To Benjamin Franklin from Félix Vicq d’Azyr, 25 February 1784
From Félix Vicq d’Azyr
LS: American Philosophical Society
ce 25 fevrier 1784
Monsieur!
La Société royale de medecine m’a Chargé de vous addresser ces billets pour Sa prochaine Séance publique dont elle vous prie de disposer. Cette assemblée aura Lieu mardi prochain deux de mars.4 La Compagnie Se Souvient qu’elle a été privée de votre presence dans Sa derniere Séance publique,5 Circonstance qui augmente encore Le desir quelle a de vous voir assister a celle cy. Nous avons aussi Lhonneur d’y inviter Monsieur votre petit fils. Je dois y Lire Les éloges de Mrs Guillaume hunter et Sanchez6 et votre presence Seroit un grand encouragement pour moi.
Jai lhonneur detre avec un profond respect Monsieur Votre tres humble et tres obeissant Serviteur
Vicq d’azyr
M franklin.
4. At the meeting on March 2, the society awarded gold medals to doctors from Germany, Holland, and England, noting that all of them attended. New prize questions about epidemics were announced, papers were read, and the meeting ended with the eulogies that Vicq mentions below: Jour. de Paris, March 4, 5, and 9. The two tickets that he enclosed remain among BF’s papers; they specify that the meeting would begin at precisely 4:30, at the Pavillon de l’Infante at the Louvre (APS). BF sent his regrets on March 1, explaining that the stone made it too painful to travel (Académie de Medicine).
5. BF was too ill to attend the Aug. 26, 1783, meeting: XL, 495.
6. The English physician and anatomist William Hunter, whom BF knew, had died on March 30, 1783: XVIII, 192; ODNB. Portuguese physician and educator António Nuñes Ribeiro Sanches, former court physician in Russia, had died in Paris in October: Larousse; Jour. de Paris of Oct. 16, 1783; Georges Dulac, “Science et politique: les réseaux du Dr. António Ribeiro Sanches (1699–1783),” Cahiers du monde russe, XLIII (2002), 251–73.