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The Strange Case of Dr White and Mr De Quincey: Manchester, Medicine and Romantic Theories of Biological Racism

The Strange Case of Dr White and Mr De Quincey: Manchester, Medicine and Romantic Theories of... Peter J. Kitson Keywords: Manchester, medicine, race, museums, anatomy, craniometry This essay concerns the encounter between two extraordinary people, one an eighteenth-century surgeon, anatomist, obstetrician (or man-midwife), and collector, the other one of the most powerful of Romantic prose writers. In the essays collected as his ‘Autobiographic Sketches’ (1853–54), Thomas De Quincey describes how as a six-year-old he witnessed the traumatic death of his sister Elizabeth, then nine years of age. Manchester’s two leading physicians, Drs Thomas Percival and Charles White, attended Elizabeth’s death at the De Quincey family home at Greenhay.1 Percival was a major figure in Manchester’s cultural and scientific life; a dissenter, he was a founder and President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society from 1782 until his death in 1804. Elected a fellow of the Royal Society at the age of twenty-five, Percival was the author of what has been described as ‘one of the greatest books on medical ethics’.2 Oddly, De Quincey writes very little about the presence of this important and fascinating figure in this account of the primal scene of his childhood, but is, instead, almost fixated with White. He records how White, perusing the body of his dead sister, http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Romanticism Edinburgh University Press

The Strange Case of Dr White and Mr De Quincey: Manchester, Medicine and Romantic Theories of Biological Racism

Kitson, Peter J.
Romanticism , Volume 17 (3): 278 – Oct 1, 2011
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References (10)

Publisher
Edinburgh University Press
Copyright
© Edinburgh University Press 2011
Subject
Literary Studies
ISSN
1354-991X
eISSN
1750-0192
DOI
10.3366/rom.2011.0041
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Peter J. Kitson Keywords: Manchester, medicine, race, museums, anatomy, craniometry This essay concerns the encounter between two extraordinary people, one an eighteenth-century surgeon, anatomist, obstetrician (or man-midwife), and collector, the other one of the most powerful of Romantic prose writers. In the essays collected as his ‘Autobiographic Sketches’ (1853–54), Thomas De Quincey describes how as a six-year-old he witnessed the traumatic death of his sister Elizabeth, then nine years of age. Manchester’s two leading physicians, Drs Thomas Percival and Charles White, attended Elizabeth’s death at the De Quincey family home at Greenhay.1 Percival was a major figure in Manchester’s cultural and scientific life; a dissenter, he was a founder and President of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society from 1782 until his death in 1804. Elected a fellow of the Royal Society at the age of twenty-five, Percival was the author of what has been described as ‘one of the greatest books on medical ethics’.2 Oddly, De Quincey writes very little about the presence of this important and fascinating figure in this account of the primal scene of his childhood, but is, instead, almost fixated with White. He records how White, perusing the body of his dead sister,

Journal

Romanticism – Edinburgh University Press

Published: Oct 1, 2011

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