"  He  failed  not  to  make  use  of  this  permission,"
says  his  chronicler,  "in  such  a  manner  as  one  may
imagine ;  and  his  own  concerns  took  up  so  much
space  in  his  letters  that  there  was  very  little  room
left  for  other  subjects  during  his  stay  at  the  baths."


THE    ABBEY    HOUSE  229

Sir  Alexander  Eraser,  the  chief  physician  to
Charles  H.,  while  the  Court  was  at  Bath,  made
several  inquiries  concerning  the  waters,  and  on  his
return  to  town  continued  his  inquiries  in  a  corre-
spondence with  Pierce,  to  such  good  effect,  that
finding  the  Bath  waters  contained  similar  properties
to  that  of  the  Bourbon  waters,  thenceforth  sent  all
his  patients  to  Bath,  thus  saving  them  the  expense,
and,  as  Pierce  says,  "the  hazard  of  a  voyage  by  sea,
and  a  long  journey  afterwards  by  land."  In  1689
Pierce  was  admitted  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  College
of  Physicians.  He  was  thus  honoured  for  his  many
original  observations.  He  is,  probably,  the  first  English
writer  who  noted  the  now  well-known  occurrence  of
acute  rheumatism  as  a  sequel  to  scarlet  fever,  and  in
other  important  medical  matters  he  is  credited  with
original  discoveries.  Pierce  married  a  daughter  of
David  Pryme,  of  Wookey,  Somerset.  In  1697  he
published  his  "  Bath  Memoirs,"  a  second  edition  of
which  appeared  in  17 13.  He  died  in  June  17 10.  An
interesting  book  of  quaint  medical  prescriptions,  en-
tirely in  his  autograph,  is  in  the  Guildhall  Reference
Library  at   Bath.
