1893 text
Daniel Whistler, M.D., Fellow of Merton College, whose inaugural dissertation on Rickets in 1645 contains the earliest printed account of that disease. He was Gresham Professor of Geometry, 1648-57, and held several offices at the College of Physicians, being elected President in 1683. He was one of the original Fellows of the Royal Society. Dr. Munk, in his “Roll of the Royal College of Physicians,” speaks very unfavourably of Whistler, and says that he defrauded the college. He died May 11th, 1684.
This text comes from a footnote on a diary entry in the 1893 edition edited by Henry B. Wheatley.
4 Annotations
First Reading
Michael Robinson • Link
Per L&M Companion:
(1619 - 1684) Physician; author of the first book on Rickets, [Leiden: 1645, rpr. London: 1684; antedating the full description in the work of Francis Glisson (1597-1677), London:1650] Gresham Professor of Geometry 1648-57; an original F.R.S. He had been a naval doctor in the First Dutch War, and had accompanied Whitelock on his embassy to Sweden 1653-4. He married a rich widow in 1657 (mother of Anthony Lowther) and according to Aubrey earned L. 1,000 by his practice, but when he died (in the midst of his term as President of the Royal College) it was discovered he was heavily in debt and had embezzled the College's funds. Evelyn thought him 'the most facetious [amusing] man in nature.'
Biography from the Royal College of Physicians:-
http://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/herita…
Terry Foreman • Link
Daniel Whistler
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dani…
Second Reading
Bill • Link
Daniel Whistler, fifth Geometry-Professor, succeeded Mr. Button, on his Resignation, June the 13th, 1648. He was born at Walthamstow in Essex, educated in the Free-school at Thame, and admitted a Probationary-Fellow of Merton-College in January 1639, being then about twenty Years of Age. Upon the 8th of February 1643, he took the Degree of Master of Arts; and about that Time obtaining Leave of the College to travel, he went into Holland, and was created Doctor of Physick at Leyden in 1645. Returning from thence to his College, the Year following, he was incorporated in the same Degree at Oxford, the 20th of May 1647. He was likewise appointed superior Reader of Dr. Lynacer's Lecture there. June the 16th that Year he was elected a Candidate of the College of Physicians of London; and May the 13th 1649 was admitted a Fellow of the same. In 1653 he attended Mr. Wbitelocke in his Embassy to Sweden, as his Physician. He returned in July 1654. He afterwards married; and resigned his Professorship, August the 7th, 1657.
Charles the Second having granted the College of Physicians a new Charter, March the 26th, 1663, Dr. Whistler was appointed one of their Censors for that Year. And on the 20th of May following being nominated one of the first Fellows of the Royal Society by the Council, upon the Grant of their Charter, was frequently afterwards a Member of the Council himself. In 1676 he was both Censor and Registrary of the College of Physicians; and upon the 18th of October 1683 he was elected President. He died on the 11th of May the ensuing Year. He published only one Physical Dissertation with the following Title:
Disputatio medica inauguralis de morbo puerili Anglorum, quem patrio ldiomate indigenae vocant the Rickets, &c. Lond. 1645, 1685. Quarto.
---The History of the Works of the Learned for the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty-One. 1741.
Bill • Link
WHISTLER, DANIEL (1619-1684), physician; B.A. Merton College, Oxford, 1642; M.A., 1644; M.D. Leyden, 1645; incorporated M.D. Oxford, 1647; professor of geometry at Gresham College, London, 1648; Linacre reader at Oxford, 1648; F.R.C.P., 1649, Harveian orator, 1659, registrar, 1674-82, and president, 1683; published 'De Morbo puerili Anglorum,' a treatise on rickets (reprinted, 1684).
---Dictionary of National Biography: Index and Epitome. S. Lee, 1906.