There were other museums, notably the Leverian Museum, the collection of Sir Ashton Lever, of Alkington, near Manchester, a _virtuoso_ of the first water. He spent very large sums on this collection, which consisted mainly of specimens of natural history (over 5,000 stuffed birds), fossils, shells, corals, a few antiquities, and the usual country museums’ quota of South Sea Island weapons, and dresses. There was much rubbish, as we should term it—according to the _Gentleman’s Magazine_ of May, 1773 (p. 200), like a double-headed calf, a pig with eight legs, two tails, one backbone, and one head. Some pictures of birds in straw very natural, a basket of paper flowers, a head of his present Majesty, cut in Cannel Coal; a drawing of Indian ink of a head of a late Duke of Bridgwater, &c., &c. The collection had, of course, much increased, when in 1785, Sir Ashton Lever, shortly before his death, disposed of it by lottery. The winner, Mr. Parkinson, built “a very elegant and well-disposed structure for its reception, about a hundred yards from the foot of Blackfriars Bridge, on the Surrey side.”[68] The admission was one shilling. Presumably it did not pay, for it was sold by auction in 1806. The sale lasted sixty-five days. The number of lots being 7,879, and the catalogue occupying 410 octavo pages. Then there were the museums of the two Hunters—that of Dr. William Hunter, F.S.A., &c. In the period of which I treat, his anatomical specimens, coins, &c., were exhibited at the Theatre of Anatomy, in Great Windmill Street, whence, according to his will, they were after a certain time transferred to the University of Glasgow, where they now are. His brother John, who was also a F.R.S., had a grand collection of anatomical preparations, which was purchased by the Government for £15,000, and deposited, _pro bono publico_, in the College of Surgeons. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XLV. Medical—The Doctor of the old School—The rising lights—Dr. Jenner—His discovery of vaccination for smallpox—Opposition thereto—Perkins’s Metallic Tractors—The “Perkinean Institution”—His cures—Electricity and Galvanism—Galvanizing a dead criminal—Lunatic Asylums—Treatment of the insane—The Hospitals.