[Medicine & Science] Bidgood, John (1623-1691)
Doctoral Degree, Manuscript Diploma. Padua, 1648.Small format handwritten document on parchment consisting of four leaves, (seven inscribed pages) the opening leaf with title within a decorative frame executed in gold, blue, red, and green inks, each text leaf ruled with a decorative penwork border, neat secretarial hand in brown ink with many letters in liquid gold, twenty-seven lines per page, single column, signed at the end by several professors; the degree conferred while the medical college in Padua was administered by physician and professor Franz Ignaz Thiermair (1626-1680), who is named in the text; with two wax seals attached by woven silk cord, each housed in a tin case wrapped in red morocco and tooled in gilt; some chipping to the leather, paper wrappers chipped and folded, some bio-predation (mice?) to lower interior gutter corner, affecting only blank inner margin, 9 x 6 1/2 in.Dr. Bidgood, whose unfortunate father Humphrey, an apothecary from Exeter, was poisoned by a servant, is described in The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London as possessing manners "haughty, morose, and repulsive." Although his skill, attention to symptoms, and accuracy of diagnosis are praised.