George Cheyne, MD, FRCS Ed., FRS, (1672–1743), was a Scottish physician, early proto-psychiatrist, philosopher and mathematician.
Life George Cheyne was a Newtonian physician and Behmenist, deeply immersed in mysticism. Born in 1672 in Methlick, near Aberdeen in Scotland, he was baptized in Mains of Kelly, Methlick, Aberdeenshire, on 24 February 1673. He died in Bath on April 12, 1743. The books he published during his life show his wide interest which extended from medicine and natural philosophy to religion, metaphysics, astronomy and mathematics. His books were mostly very successful and as a result they were translated into other languages, e.g. Latin, Dutch, French, Italian and German.Guerini, Anita, Obesity and Depression in the Enlightenment, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2000, pp. 239-243.Joling-van der Sar, Gerda J., The Spiritual Side of Samuel Richardson: Mysticism, Behmenism and Millenarianism in an Eighteenth-Century English Novelist, 2003, footnote 293, p. 81. The printer and author Samuel Richardson printed several of his books. Among many others Thomas Gray, Samuel Johnson, John Wesley, John ByromSee the Catalogue of Byrom’s library for books written by Cheyne, https://archive.org/details/acataloguelibra00roddgoog/page/n63 and Edward Young liked his work. His clients included Alexander Pope, John Gay and Samuel Richardson. Today he is best known for his contribution to vegetarianism.
Cheyne was acquainted with Sir Isaac Newton and provoked Newton to publish his Quadratures and with it, his Light & Colours. Newton later offered him financial support to publish Fluxionum methodus inversa (The Inverse Method of Fluxions), but apparently he turned down the offer. Newton refused to see him any more.Never at Rest, Richard S. Westfall, p. 639 )
Cheyne did not believe that the present state of things is "from all Eternity". Using the metaphor of "a Piece of Clock-work",Cheyne, George, The Philosophical Principles of Religion Natural and Revealed, published in 1705 (Part I), p. 143. he argues that when a thing depends upon another thing as its cause, this implies that “the first thing exists that the second may exist”. He adds: "remove the sun and there will be no fruit, take away the moon and the seas would stagnate, destroy our Atmosphere and we should swell like poison´d Rats".Cheyne, George, The Philosophical Principles of Religion Natural and Revealed, published in 1705 (Part I), pp. 145-146. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible, according to Cheyne, that “any of the Species of Animals or Vegetables should have existed from all Eternity”.Cheyne, George, The Philosophical Principles of Religion Natural and Revealed, published in 1705 (Part I), p. 168.
Cheyne also wrote on fevers, nervous disorders, and hygiene. In 1740 he wrote The Essay on Regimen and this work is often quoted by vegetarians and animal rights activists, particularly the following passage:
To see the convulsions, agonies and tortures of a poor fellow-creature, whom they cannot restore nor recompense, dying to gratify luxury and tickle callous and rank organs, must require a rocky heart, and a great degree of cruelty and ferocity. I cannot find any great difference between feeding on human flesh and feeding on animal flesh, except custom and practice.Cheyne, George, The Essay on Regimen, 1740, p. 70.
Speaking from personal experience, Cheyne asserted that mental depression afflicted the brilliant rather than the dull, writing that "those of the liveliest and quickest natural Parts ... whose Genius is most keen and penetrating were most prone to such disorders. Fools, weak or stupid Persons, heavy and dull Souls, are seldom troubled with Vapours or Lowness of Spirits."
Education Cheyne attended the University of Edinburgh and the University of Aberdeen to study medicine. During these years he may have spent a brief time in Leiden.Anita Guerrini, "James Keill, George Cheyne, and Newtonian Physiology, 1690-1740", in the Journal of the History of Biology, 18, 1985, p. 254 and in Obesity and Depression in the Enlightenment: The Life and Times of George Cheyne, Oklahoma, 2000, p. 30 and p. 198, n. 43. Having finished his studies he went to London in 1701 where he started a practice and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1702. Cheyne describes his own life up to 1733 in The English Malady.The English Malady, 3rd ed., 1734, pp. 325-364.
Cheyne's Family Life Cheyne married Margaret Middleton around 1712 or earlier. They had three surviving children, Francis, who was baptized on 23 August 1713 at St Michael's parish in Bath, Peggy (Margaret), and John, possibly born in 1717. John became vicar of Brigstock in Northamptonshire.Gerda J. Joling-van der Sar, The Spiritual Side of Samuel Richardson, Mysticism, Behmenism and Millenarianism in an Eighteenth-Century English Novelist, 2003, p. 63.
Practice in Bath and London In the summer Cheyne worked in Bath and in the winter at London. However, in 1718 he decided to give up his practice in London to settle in Bath permanently.G.D. Henderson, Mystics of the North-East, Including I. Letters of James Keith, M.D., and Others to Lord Deskford; II. Correspondence between Dr. George Garden and James Cunningham, Aberdeen, 1934, pp. 75, 99, 105, 141. Roy Porter refers to Cheyne as one of the originators of the neurological school of psychiatry.Roy Porter, George Cheyne: The English Malady (1733), London, 1990. See also Porter's Mind-forged Manacles: A History of Madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1987 and Porter’s Discovering the History of Psychiatry, Oxford, 1994. Though appreciated by many, Cheyne was sometimes the subject of banter as appears from the following poem, which appeared in the 1730s (reprinted in 1757 in the London Magazine). The reference to Cheyne’s weight was based on the fact that Cheyne with 32 stone (almost 203 kg) was seriously overweight. After an illness Cheyne lost almost 10 stone.Joling-van der Sar, Gerda J., The Spiritual Side of Samuel Richardson: Mysticism, Behmenism and Millenarianism in an Eighteenth-Century English Novelist, 2003, p. 45.
Tell me from whom, fat-headed Scot Thou didst thy system learn From Hippocrate thou hast it not Nor Celsus, nor Pitcairne.
Suppose we own that milk is good And say the same of grass The one for babes is only food The other for an ass.
Doctor! One new prescription try (A friend's advice forgive;) Eat grass, reduce thyself, and die Thy patients then may live.
Cheyne’s reply was:
My system, Doctor, is my own No tutor I pretend My blunders hurt myself alone But yours your dearest friend.
Were you to milk and straw confin'd Thrice happy might you be Perhaps you might regain your mind And from your wit get free.
I cannot your prescription try But heartily "forgive" 'Tis nat'ral you should bid me die That you yourself may live.
Cheyne’s Admiration for William Law and Jakob Böhme Cheyne’s admiration for William Law appeared in a letter to Samuel Richardson, his friend and the printer of several of his books. Cheyne was also his physician. The two men corresponded on a very regular basis from 1734 to the year of Cheyne’s death in 1743.Gerda J. Joling-van der Sar, The Spiritual Side of Samuel Richardson, Mysticism, Behmenism and Millenarianism in an Eighteenth-Century English Novelist, 2003, p. 37. In his letter of 9 March 1742 Cheyne enthusiastically asked Richardson whether he had “seen Law's Appeal?" and he described The Appeal as "admirable and unanswerable". Moreover, he wished all the Methodists "might get it by Heart".Charles F. Mullett, The Letters of Doctor George Cheyne to Samuel Richardson (1733-1743), Vol. XVIII, No. 1, Columbia, 1943, p. 88.Gerda J. Joling-van der Sar, The Spiritual Side of Samuel Richardson, Mysticism, Behmenism and Millenarianism in an Eighteenth-Century English Novelist, 2003, p. 117. Cheyne referred here to The Appeal to all that Doubt, or Disbelieve the Truths of the Gospel, whether they be Deists, Arians, Socinians, or Nominal Christians, which had been written by William Law in 1740.
A few weeks later Cheyne wrote in a letter dated 26 April 1742 that Law had already sent him the Regeneration (The Grounds and Reasons of Christian Regeneration, published in 1739) as well as the Appeal. He would, however, very much appreciate it if Richardson could ask the London bookseller William Innys to get all Law's works send to him:
I have had but too much of your Compliments and Gratitude, and instead of your thinking yourself in my Debt for any Thing I can do for you, I have always thought myself in Yours. Remember the Catechism, Mr. Baillie's Character, … but to ease your hyppish, honest, grateful Heart, if you'll get Innys to gather all Mr. Law's Pieces, all he ever wrote or published or is reckoned his, and get them handsomely bound and send them to me, I will keep them in my Family and Library as an eternal Remembrance of you and him, whom I know to be the greatest best Man, and the most solid and deep of this Island. I have most of his larger Pieces already sent by himself, his Appeal and Regeneration lately.Charles F. Mullett, The Letters of Doctor George Cheyne to Samuel Richardson (1733-1743), Vol. XVIII, No. 1, Columbia, 1943, p. 93.Gerda J. Joling-van der Sar, The Spiritual Side of Samuel Richardson, Mysticism, Behmenism and Millenarianism in an Eighteenth-Century English Novelist, 2003, p. 120.
In a footnote to his letter to Richardson of 17 May 1742 Cheyne mentioned that he had received Richardson's "most valuable Present of Mr. Law's Works".
A few months later Samuel Richardson sent one of Jakob Böhme’s works as a gift to Cheyne, as is testified in Cheyne’s letter of 29 August 1742. Cheyne wrote:
I thank you for your Jacob Behemen [sic]; you will never have done with your Bribes. I wish I could do for you what you want and desire. All I can say, without Bribe or Entreaty, of mere Love and good Will, I shall ever do my best for you, and I shall beg of God to direct me in this particularly.Charles F. Mullett, The Letters of Doctor George Cheyne to Samuel Richardson (1733-1743), Vol. XVIII, No. 1, Columbia, 1943, p. 107.Gerda J. Joling-van der Sar, The Spiritual Side of Samuel Richardson, Mysticism, Behmenism and Millenarianism in an Eighteenth-Century English Novelist, 2003, p. 142.
Cheyne may have referred here to any of Boehme's works which had been translated into English during 1645-1662 by John Sparrow, John Ellistone, Humphrey Blunden and Charles Hotham.
The Importance of Exercise Cheyne was always stressing to his patients the importance of exercise. In winter and bad weather he advised within doors the tremoussoir (or chamber-horse), or walking in a gallery or a suite of rooms, and in good weather any of the exercises mentioned in his earlier works such as walking, riding, fencing, dancing, billiards, tennis, football and digging, of which Cheyne thought walking the most natural, and riding, as it shakes the "whole Machine", the most manly, healthy and least laborious.Essay of Health and Long Life, (1724), p. 94. The eighth edition had been printed by Samuel Richardson in 1734.