Letter 4009

Bernard forgot to ask if Sloane knew about ‘Bellilingon’ when they last met. This ‘Medicina Curiosa… is made from what is The Embryo of Corall’. Bernard could not find it mentioned in any of his books. Francis Bernard (bap. 1628, d. 1698) was an apothecary and physician. He worked at St Bartholomew’s Hospital from 1661 and was noted for his labours during the great plague of 1665. He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1680. Bernard had a large library with books in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian (Juanita Burnby, ‘Bernard, Francis (bap. 1628, d. 1698)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/2241, accessed 23 July 2014]).