This little piece reminds me that deferential attitudes to the so-called upper classes have been difficult to shift. Perhaps they have not yet fully departed. It doesn’t help that the aforesaid social group seem to have a persistent and strong sense of their own entitlement (cf Bullingdon Club).
Anyway, things were, perhaps, a bit different in Germany.
CHEMISTRY A CORRECTIVE OF PRIDE!
We know that Religion has on many occasions, been a corrective of pride; but never till we perused the following amusing anecdote, did we imagine that the abstract science of Chemistry might be applied to that moral purpose.
In Germany, the taste for Chemistry extends as rapidly as liberal ideas. The following anecdote proves the truth of this observation. A Nobleman of a very ancient family, received lessons at Berlin from the celebrated Professor Klaproth,1 whose recent death has proved so great a loss to the sciences. One day as he was proceeding to the laboratory of the Philosopher, his carriage overturned, and he and his coachman were so severely bruised, that they were under the necessity of being bled. The noble German immediately conceived the idea of profiting from this accident to discover whether the blood of a gentleman differed in any way from that of a common man. He sent the produce of two bleedings in separate vessels to Klaproth, and requested him to make a comparative analysis of them. The skilful Chemist, after the most scrupulous attention, found that each blood contained the same quantity of iron, lime, magnesia, phosphate of lime, albumen, muriat of potash and soda, sub-carbonate of soda, sulfate of potash, extractive, mucous matter, and water. The quantity of water was two hundredths parts greater in the blood of the Nobleman than in that of his coachman. The might have been an advantage to the latter, had so slight a difference been worthy of consideration. It may therefore be presumed that the blood of a Nobleman and that of a plebeian are physically and chemically identical. The Nobleman, who was delighted with this result, transmitted a copy of the analysis to his son’s tutor, in order that the young man might be reminded of it whenever he affected to believe that his blood was purer than that of other men.
The Observer, 16 March 1817
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