William Baylies

William Baylies (1724–1787) was an 18th-century English physician. It is said that the King of Prussia, at an early interview with Baylies, remarked to him that "to have acquired such skill he must have killed a great many people", to which the doctor replied, "Pas tant que votre Majesté (Not as many as Your Majesty)". Baylies died in Berlin on 2 March 1789 and left his library to the King of Prussia. A portrait of him by Johann Heinrich Schmidt, engraved by Daniel Berger, was published in Berlin. Biography Baylies was a native of Worcestershire and practised for some years as an apothecary. After marrying the daughter of Thomas Cooke, a wealthy attorney of Evesham, he began the study of medicine, obtained the degree of M.D. at Aberdeen on 18 December 1748, and was elected a fellow of the Edinburgh College of Physicians on 7 August 1757. Baylies practised for many years at Bath. He published in 1757 Reflections on the Use and Abuse of Bath Waters, which involved him in a dispute with a Dr. Lucas and a Dr. Oliver, the two being the chief doctors of the city. He issued a pamphlet concerning this quarrel — A Narrative of Facts demonstrating the existence and course of a physical confederacy, made known in the printed letters of Dr. Lucas and Dr. Oliver, 1757, but the controversy ruined Baylies's practice, whereupon he moved to London.