Helkiah Crooke

Helkiah Crooke (1576 – 1648) was Court physician to King James I of England.Heis best remembered for his textbook on anatomy,Mikrokosmographia, a Description of the Bodyof Man.He was the first qualified doctor to be appointed Keeper of Royal Bethlem Hospital, but his conduct as Keeperwasso unsatisfactorythathe waseventuallyremoved from that officeon the grounds of corruption andabsenteeism.

He was born in Great Waldingfield, Suffolk, thethird son of Thomas Crooke, rector of the parish and later reader at Gray's Inn; his mother's family name was Samuel.His eldest brother Sir Thomas Crookeachieved distinction as the founder of Baltimore, County Cork. Thomas andanother brother Samuel Crooke, (who was also a clergyman)werelike their father inclined to Calvinism; Helkiah on the other hand is said to have leaned towardsRoman Catholicism. Sir Thomas in his will of 1629 speaks with obvious affection of "dear Helkiah". The brothers seem to have been rather similar intheir characters: both were men of talent and energy, but both were accused of a complete lack of scruple: just as Helkiah was accused of corruption, so Thomas was accused, rightly or wrongly,of enriching hisnew town ofBaltimore by the profits of piracy.

Helkiahwent on the Sir Henry Billingsley scholarship to St. John's College, Cambridge, graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1596; then went to the University of Leiden, where he graduated as Doctor of Medicine in only a few months. For some time he practiced privately in Suffolk; his first application to join the Royal College of Physicians was unsuccessful, but he was admitted in 1613. He became a fellow in 1620 and anatomy reader in 1629. Possiblythrough the influence ofhis brother Thomas, who had some acquaintance with King James I,he was appointed physician to the Royal Household.

Among Helkiah's patients was William Jaggard, who later became famous as the publisher of William Shakespeare; Helkiah is said to have treated Jaggard for syphilis. It was Jaggard who in 1615 publishedHelkiah's best-known work, Mikrokosmographia. The book was a popularsuccess, although it was caused somecontroversy, partly because it was written in English, and partly because it criticised the teachings of Galen, which were still accepted without question by most of the medical profession.Most notably, it contained frank illustrations of the human sexual organs, leading the Church authorities to denounce it as "indecent". Perhaps because of Helkiah's position at Court, the controversy did his reputation little damage and a second edition appeared in 1631. How much of the book was original has been disputed: it has been described as a compilation, with little original observation; some critics accused Helkiah of outright plagiarism.

In 1619 he was appointed Keeper ofBethlem Royal Hospital, popularly known as "Bedlam", the principal London hospital for the treatment of the mentally ill. He was the first qualified doctor to hold the office. Hehad conducted a vigorous campaign to remove his predecessor, Thomas Jenner, due to his lack of the proper qualifications. His record at Bedlam, as elsewhere, is controversial. His admirers called him a reformer who pioneered the humane treatment of the mentally ill: hiscritics claimed that he embezzledfunds and was usually absent from the Hospital, deputising his duties to his son-in-law, Thomas Bedford.Most serious was the complaint that care of patients was so neglected that many were "like to starve". Helkiah was often accused of attacking others for faults of which he was himself guilty, andhis denunciation of his predecessor Jenner for incompetence was is unlikely to have beenforgotten.Complaintsabout his conduct became so numerous that an inquiry was held in 1632 and Helkiah was removed from office. He wasthe last Keeper to be appointed simply on the basis of royal patronage.

The cost of defending himself attheinquiry issaid to havegreatly impoverished him,and in 1635 he resigned his fellowship of the College of Physicians. He retired to Clerkenwell: so little is known of his last years that he is sometimes thought to have died in 1635, but there is a record of his burial at St James's Church, Clerkenwellin March 1648.

Little is known of his family except that he had a daughter,Alice, who married Thomas Bedford. His sister Sarah,widow ofthe noted preacher Stephen Egerton,at her deathin 1624left legacies to both Helkiah and Alice, but does not mention Helkiah'swife, who had presumably died by then.