medical Education. He was particularly critical of the Royal College of Physicians whose statutes restricted Fellowships to graduates of Oxford or Cambridge. 22
He also had a great interest in public sanitation. Copland argued against the use of burial grounds in towns and was one of those whose evidence was presented to the House of Commons Select Committee on a bill for establishing cemeteries around the Metropolis in 1843. He was also involved in a deputation to the Minister of Works in 1859 about improving the quality of the water in the Serpentine.
With hindsight, Copland seems often to have come to the wrong conclusion. For example, in his On the Drainage and Sewage of London and of Large Towns – their evils and their cure he was highly critical of the proposals of Mr Bazalgette to construct a great sewer for London to protect the Thames and Copland suggested that it would be better to use chemicals to deodorise and disinfect the sewage before having it carted away for use in agriculture. 23
He also adapted sections of the Dictionary to produce The Forms, Complications, Causes, Prevention and Treatment of Consumption and Bronchitis, comprising also the Causes and Prevention of Scrofula in 1861. 24
Copland's private life
This enormous publishing venture and his growing medical practice must have taken up much of his time but there was another side of his life as well.
By 1830 his wife, Ann Copland, was aged 48 and it was clear that they would not have children. Copland entered into a relationship with a widow, Mrs Anne Maria Charlesworth, who lived in Dorset Street with her two children. A son, James, was born on 4 February 1831. Similarly, a daughter, Maria, was born on 17 April 1833.
The son was baptised James Charlesworth Copland on 21 December 1833 at the church of St Mary, Marylebone and the daughter as Maria Copland at the same church on 8 September 1835. The baptism register made it clear who the parents were and that they were not married to each other. This appears to have been rather a commercial arrangement, as Mrs Charlesworth herself remarried to a Mr Tatchell on 24 June 1834 and the two children, James and Maria, remained with Dr and Mrs Copland, being subsequently described as their nephew and niece.
However, Copland was taking a great risk by allowing his name to appear on the baptism register. At this time it was likely that a gentleman would not be happy for his wife to be examined by a doctor if there were any suggestion of the doctor having extramarital affairs. Clearly, the parentage of these children did not become known and Copland was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1833. The list of proposers included the Presidents of both of the Royal Colleges and other distinguished medics and scientists. 25
Copland had kept closely in touch with the family of his first wife and when her mother, Martha Syeds, died in 1838 she left all her property to her surviving daughter, Janet Syeds, naming her and Copland as joint executors of the will. His relationship with his former sister-in-law became much closer and he was the father of Janet's son, Henry Syed Smart Copland, who was born on 8 June 1838 at St Pancras. This time he was more careful as the record of the child's baptism at St Pancras Old Church on 18 July 1838 shows him as Henry Copeland Smart the son of Henry and Mary Ann Smart. (The father's occupation was not shown).
In 1840 Dr and Mrs Copland moved from Bulstrode Street to 5 Old Burlington Street and they appear in the 1841 census at this address, with a male and female servant resident as well. Nearby, their ‘nephew and niece’, James and Maria Copland, were living in a house in Piccadilly which was occupied by a number of young surgeons.
The son, James Charlesworth Copland, was to qualify as a physician (training at the Middlesex Hospital where his father had been a lecturer). In medical circles, he was always described as the nephew of Dr James Copland, particularly when he edited an abridged version of the Dictionary, but when it came to his own marriage in 1857, he showed Dr James Copland as his father on the marriage register.
By this time Copland's medical practice was described as one of the largest and most lucrative in London. He was honoured by the Royal College of Physicians being elected a Fellow in 1837, Goulstonian Lecturer in 1838, Croonian Lecturer in 1844, 1845 and 1846, Lumleian Lecturer in 1854 and 1855 and Harveian Orator in 1857. In 1853 he was elected President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society (The current Royal Society of Medicine) and was also honoured by being made a member of many learned societies including the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia. 26
Further children were born to James Copland and Janet Syeds: Jane Grace Syed Copland on 29 September 1839 who was baptised at St Pancras Old Church on 8 November 1839 as Jane Grace Smart, the child of James and Jennet Smart, father's occupation – Master Mariner (perhaps this was intended to explain his frequent absence), followed by Martha Janet Syed Copland on 24 February 1841 who was baptised at St Pancras Old Church on 18 March 1841 as Martha Janet Smart, the child of James and Janet Smart, father’s occupation – Seaman. 27
His household in 1851
The 1851 census shows James Copland, aged 59, and Ann Copland, aged 67, living at 5 Old Burlington Street. Another resident in the house was George Hamilton aged 43, an American citizen ‘of unsound mind’ born in Philadelphia, together with his carer, William Wood. In addition, there was a manservant, a cook and a housemaid. The census also shows ‘Janet Smart’ living with her three children at 11 Gloucester Gardens, St Pancras with a resident housemaid.
George Hamilton was to remain in the care of the Copland’s for more than 20 years; perhaps his family paid for him to be looked after but Copland was also interested in studying lunacy. In 1849 he had given evidence in a court case involving the subject. At the end of his affidavit Copland said:
I have arrived at the above conclusions, having had considerable experience in mental disorders and having devoted much time to the study of them during my professional life, and having written and published extensively on the nature and treatment of their several forms and states. 28
On 17 July 1852, Mrs Ann Copland died at their house in Old Burlington Street, aged 70, after a serious illness lasting about six months. She was buried at St Giles Camberwell on 23 July 1852.
Ann Copland's will
In her will dated 11 March 1852, Ann Copland appointed three executors, who were also the current trustees of the settlement dated 28 February 1819. The will was witnessed by Ann Copland’s solicitor, Park Nelson of 11 Essex Street, Strand and Thomas Hawkins, the proprietor of Hawkins Hotel, which was on the corner of Dover Street and Albemarle Street, very close to Old Burlington Street. 29
First of all, she left to her husband, James Copland, the sum of £800 which had been loaned to him by the trustees during her lifetime. She made numerous small legacies including £10 to Dr Nathaniel Grant (who practised at 21 Thayer Street, Manchester Square and had qualified as a doctor at Edinburgh at the same time as James Copland).
Mrs Ann Copland must have been a formidable character. She understood and encouraged her brilliant husband. She must have been fully aware of his secret families. She was kind to her husband’s nieces, some of whom came to stay in London and also supported her own niece. In her will, she went to great trouble to spread her wealth among those of her relatives who needed it.
After his wife's death, it is clear that Copland would have needed help in running his household and for respectability, he invited his sister down from Scotland. The 1861 census shows her at 5 Old Burlington Street shown as ‘Janet Copland – sister aged 60, born Zetland’. Also in the house were George Hamilton from Philadelphia with his attendant, William Wood, plus a manservant, cook and housemaid.
Third marriage
Obviously, after a decent interval, he would have wanted to marry Janet Syeds, the mother of three of his children but there was a problem. Since 1835, it had been illegal to marry one's deceased wife's sister, but this law (repealed in 1907) did not apply in Scotland. So James Copland and Janet Syeds travelled to Edinburgh, where they were married at the parish church of St Giles on 11 November 1861. The witness was their son, Henry S. Copland. After their marriage, the rest of the family would have been able to join them in Old Burlington Street.
Dr and Mrs Copland were still living at 5 Old Burlington Street when Janet Copland died on 11 January 1868 aged 66. She was buried at All Souls, Kensal Green.
At this point, Copland retired from practice and moved to a newly built house, Hertford House, 9 Brondesbury Road, Kilburn where he died on 12 July 1870. He was looked after by his three children, Henry, Jane and Martha.
In his will dated 18 June 1869 Copland appointed his son, Henry Syed Copland, and his daughter, Jane Grace Copland, to be executor and executrix of his will and left all his assets divided equally between his two daughters, Jane Grace Copland and Martha Janet Copland. Presumably, he had provided for Henry during his lifetime. 30
In its obituary the Morning Advertiser said:
The announcement of his death will be received with deep and universal regret by the medical profession, of which he was one of the most distinguished members for nearly half a century. Dr Copland had a large circle of private friends by whom he was held in the highest esteem and by whom his death will be no less lamented. He was a most genial man and was regarded with sincere friendship wherever he was known. 31
The British Medical Journal gave a detailed resume of his life and said:
The amount of research and time spent in the production of the Dictionary must have been enormous; and the perseverance of the author such as few men possess. The Dictionary is a cyclopaedic resume of all that has been written on the various subjects treated in it, from the earliest days of medicine down to modern times, and with copious references to all the sources of information; and with all this are given the opinions which the author’s observations and experience had led him to form. That one man should have undertaken and, labouring single handed or nearly so, completed such a work, is indeed a remarkable fact. The work is a monument of calm energy and self-reliance, such as is but rarely met with. 32
Other obituaries for James Copland also refer to his many friends and his generous and hospitable nature. His relatives and close friends must have been aware of the potentially scandalous nature of his private life but due to their affection for him, they kept his secrets safe!
Conclusion
The Lancet writer, Dr Clarke said:
Dr Copland’s fame will rest mainly on his dictionary – a monument of learning, industry and power…. He was a thorough practical physician. His shrewd common sense was as remarkable as his acquirements. His powers of diagnosis were above the average and his mode of treatment simple but decisive. 33
Copland's contribution to medical knowledge was the production of the Dictionary of Practical Medicine, a massive compilation of information, which must have been extremely useful when the teaching hospitals were becoming more academic in their approach to medical education. The number of sales shows how important it was regarded at the time as a source of reference and most medical practitioners would have wanted to own a copy if they could afford the cost. Copland was very active in the work of the professional bodies and made his views known on many aspects of public health.
His unusual private life escaped notice until recently.
All of Dr Coplandâ s books including The Dictionary are freely available to download and read through Google Books.
