Lee Richard
Lee Offers Advice to Fellow Virginian Charles F. Mercer about Gout and Kidney Stones


 
RICHARD HENRY LEE, Grandson of Declaration Signer, Autograph Letter Signed, to Charles F. Mercer, November 10, 1821, Leesburg, VA. 4 pp., 6.25" x 7.75"  Folds, some staining; attached to paper frame.


Complete Transcript





                                                                        Leesburg Novr 10th ’21
My Dear Sir,

            I regret that I had not the pleasure of seeing more of you, during your late visit to Leesburg. I had intended to call to see you, at Mr. Cooke’s, early after breakfast; when I did call, you had left town.

            Do not think me, my Dr sir, presumptuous or intrusive, in the following lines. I desire to do good, when I offer you, the thoughts & advice of a learned & competent man, not merely my own. When I had the pleazure of seeing you at your own house, you mentioned to me the nature of the complaint which had afflicted you. Professor Cooper, who is considered a first rate physician and the first chemist in America, was wont to lecture expressly & minutely on the subject of the Uric or lethic acid; the causes of its excessive existence & the effects; viz: gout in some – stone or tendencies to it; and inflammation & consequent constriction in the mouth of the bladder, or of the urinal canal in others. He proved his positions & theory by chemical tests & their results are science. The Physicians know the cures or mitigations of the above diseases, but the chemist better knows the real cause & the modus operandi of preventives, cures &c. You may perhaps recollect, that I mentioned to you, that magnesia & soda preparations were used & that Litmus paper was a test of the presence of the lithic acid. Litmus paper is made by dipping paper in the infusion made from litmus which abounds in a red vegetable acid. The alkalies neutralize this acid & change the colour to blue. Hence it is the property of acids to turn the blue colour of alkalies, red. When therefore uric or lithic acid is prevailing in the vesical urinaria, you may detect it by that test, & by then timely using the remedies which Chemistry tells us, the acid has an affinity for, and with which it forms salts soluble, you may prevent or modify the attacks. Let me advise you, on Professr C’s authority to keep the test. I send you a learned treatise by him, which I have been long looking for and have just found. The causes, of such diseases, the proper diet, the preventatives & remedies &c &c are admirably & lucidly explained. I trust, you may find advantage in perusing it. The article in the P. F. is styled “Gout & Stone.”



            I hope, my Dear sir, that your fatiguing confinement will soon terminate in renewed health. We all have an interest in your known usefulness. I would respectfully and humbly think that I have a higher interest than that, in common with the disciples of the great & honoured Redeemer in your example & faith. I hope you may long live to prove to proud & wicked men, and gainsayers, that a disciple of Jesus Christ, can mingle usefully, with dignity, firmness & consistency, in the halls of Legislation & in all the scenes of life, where duty calls. As a friend, I rejoice to believe that you enjoy that faith which “justifies the sinner” & “overcomes the world,” which is rich in a hope full of immortality, a hope which the barren philosophy of man never taught & cannot follow. This Faith presents God the son, the eternal Mediator, in our weakness & distresses, as our friend & brother, & when our human nature needs the soothings of sympathy, we recollect, that Jesus, is of “the root & the offspring of David” when it roams over the glories of the firma[ment] we recollect “he is the bright & morning star” & the “sun of righteousness”; when it enjoys the beauties of the earth, we recollect, he is the “rose of Sharon & the lilly of the valley.”


Pardon me, my Dr sir, if I have ventured further than my age & our acquaintances justify. Remember me even while transgressing, in the “fellowship of the spirit.”

                                                                        And believe me to be truly your / Friend & Sert

                                                                       
Richd H. Lee



[Address:] The Honble / Charles F. Mercer / Aldie


Historical Background
Thomas Cooper (1759-1841) was a British-born physician and merchant who moved to Pennsylvania in 1794. He was a harsh critic of the Sedition Act, which earned him a conviction for libeling President John Adams and six months in prison. In 1811, he began teaching chemistry at Carlisle (Dickinson) College and from 1815 at the University of Pennsylvania, where he taught until 1819. He later taught and served as president of South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina). He was an advocate for the use of magnesia as a treatment and preventative for gout and kidney stones. Cooper published an essay entitled “On Gout and Stone” over the initials “T. C.” in the January 1818 issue of The Port Folio, a monthly magazine edited by John E. Hall and published in Philadelphia.

 
Richard Henry Lee (1794-1865) was born in Virginia as the son of Ludwell Lee (1760-1836) and his first wife Flora Lee Lee (1771-1795). In 1812, Richard Henry Lee graduated from Dickinson College, where he likely met Thomas Cooper. He studied law and practiced in Loudoun County, Virginia. In 1833, he became professor of languages at Washington College in Washington, Pennsylvania, where he taught until retiring in 1854. He then studied theology, and in 1858, he was ordained as an Episcopal priest and was rector of Trinity Church in Washington, Pennsylvania, until his death. In 1825, he published a biography of his grandfather and namesake Richard Henry Lee (1732-1794), who signed the Declaration of Independence.

 
Charles F. Mercer (1778-1858) was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, and graduated from Princeton College in 1797. He studied law, gained admission to the bar in 1802, and opened a practice in Aldie, Virginia, thirty-five miles west of Washington, D.C. He was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1810 to 1817 and served as a lieutenant colonel of a Virginia regiment in the War of 1812. He later served as inspector general and gained promotion to brigadier general. He was the first president of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Company from 1828 to 1833. He represented Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1817 to 1839. He was active in the American Colonization Society and served as vice president of the Virginia Colonization Society in 1836.


 

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