Actor browse - AIM25

Meen , Henry , 1744-1817 , prebendary of St Paul's and classical scholar Wakefield , Gilbert , 1756-1801 , Unitarian and author

Henry Meen: a native of Norfolk; entered Emmanuel College Cambridge, 1761; graduated BA, 1766; MA, 1769; BD, 1776; Fellow of Emmanuel College; ordained; appointed to a minor canonry in St Paul's Cathedral; instituted to the rectory of St Nicholas Cole Abbey, with St Nicholas Olave, London, 1792; collated as prebendary of Twyford in St Paul's Cathedral, 1795; also held the office of lecturer there; obtained no other preferment, these posts leaving him ample time for literary pursuits; studied the writings of Lycophron, and proposed undertaking an edition of Lycophron's works; his criticisms on Lycophron appeared in the 'European Magazine', 1796-1813, but his complete translation was never published; died at the rectory, Bread Street Hill, London, 1817. Publications: while an undergraduate, published a poem in blank verse, 'Happiness, a Poetical Essay' (London, 1766); revised and completed the Revd Francis Fawkes's unfinished translation of 'Apollonius Rhodius' (1780), annexing his own version of Colothus's 'Rape of Helen, or the Origin of the Trojan War', afterwards also published elsewhere; 'A Sermon before the Association of Volunteers' (1782); 'Remarks on the Cassandra of Lycophron' (1800); collected the poems of Elizabeth Scot, 'Alonzo and Cora' (1801); 'Succisivae Operae, or Selections from Ancient Writers, with Translations and Notes' (1815).Gilbert Wakefield: an associate of Henry Meen; born in the parsonage house of St Nicholas, Nottingham, 1756; educated at the free schools of Nottingham and Kingston; obtained a scholarship at Jesus College Cambridge, 1772; followed a distinguished university career; elected Fellow of his college; ordained deacon, 1778; curate at Stockport and Liverpool; endeavoured to rouse public opinion against the slave trade; studied theology, which led him to adopt Unitarian doctrines; resigned his curacy; married and vacated his Fellowship, 1779; never formally connected with any dissenting body; classical tutor at the liberal Warrington Academy, 1779-1783; moved to Bramcote, near Nottingham, 1783; later moved to Richmond, Surrey, and to Nottingham; intended to take on private pupils, but these were not numerous; left Nottingham and became classical tutor in the newly established dissenting college in Hackney, 1790; resigned, 1791; continued to reside at Hackney, and devoted himself to scholarship; his political opinions were increasingly radical, and he sometimes defended them impulsively; Wakefield's 'Reply' to the tract of Richard Watson, Bishop of Llandaff ( 'Address to the People of Great Britain', 1798, which defended Pitt, the war, and the new income tax), opposing the war and contemporary civil and ecclesiastical system and accusing the bishop of absenteeism and pluralism, brought a prosecution for seditious libel; Wakefield defended himself, but was convicted and sentenced to two years' imprisonment in Dorchester gaol, 1799; corresponded with Charles James Fox, and pursued his scholarly work; released, 1801; returned to Hackney, but died of typhus fever soon after; buried in St Mary Magdalene's Church, Richmond. Publications: editions of classical works; New Testament translations; many tracts and pamphlets on religious and political subjects.

Montfort , family , of Holland

Unknown

Best , Johann , fl 1694

Unknown

Jónsson , Snaebjörn , b 1887 , Icelandic writer

Unknown Ólafsson , Eggert , 1726-1768 , Icelandic poet and antiquarian

Unknown

Cribellariis , Marcus , De , fl 1470-1480 , of Venice , scribe

Unknown

Karmi , Israel Ben Joseph

Unknown

Perron , Nicolas , fl c1825-c1870 , French writer on Islamic culture

Napier , John Russell , 1917-1987 , primatologist and physician

International Ocean Telegraph Company

Blair , Eric Arthur , 1903-1950 , novelist and journalist known as George Orwell

Ramsay , Sir , William , 1852-1916 , Knight , chemist Travers , Morris William , 1872-1961 , chemist

Royal Mail Steam Packet Company

River and Mercantile Trust

Rosario and Cordova Waterworks Company Ltd

Shakespeare Association

Kenrick , family Reid , family Rogers , family Sharpe , family

Board of Deputies of British Jews , Defence Committee , Trades Advisory Council Trades Advisory Council of British Jewry

In order to try and counter the activities of the British Union of Fascists and other bodies in the 1930s, in 1936 the Board of Deputies of British Jews, representing the Anglo-Jewish community, created a Co-ordinating Committee (for defence measures), which became the Defence Committee, concerning itself with social, political and economic matters in which anti-Semitism played a part. As well as addressing defamatory statements, its work included investigating periodic complaints about economic discrimination. In 1938 an ad hoc committee, known as the Trades Advisory Council, was set up to advise the Defence Committee on trade practices and related matters. It met infrequently until the outbreak of war in 1939. In 1940 it was reconstituted and a Secretariat appointed. It continued as an ad hoc committee, but in 1941 adopted a constitution as a democratic organisation based on a membership encompassing Jewish traders, industrialists and professional men. This Trades Advisory Council of British Jewry, generally known as the Trades Advisory Council (TAC), continued under the auspices of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. The TAC aimed to strengthen goodwill in industry and commerce and to maintain standards of commercial integrity, and dealt with all questions involving Jews in trade and industry, concerning itself especially with removing the causes of friction between Jewish and non-Jewish manufacturers, merchants and traders, and also with relations between employer and employees, labour conditions and opportunities, refugees, discrimination against Jews by employers, insurance companies or trade organisations, and irregularities and complaints involving Jews and non-Jews, including misrepresentation in trade advertisements and defamatory statements in newspapers. It collected and disseminated information, studied legislation and administrative measures affecting its concerns, liaised with other trade organisations, and arbitrated in commercial disputes where one or both parties were Jews. The TAC comprised a Secretariat; a National Administrative Council and Area Councils; Sections for various trades; and Committees including Statistical, Financial, Membership, Disciplinary, and Refugee Traders. It had premises initially at 148 Leadenhall Street, London, and later its head office was at 280 Euston Road, London NW1. From 1940 its General Secretary was the Labour politician Maurice Orbach.

Wolf , Lucien , 1857-1930 , journalist

Wood , Dudley Orson , 1887-1965 , physicist

Allbutt , Sir , Thomas Clifford , 1836-1925 , Knight , Regius Professor of Physic Cambridge

Baillie , Matthew , 1761-1823 , physician and anatomist

Matthew Baillie was born on 27 October 1761, at Shots, Lanarkshire, the son of the Revd. James Baillie, minister of the parish and later Professor of Divinity in Glasgow, and his wife Dorothea, sister of William and John Hunter, celebrated anatomists. Baillie was educated at Hamilton Grammar School and then at the University of Glasgow. On the advice of William Hunter, his uncle, he chose medicine as his profession. He moved to London to live with William Hunter in 1779, at the age of eighteen. He obtained an exhibition at Balliol College, Oxford, but found that his most valuable education came during the vacations at Hunter's house in Great Windmill Street, where a lecture theatre and museum adjoined the house. He attended the public lectures given by Hunter, helping in their preparation, carrying out demonstrations, and superintending the dissections undertaken by the students. Hunter supplemented the lectures by privately instructing Baillie.

In 1783 William Hunter died and Baillie inherited £5,000, Hunter's house, theatre, and museum, for a period of 30 years, and a small Scottish estate, Long Calderwood, which he handed over to John Hunter, acknowledging him as the natural heir. (The museum subsequently went to Glasgow.) Baillie took on William Hunter's anatomical lectures and proved a successful teacher. He became particularly interested in every kind of diseased structure. It is said that his demonstrations were

`remarkable for their clearness and precision, ... he possessed a perfect conception of his subject; and imparted it with the utmost plainness and perspicuity to his hearers' (Munk's Roll, vol. II, p.403).

He graduated MB in 1786, and in 1787 he was elected physician to St George's Hospital. In 1789 he obtained his MD, from Oxford, and became Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians the following year. He became a Censor of the College in 1791 and 1796. The advancement of Baillie's career was due in some part to Baillie's connections with the Hunters and through his marriage to Sophia Denman, daughter of Dr Thomas Denman, physician, in 1791. His practice grew considerably. In his consultations `he was famed for the clearness with which he expressed his opinion in simple terms' (DNB, vol. II, p.420).

In 1793 Baillie published the work for which he is famous, The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body (1793). It was the first book on the subject in English, and the first to make the morbid anatomy a subject itself. Rather than giving the history and symptoms of every case, as had been the trend, Baillie dealt with the morbid appearances of each organ in turn. The work is limited in so far as it discusses the thoracic and abdominal organs and the brain, and leaves untouched the skeleton, muscles, nerves, and spinal cord. He was the first to define cirrhosis of the liver, to distinguish renal cysts from the rare cysts of parasitic hydatids of the kidney, and to challenge the opinion that death was often due to a growth in the heart. There were additional notes describing symptoms that appeared in 1797, whilst a series of engravings to illustrate the book was published in 1799.

Baillie delivered a number of eponymous lectures during his professional career. These included the Goulstonian Lectures in 1794, the Croonian Lectures in 1796, 1797, and 1798, and the Harveian Oration in 1798, all at the Royal College of Physicians. He also wrote papers for the Transactions of the College. His unpublished contributions to clinical medicine were privately printed, posthumously in 1825, and were entitled, Collected Works; Lectures and Observations on Medicine by the Late Matthew Baillie (1825).

His practice extended further throughout the 1790s. This was due in part to Baillie acquiring a large number of patients from the practice of fellow physician Dr Richard Warren, former physician to George III, after his death in 1797, and his friend, Dr David Pitcairn, physician, recommending Baillie to his patients on a temporary secession of practice in 1798. In 1799 he gave up his post at St George's Hospital and his lecturing, and moved to Grosvenor Street to devote himself fully to his practice. For many years Baillie's successful practice ensured £10,000 a year. In 1810 he became physician extraordinary to George III, after being called to consult the Princess Amelia. He also became physician in ordinary to Princess Charlotte, in 1816. Baillie attended the King in his last illness, but declined the baronetcy offered him. For years Baillie worked for sixteen hours a day. Ultimately his large practice overwhelmed him and his health was affected. He was forced to withdraw from all but consultation practice.

Baillie was honoured during his life by election as honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, in 1809. In the same year he was named an Elect of the Royal College of Physicians, London. He also became a Fellow of the Royal Society. Baillie was a member of a great many medical societies and charities, including the Medical and Chirurgical Society of which he was a founder member in 1805, and President in 1808-9.

In 1823 he retired to his country house in Gloucestershire. He died of phthisis on 23 September 1823, at the age of 62, and was buried in Duntisbourne, Gloucestershire. He left a widow, a son and a daughter. His first son had died only aged a few months, in 1792. He is commemorated by a bust and inscription in Westminster Abbey. Baillie bequeathed his books, and drawings to the Royal College of Physicians, with the sum of £300, having already donated his collection of anatomical specimens some years earlier. His wife subsequently presented his gold-headed cane to the College, formerly the property of the eminent Dr John Radcliffe, King William III's physician.

Publications:
The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body (London, 1793)
Anatomy of the Gravid Uterus, by William Hunter published by Baillie (1794)
A Series of Engravings Tending to Illustrate the Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body (London, 1803)
Collected Works; Lectures and Observations on Medicine by the late Matthew Baillie (privately printed, 1825)

Publications by others about Baillie:
The Life and Works of Matthew Baillie (1761-1823), Franco Crainz (Rome, 1995)

Broadbent , Sir , William Henry , 1835-1907 , Knight , physician

William Henry Broadbent was born at Lindley, near Huddersfield, on 23 January 1835, the eldest son of John Broadbent, woollen manufacturer and a prominent Wesleyan. He was educated at Huddersfield College until the age of fifteen, when he entered his father's factory. He spent two years working in the factory, learning the processes of manufacture. In 1852, at the age of seventeen, he decided that he wanted to study medicine and became apprenticed to a Manchester surgeon, and was enrolled at Owens College. He also attended the Manchester Royal School of Medicine, where he progressed well, winning numerous medals. In 1856 he was awarded gold medals in anatomy, physiology, and chemistry, at the first MB London examination. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries. In 1857 he went to Paris to continue his studies, strengthening his clinical experience, visiting the wards of the Paris hospitals and attending the Ecole de Medecine, and becoming fluent in French. He returned to sit his final MB examination in 1858, and took the gold medal in obstetric medicine and a first class honours degree.

He obtained the post of obstetric officer at St Mary's Hospital, London, in 1858, becoming resident medical officer there in 1859. In 1860 he was appointed pathologist and lecturer on physiology and zoology in the medical school of the hospital, and obtained his MD, London. In the same year he was elected physician to the London Fever Hospital. In 1861 he was appointed lecturer in comparative anatomy in St Mary's Hospital medical school, and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians. In 1863 he was appointed visiting physician to the Western General Dispensary. In 1865 he was made physician in charge of outpatients at St Mary's, and then in 1871 he was appointed full physician, with a lectureship in medicine. It was his work at St Mary's with the outpatients and in the wards, his attention to detail and accuracy in diagnosis, that established his reputation as one of the finest clinical teachers of his day' (Munk's Roll, vol. IV, p.169). He becameboth an investigator of medical problems and... an expert on the treatment of specific diseases' (DNB, 2nd Supplement, vol. I, p.226). His skill and reputation eventually ensured a large, lucrative practice.

Broadbent developed particular interests in neurology and cardiology, and, to a lesser extent, cancer and typhoid. He wrote and lectured extensively on these subjects. An important early work was his book Cancer: A New Method of Treatment (1866), which described his treatment of cases by the injection of acetic acid into the tumour. Despite some initial good results Broadbent discontinued this method when later outcomes proved unsatisfactory. One paper to attract attention was his Sensori-motor Ganglia and Association of Nerve Nuclei', which appeared in the British and Foreign Medical Clinical Review (1866). In this he explained the immunity from paralysis of bilaterally associated muscles in hemiplegia and advancedBroadbent's hypothesis', in which he explained the unequal distribution of paralysis in face, trunk, arm and leg, in the ordinary form of hemiplegia. The essential principle has remained widely applicable to neurological questions, and to the solution of problems in physiology, pathology, and psychology.

Broadbent was also responsible for valuable work on aphasia. In On the Cerebral Mechanism of Speech and Thought', which appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Medical Chirurgical Society (1872), he was the first to propose the notion of a separate centre for conception of ideation. One of his most important works was Heart Disease, With Special Reference to Prognosis and Treatment (1897), written with his eldest son, John Francis Harpin Broadbent. He had been influenced by Francis Sibson, the eminent cardiologist, with whom he had worked at St Mary's in his early days at the hospital, assisting Sibson on autopsies, with a particular interest in studying diseases of the chest. He became aleading authority' on the subject (ibid, p.227). He also contributed to advances in the treatment of typhoid fever, deprecating the 'do nothing' treatment and enforcing careful dieting, nursing, and hydro-therapeutic measures. He also gave a number of eponymous lectures, including the Lettsomian Lectures at the Medical Society of London, in 1874, the Harveian lectures, to the Harveian Society, in 1884, and was Croonian Lecturer and Lumleian Lecturer, in 1887 and 1891 respectively, at the Royal College of Physicians.

In 1869 he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. From 1872 Broadbent moved to Seymour Street, where his private consultant practice continued to expand, chiefly among the upper classes. In 1879 he retired from his post of physician to the London Fever Hospital, becoming consultant physician. In the 1880s he took on the role of examiner in medicine to the universities of London, 1883, and Cambridge, 1888.

In 1892 Broadbent moved to a larger address in Brook Street in order to accommodate his huge practice, which had continued to thrive. It is said that `he refused twice as much work as he could undertake' (ibid), and in 1891 his income had exceeded 13,000 pounds. His patients soon included the royal family, as in 1892 Broadbent was appointed physician in ordinary to the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII, receiving a baronetcy the following year. In 1896 he retired from the active service of St Mary's Hospital, becoming honorary consulting physician. In this year he also became consulting physician for the Victoria Hospital for Sick Children, and the New Hospital for Women. It was also in 1896 that he became physician extraordinary to Queen Victoria, and in 1901, on her death, physician in ordinary to King Edward VII and the new Prince of Wales, later King George V, whom he had attended during an attack of typhoid fever ten years earlier. In 1901 he was made KCVO (Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order).

Broadbent offered his services to a number of institutions throughout his professional career, playing a prominent part in public movements affecting the prevention of disease. He had served as a member of the Royal Commission on Fever Hospitals in 1881. He was greatly involved with the Royal College of Physicians, giving several eponymous lectures and serving as Censor in 1889, and as Senior Censor in 1895, although he was defeated in his run for the presidency in 1896. Other commitments included chairing the committee for organising the National Association for the Prevention of Consumption, in 1898, chairing the organising council of the British Congress on Tuberculosis, which met in London in July 1901, and chairing the advisory committee for King Edward VII's Sanatorium at Midhurst, to which he became a consulting physician. He also became consulting physician to the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers. Broadbent was always a generous subscriber to the British Medical Benevolent Fund, of which he was secretary, 1864-72, treasurer, 1872-1900, and subsequently President in 1900.

He was an Honorary Member and Fellow of many medical societies, both at home and abroad. He had been made President of the Harveian Society, in 1875, the Medical Society, in 1881, the Clinical Society, in 1887, and the Neurological Society, in 1896. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1897, in recognition of his scientific contributions. Abroad he was an Honorary Member of the Verein fur Innere Medicin, Berlin, the Gesellschaft fur Innere Medicin und Kinderheilkunde, Vienna, the Societe Medicale de Geneve, and the Imperial Society of Constantinople. He was chief organiser and first President of the Entente Cordiale Medicale, in 1904, and was honoured with their Grand Cross and Insignia of Commander of the Legion of Honour, at a banquet held in Paris in 1905. Broadbent also received the honorary degrees of Doctor of Laws (LLD), from the universities of Edinburgh, St Andrews, Montreal, and Toronto, between 1898-1906, and Doctor of Science (DSc), from Leeds University in 1904.

Broadbent married Eliza Harpin in 1863, and they had three sons and three daughters. One of the sons was Sir John Francis Harpin Broadbent and another Walter Broadbent, both of whom became physicians, and later fellows of the Royal College of Physicians. Broadbent died in London of influenza, on 10 July 1907. He was buried in the parish church of Wendover, Buckinghamshire, where he had his country house.

Publications:
Cancer: A New Method of Treatment (London, 1866)
The Practice of Medicine, revised by Sir William Broadbent (7th ed., London 1875)
The Pulse (largely a reproduction of the Croonian Lectures, 1887) (London, 1890)
Heart Disease, With Special Reference to Prognosis and Treatment, with John Francis Harpin Broadbent (London, 1897)

Publications by others about Broadbent:
Selections from the Writings, Medical and Neurological, of Sir William Broadbent, Walter Broadbent (ed.) (London, 1908)
The Life of Sir William Broadbent KCVO, FRS, M.E. Broadbent (ed.) (London, 1909)

Brown-Sequard , Charles Edouard , 1817-1894 , physiologist

Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard was born Charles Edouard Brown on 8 April 1817, at Port Louis, Mauritius, the posthumous son of Edward Brown, of Irish descent and captain of a merchant vessel belonging to Philadelphia. He had little education early on and acted for a time as a clerk in a store. In 1838 he traveled with his Mauritius-born mother, originally of the Provencal family of Sequard, to France, first to Nantes and then to Paris. It was his intention to pursue a profession in literature, but he was persuaded to study medicine by Charles Nodier, lexicographer. His mother paid his fees, making a living as a boarding-house keeper. She died in 1842, and Brown added her maiden name to his own. In 1846, at the age of 29, he graduated MD from Paris, with a thesis on the reflex action of the spinal cord after separation from the brain.

Brown-Sequard then served as `externe des hopitaux' under the physicians Armand Trousseau and Pierre Rayer. He devoted himself to the study of physiology, labouring under conditions of extreme poverty. In 1848 he became one of the four secretaries of the Societe de Biologie. The following year, during an outbreak of cholera, he was appointed auxiliary physician at the military hospital of Gros-Caillou. In 1852 he left for America, fearing that his republican tendencies might bring him trouble in France. He settled in New York where he supported himself by giving lessons in French and attending midwifery for five dollars a case. In 1853 he returned to Paris, newly married, with his American wife Ellen.

He again left Paris in 1854, intent on practicing medicine in his native Mauritius. However on arrival he found the island was in the midst of a cholera epidemic, whereupon he immediately took charge of the cholera hospital. Once the epidemic was subdued he was presented with a gold medal, struck in his honour by his countrymen. He was appointed professor of the Institutes of Medicine and Medical Jurisprudence at the Virginia Medical College in Richmond, Virginia. He took up his post in 1855, but soon after changed his mind and suddenly returned to Paris. It is said that there were irreconcilable differences; Brown-Sequard could not accept the College's pro-slavery stance, whilst the College was equally unhappy about Brown-Sequard's experiments on un-anaesthetised animals (Gooddy, p.3).

Back in Paris again he was awarded a prize by the Academie des Sciences, and between 1855 and 1857 taught at a small laboratory that he had rented. In 1858 he established the Journal de la Physiologie de l'Homme et des Animaux, which he continually published until 1864. It was also in 1858 that he came to London and delivered a course of lectures on the physiology and pathology of the central nervous system, at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He then lectured in Edinburgh, Dublin and Glasgow. In 1859 he was made a fellow of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow. It was due to the renown that these lectures brought him that Brown-Sequard was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1860. In 1859 he had also been appointed physician to the newly established National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, in Queen Square, London. He was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1860, and subsequently delivered both the Croonian and the Goulstonian Lectures.

Brown-Sequard became famous for his spinal cord syndrome. Through his work on the localisation of the tracts in the spinal cord, he traced the origin of the sympathetic nerve-fibres into the spinal cord. With the physiologist Claude Bernard, his old master, Brown-Sequard shares the honour of demonstrating the existence of vaso-motor nerves. He was also the first to show that epilepsy could be produced experimentally in guinea pigs. Whilst Brown-Sequard was not a philosophical thinker he undoubtedly did much to enrich physiological science. Indeed it is said that he established upon a firm scientific basis much of our present knowledge of diseases of the nervous system' (DNB, 1901, p.320). He remains however unrecognised as a pioneer of endocrinology, having demonstrated through his experiments the significance of adrenal glands. Indeed it is thought that there isstill little recognition of the immense contribution he made to modern medical thinking' (Davenport et al., 2001, p.95).

Brown-Sequard soon established a considerable practice in London, however it has been said that it `overtaxed his strength, and otherwise proved distasteful to him' (DNB, p.320). His elevated position within England's medical profession was already established though; amongst his correspondents were such figures as Charles Darwin and Louis Pasteur. In 1863 he resigned his appointment at the Hospital, and was made honorary physician. He left London for America, where he had accepted the office of professor of the physiology and of pathology of the nervous system at Harvard University. At this time he managed to resume his original work in experimental medicine, although his wife died in 1864.

In 1868 Brown-Sequard returned to Paris, via Dublin. In Paris he jointly founded, with his friends Edme Vulpian, physiologist, and Jean Charcot, neurologist, the Archives de Physiologie Normale et Pathologique. Between 1869 and 1872 he held the chair of comparative and experimental pathology in the Ecole de Medecine, Paris. In 1872 he left Paris for New York, where he settled to work as a physician. In that same year he married his second wife, another American, Maria Carlisle. During this time he founded the Archive of Scientific and Practical Medicine, in which he published his first paper on inhibition.

In 1875 he left New York and returned once more to Paris, after residing for a short period in London, during which time he again lectured at the Royal College of Physicians. In 1877 however he accepted an offer of chair of physiology in Geneva, having refused a similar offer from Glasgow. About this time his second wife died, and he married an English woman, Elizabeth Emma Dakin. The following year Claude Bernard died, and Brown-Sequard was offered the vacant professorship of experimental medicine at the College de France, which he held until his own death.

In 1881 he was awarded the honorary degree of LLD from the University of Cambridge. In the same year he received the Lacaze prize from the Academie des Sciences and, in 1885, the grand prix biennal. In 1886 the Royal College of Physicians presented him with the Baly medal. He was elected president of the Societe de Biologie in 1887, which it is said `gave him more pleasure than any of the other honours he had received' (ibid). In 1889 he was awarded the Order of the Rose from the Brazilian legation in Paris. Also in 1889 Brown-Sequard became sole editor of the Archives de Physiologie Normale et Pathologique. He published numerous papers in the various journals with which he was involved, as well as contributing to the London and New York medical papers.

Brown-Sequard did not recover from the shock of his wife's death in 1894. He suffered an attack of phlebitis in January 1894, and died in Paris on 1 April the same year. He was buried in Montparnasse cemetery.

Publications:
Experimental Researches Applied to Physiology and Pathology (New York, 1853)
Journal de la Physiologie de l'Homme et des Animaux (est. Brown-Sequard, Paris, 1858-64)
Course of Lectures on the Physiology and Pathology of the Central Nervous System (Philadelphia, 1860)
Lectures on the Diagnosis and Treatment of the Principal Forms of Paralysis of the Lower Extremities (London, 1861)
Lectures on the Diagnosis and Treatment of Functional Nervous Affections (London, 1868)
Archives de Physiologie Normale et Pathologique (est. Brown-Sequard, Vulpian, & Charcot, c.1868-)
Lecons sur les Nerfs Vaso-moteurs, sur l'Epilepsie et sur les Actions Reflexes Normales et Morbides (Paris, 1872, transl. Joseph Marie Alfred Beni-Barde)
Archive of Scientific and Practical Medicine (est. Brown-Sequard, c.1872)
Notice sur les Travaux Scientifiques du Docteur C.E. Brown-Sequard (Paris, 1886)

Clark , Sir , Andrew , 1826-1893 , Knight , physician

Andrew Clark was born on 28 October 1826 in Aberdeen, the only son of Andrew Clark, a doctor practicing in St Fergus, Aberdeenshire. His mother died during his birth and his father died when Clark was seven years old. Two bachelor uncles directed his education; he went to school in Aberdeen and at the age of thirteen was apprenticed to a doctor in Dundee. During his apprenticeship he attended the Tay Square Academy and the wards of the Royal Infirmary. In 1842, and then from 1843-46, he studied at Edinburgh University as an extra-academical student, winning medals in most of his classes. He took the diploma for membership of the Royal College of Surgeons of England (MRCS) in 1844, and developed an interest in pathology. He returned to Edinburgh and was for some time assistant to the eminent physician John Hughes Bennett, in the pathological department of the Royal Infirmary.

Due to the appearance of the early symptoms of phthisis Clark sort an outdoor life, and from 1846-53 he held a commission as an assistant surgeon in the medical service of the Royal Navy. He made a voyage to Madeira in 1847, but for most of the six years was employed on pathological work at the Royal Navy Hospital at Haslar. Here he taught the use of the microscope in clinical and pathological work.

In 1853 Clark retired from the navy and was appointed to the new curatorship of the museum at the London Hospital. He remained in this position for eight years, although the impetus of his initial enthusiasm was lost when in 1854 Clark was also elected assistant physician to the hospital. It has been said that his new appointment revealed the true nature of his genius', and he quickly built up a huge reputation in both the wards of the hospital and in private practice (Munk's Roll, 1955, p.93). He had begun practice in Montague Street, Bloomsbury, and became famed for hisremarkable powers of observation, thoroughness and scientific approach' (ibid, p.94). He also became well known for giving elaborate directions to his patients as to their diet, despite this being considered by some of his contemporaries a rather antiquated therapy. He believed that many maladies were due to poor diet and lifestyle. It was also in 1854 that he graduated MD from the University of Aberdeen, and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians.

From 1855-56 Clark was assistant physician at the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest. He held the lectureship in physiology at the London Hospital from 1856-62. In 1858 he was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. In 1860 he was Lettsomian Lecturer at the Medical Society of London. He was joint lecturer in medicine at the London Hospital from 1865 to 1870, and was promoted to full physician there in 1866. By then Clark had also acquired `a larger practice than any other physician of his time' (DNB, 1901, p.23). During the cholera epidemic of 1866, which raged throughout the East End of London, he became friends with, and physician to, the Gladstones. William Gladstone, statesman and four times prime minister, was one of Clark's many famous patients.

Although he published no large medical work Clark made many contributions to medical knowledge, through lectures, addresses, and articles. His special interest was in pulmonary diseases, in particular phthisis. At the Royal College of Physicians in 1867 Clark delivered the Croonian Lectures, on the subject of pulmonary diseases. In the same year he moved home and practice to a large house in Cavendish Square, where his private practice continued to expand. In 1871 he became president of the Medical Society of London.

Clark was made a baronet in 1883, at the instigation of Gladstone, then Prime Minister, in recognition of his services to medical science. Two years later he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and was Lumleian Lecturer at the Royal College of Physicians, again lecturing on pulmonary diseases. He also served as censor at the College. In 1886 Clark was made consulting physician at the London Hospital, after twenty years service as physician. He continued to give lectures in his capacity as Emeritus Professor of Clinical Medicine, until his death.

In 1888, Clark became president of the Royal College of Physicians, serving in this office until his death. He became consulting physician both of the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest, in 1892, and of the East London Hospital for Children. He was made honorary president of the Naval Medical Examining Board, and had been president of the Metropolitan Counties Branch of the British Medical Association. In recognition of his position and status in the medical profession, the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Cambridge awarded him the degree of LLD, whilst Dublin awarded him an honorary MD. He was elected president of the Medical and Chirurgical Society in 1892, and was presiding over this body and the Royal College of Physicians at the time of his death.

Clark had married Seton Mary Percy Forster in 1851, and they had had one son and two daughters. His first wife died in 1858, and in 1862 he married Helen Annette Alphonso, with whom he also had a son and two daughters. Clark suffered a stroke in October 1893. During his illness the Queen desired that she daily be kept informed of his condition. He died just over 2 weeks later at his home in Cavendish Square in London on 6 November 1893. After a service at Westminster Abbey he was buried at Essendon, Hertfordshire, where he had recently bought a country house.

Publications:
He authored a number of tracts & chapters in medical publications.
Fibroid Diseases of the Lung, including Fibroid Phthisis, Sir Andrew Clark, Wilfred James Hadley & Thomas Hancock Arnold Chaplin (London, 1894)
Medical Nursing; edited by E.F. Lamport, with an introductory biographical note by Sir Andrew Clark, James Anderson & Sir Andrew Clark, Ethel Lamport (ed.) (London, 1894)
The Physician's Testimony for Christ, with a preface by Sir Dyce Duckworth, Sir Andrew Clark & Sir Dyce Duckworth (London, 1894)

Clark , Sir , James , 1788-1870 , 1st Baronet , physician

Sir James Clark was born on 14 December 1788, in Cullen, Banffshire. He was educated first at the parish school in Fordyce, and then at Aberdeen University where he graduated MA. It was his initial intention to pursue a career in law but he found he had a preference for medicine. He went to Edinburgh to study, and in 1809 became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. Immediately he entered the medical service of the Navy. He served at Haslar Hospital until July 1810, when he was appointed as assistant surgeon aboard HMS Thistle. The 'Thistle' was wrecked off the coast of New Jersey. Clark returned to England, was promoted to surgeon, and joined the HMS Collobree, which was also wrecked. He served on two more vessels until the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, and was then placed on half pay. During his time at sea he had sailed to Canada, North America and the West Indies. He returned to Edinburgh to continue his studies at the University, graduating MD in 1817.

In 1818 Clark took a phthisical patient to the south of France and to Switzerland, making observations on the effects of the climate upon phthisis (pulmonary consumption). He collected meteorological and other data with a view to studying their influences on that and other diseases. In 1819 he settled in Rome, the resort frequented by many of the higher echelons of English society, where he built up a practice and a steadily increasing reputation over the next seven years. One of his patients was the poet John Keats, who was far advanced in his suffering from phthisis, and died in Rome in 1821. Whilst there Clark had published his Medical Notes on Climate, Diseases, Hospitals, and Medical Schools in France, Italy, and Switzerland, comprising an Inquiry into the Effects of a Residence in the South of Europe in Cases of Pulmonary Consumption (1822). During the summers he visited various European centers and acquainted himself further with the English aristocracy. In particular he visited the mineral springs and universities of Germany. On such a visit to Carlsbad he met Prince Leopold, later to become King of the Belgians, who was greatly interested in Clark's examinations of the waters. When Clark returned to England the Prince appointed him his physician.

Clark returned to London in 1826, and was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. In 1820, on a visit to London from Rome, he had been admitted an Extra-Licentiate. He was appointed physician to St George's Infirmary, a small dispensary. His progress in London was slow but steady. His practice gradually built up, whilst he continued his research into the climate and phthisis. In 1829 appeared his 'best and most important work' (Munk's Roll, vol. III, p.224), The Influence of Climate in the Prevention and Cure of Chronic Diseases, more particularly of the Chest and Digestive Organs (1829). In it he gave a clearer, more correct, view of the powers of climate and of mineral waters in the treatment of disease, than had before then existed. Accordingly this work established Clark's reputation in London, with the public and with members of his profession. He employed the use of mineral waters in the treatment of disease in his practice. Clark became both famous and popular for the care he took in his prescriptions, masking the nauseous taste of the drugs for his patients.

In 1834 he obtained, via recommendation by the King of the Belgians, the appointment of physician to the Duchess of Kent. The appointment involved the medical care of Princess Victoria. Accordingly, this led to a large increase in his business and reputation. Upon Queen Victoria's accession to the throne in 1837, Clark was appointed the Queen's physician in ordinary, and was created baronet.

Unfortunately his prosperity and success were undermined by the case of Lady Flora Hastings. In 1839 Clark was called upon to express his opinion on her condition, when the growth of a fatal abdominal tumour led to suspicion that she was pregnant. Clark's erroneous opinion, possibly owing to his relative inexperience of the diseases of women due to his history as a naval surgeon, appeared to give support to the slander that was spread by others. He subsequently became unpopular with the public and lost many of his patients. It took years for the effects of the case to dissipate, but eventually it was widely understood that he had been wrongly blamed. Indeed it seems that if Clark's advice had been followed, Lady Flora's name would have been cleared. In the meantime, despite his professional mistake, he continued to be trusted at court. Upon the Queen's marriage in 1840 Clark was also appointed physician to the Prince Consort, Prince Albert, who also held him in high esteem. He became the person to whom all queries concerning medical matters and polity were addressed. It is stated that Clark 'was always ready with advice... and wise, carefully-considered counsel' (ibid, p.226). He also served on several Royal Commissions.

Outside of his role at court, Clark was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1832. He served on the Senate of the University of London, 1838-65. Indeed it is said that to him the medical section of the University owes its shape and usefulness (ibid). He also played an influential role in the establishing of the Royal College of Chemistry, in 1845. Clark also served on the General Medical Council, 1858-60.

Clark retired in 1860, giving up his practice at Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, where he had lived since 1841, and his duties as physician to the monarch. He moved to Bagshot Park, Surrey, which was lent to him by Queen Victoria for his life. He had married Barbara Stephen in September 1820, and they had had a son in July 1821. His wife, known to Clark as Minnie, died in 1862. Clark was 81 when he died at Bagshot Park on 29 June 1870. He was buried at Kensal Green on 4 July 1870.

Publications:
Lettera al. Prof. Tommasini intorno alle sue Osservationi sulla Scuola Medico-clinica di Edinburgo (Rome, 1822)
Medical Notes on Climate, Diseases, Hospitals, and Medical Schools in France, Italy, and Switzerland, comprising an Inquiry into the effects of a residence in the South of Europe in cases of Pulmonary Consumption (London, 1822)
The Influence of Climate in the Prevention and Cure of Chronic Diseases, more particularly of the Chest and Digestive Organs (London, 1829)
Treatise on Pulmonary Consumption comprehending an Inquiry into the Causes, Nature, Prevention, and Treatment of Tuberculous and Scrofulous Diseases in General (London, 1835)
Remarks on Medical Reform (London, 1842)
Memoir of John Conolly, MD, comprising a Sketch of the Treatment of the Insane in Europe and America (London, 1869)

Cogan , Thomas , [1545]-1607 , medical student

Colebrook , George , d 1716

Colebrook , Josiah , fl 1700

Society of Collegiate Physicians

Corffilde , Alice , fl 1649

Davies , David , 1760-1844 , surgeon

Deptford Hospital

Drewitt , Frederick George Dawtrey , 1848-1942 , pathologist

Frederick George Dawtrey Drewitt was born at Burpham, Surrey, on the 29 February 1848. He was educated at Winchester College before entering Christ Church College, Oxford. He graduated with a natural science degree in 1871, and then began his medical studies at St George's Hospital, London. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1876, and took house appointments at St George's, the Hospital for Sick Children at Great Ormond Street, London, and the Belgrave Hospital for Children.

He graduated MA and BM from Oxford in 1878, and the following year became a member of the Royal College of Physicians. Drewitt held honorary appointments at the Victoria Hospital for Children, 1881-87, and the West London Hospital, 1882-1902. He qualified MD from Oxford in 1883. In 1888 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.

Drewitt's private income enabled him to retire early. He then devoted himself chiefly to the study of birds and flowers. He had a range of interests however, which were reflected in his publications. In 1907 he wrote Bombay in the Days of George IV, and in 1922 The Romance of the Apothecaries' Garden, which reached a third edition. His other publications included The Latin Names of Common Flowers: Their Pronunciation and History (1927), and The Life of Edward Jenner (1931). He was also a fine water-colour painter and exhibited at the Royal Academy.

Drewitt sat on the governing bodies of the Ornithological Society, the Zoological Society, and the National Trust, and represented the Royal College of Physicians in the management of the Chelsea Physic Garden until 1941.

He had married in 1897 the Hon. Caroline Mary, daughter of the third Baron Lilford. Drewitt died on 29 July 1942, at the age of 94.

Publications:
Bombay in the Days of George IV: Memoirs of Sir Edward West, Chief Justice of the King's Court during its Conflict with the East India Company (London, 1907)
The Romance of the Apothecaries' Garden at Chelsea (London, 1922)
The Latin Names of Common Flowers: Their Pronunciation and History (London, 1927)
The Life of Edward Jenner, MD, FRS, Naturalist and Discoverer of Vaccination (London, 1931).
The Notebook of Edward Jenner in the possession of the Royal College of Physicians of London, with an introduction on Jenner's work as a naturalist by F. Dawtrey Drewitt, Edward Jenner (London, 1931)

Ent , Sir , George , 1604-1689 , Knight , physician

Sir George Ent was born at Sandwich, Kent, on 6 November 1604, the son of Josias Ent, a Belgium merchant whose religion had forced him to flee the Netherlands and settle in England. He was educated at a school in Rotterdam. In 1624 he entered at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1627, and MA in 1631. Ent then went to Padua University, at the time the most celebrated school of medicine. He studied there for five years, graduating MD in April 1636. As was the custom of the time, congratulatory poems addressed to him by his friends were published in Padua, entitled Laureae Apollinani, with Ent's coat of arms endorsed on the title page. He was incorporated MD at Oxford in November 1638.

In 1639 he was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Ent's major work was his Apologia pro Circuitione Sanguinis, contra Aemilium Parisanum (1641; 2nd edition 1683). The book defends William Harvey's doctrine of the circulation of the blood, and is a particular reply to a Venetian physician Aemylius Parisanus. It also gives a `rational account' of the operation of purgative medicines (Munk's Roll, 1878, p.226). Both editions were dedicated to Sir Theophilus Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, and were preceded by an address to Harvey. In 1642 Ent delivered the Goulstonian Lectures at the Royal College of Physicians. He was censor of the College for twenty-two years, between 1645 and 1669.

In 1651 Ent published Harvey's De Generatione Animalium, with a dedicatory letter to the celebrated anatomist. Ent had persuaded Harvey to give him the manuscript, which Harvey had up to that point delayed publishing as he felt he might have made further observations. Ent then published the work, with the author's permission. He dedicated the book to the president and fellows of the Royal College of Physicians. Ent was a close friend of Harvey's, and when Harvey died, in 1657, he left Ent five pounds with which to buy a ring. Their friendship was immortalised by the poet John Dryden, in his Epistle to Dr Charleton.

Ent was registrar of the Royal College of Physicians for fifteen years, 1655-70, and became an elect in 1657. In 1665 Ent delivered the anatomy lectures at the College. After the last lecture Charles II, who was present at the lecture, knighted Ent in the Harveian Museum, an unprecedented event. Ent was subsequently consiliarius, advisor to the president, from 1667-69, and again from 1676-86. Ent became president of the College from 1670-75, and served again in 1682 and 1684.

He was one of the original fellows of the Royal Society, and is named in the charter as one of the first council. A collection of Ent's works, Opera Omnia Medico-Physica, was published in Leiden in 1687. It has been said of him that he was `a man of very considerable scholarship speaking and writing Latin with ease and elegance' (Whitfield, [1981], p.51).

Ent had married Sarah, daughter of the physician Othowell Meverall, treasurer of the Royal College of Physicians, in February 1645-6. Ent died at his house in the parish of St Giles-in-the-Fields, on 13 October 1689, at the age of 84. He had resigned from his position as elect at the College just a few days before his death. He was buried in the church of St Lawrence Jewry, near the Guildhall of London.

Publications:
Apologia pro Circuitione Sanguinis, contra Aemilium Parisanum (London, 1641; 2nd ed. 1683)
De Generatione Animalium, William Harvey (London, 1651, published by Ent)
Animadversiones in Malachiae Thrustoni, MD, Diatribam de Respirationis usu Primario (London, 1672)
Opera Omnia Medico-Physica... Nunc Primum Junctim Edita... (Leiden, 1687)
A Collection for Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, Olof Rudbeck, Philip Stansfield, & Sir George Ent, ed. by John Houghton (London, 1692)

Ferguson , Robert , 1799-1865 , physician

Robert Ferguson was born in India on 15 November 1799, the son of Robert Ferguson of the Indian Civil Service, originally from Glen Islay, Perthshire, and grand-nephew of the historian Adam Ferguson. Ferguson's early education was at a school in Croydon. He then began to study medicine as a pupil of his relative George Ricketts Nuttall, a practitioner in Soho, whilst attending lectures at the Great Windmill Street School of Anatomy. He studied for a time in Heidelberg, where he acquired a thorough knowledge of German literature, before entering the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. During his time at Edinburgh he became friends with the novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott, and Scott's son-in-law John Gibson Lockhart, novelist and biographer. Ferguson graduated MD in 1823.

In 1824 he became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, and began to practice midwifery in London. He became great friends with the eminent physician Robert Gooch, and obtained his patronage, succeeding to a large portion of Gooch's practice. Ferguson's first publication was a letter to Sir Henry Halford, president of the Royal College of Physicians, in 1825, proposing a combination of the old inoculation of smallpox with vaccination. After travelling abroad for a time as a medical attendant to various high societal families, he took the post of resident medical officer at the Marylebone Infirmary.

In 1827 he was active in founding the London Medical Gazette, an opportunity for conservative opinion in medical politics and academic views in medical science to be expressed. He was also a frequent contributor to the Quarterly Review. Most of his articles were on medicine, although one or two were of a philosophico-religious kind. Ferguson had a number of close literary friends, the novelists and poets William Wordsworth, Washington Irving, and Sir Henry Taylor. Ferguson anonymously authored a `History of Insects' for Murray's Family Library(1829-47).

With the support of Gooch he continued to specialise in obstetric practice, was appointed physician to the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, and became professor of obstetrics at King's College, when the medical department was opened in 1831. Ferguson became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1837. In 1840 he was appointed physician-accoucheur to Queen Victoria, during which appointment he attended the births of all her children. In 1844 and 1845 he was censor at the College, and between 1857 and 1859 a member of the council.

From 1857 he gradually withdrew from his extensive obstetric practice and became a general medical practitioner. He resigned his appointment as physician-accoucheur to the Queen, and was made her physician extraordinary. His success as a general practitioner was remarkable considering he had not served as physician to one of the large general hospitals. Indeed so successful did he become that it has been said that, at the time, `no physician was so well known' (Medical Times, 1865, p.14). Among his patients were distinguished leaders in politics and literature, such as Sir Walter Scott, with whom he had maintained friendships throughout his career.

He was twice married, first in 1830 to a lady of the noble French family of Labalmondiere, and then in 1846 to Mary Macleod, with whom he had five children. Ferguson died at his country cottage at Winkfield, Berkshire, on 25 June 1865, at the age of 65.

Publications:
Essay on the Most Important Diseases of Women. Part 1, Puerperal Fever; On the Method of Induction and its Results in Medical Science (London, 1839)
On Some of the Most Important Diseases of Women; Prefatory Essay by Robert Ferguson, Robert Gooch; Robert Ferguson (London, 1859)

Gregory , James , 1753-1821 , physician

James Gregory was born in January 1753 in Aberdeen, the son of John Gregory, professor of medicine at Edinburgh University. He was educated at Aberdeen and Edinburgh, and studied for a short time at Christ Church, Oxford. During the winter of 1773-74 he studied at St George's Hospital, London. His father died suddenly in the winter of 1773 whilst he was still a medical student, and he completed his father's course of lectures at Edinburgh University. He did this with such success that his father's chair, the professorship of practice of medicine, was left open to Gregory. He graduated MD in 1774 and spent the following two years studying medicine abroad.

In 1776, at the age of 23, he was appointed professor at Edinburgh University. The following year he began giving clinical lectures at the Royal Infirmary. In 1780-82 he published his Conspectus Medicinae Theoreticae, which established his position in medicine. Although there was little original work in his Conspectus, it was valuable for what he wrote on therapeutics. In 1790 he succeeded to the chair of the practice of medicine at the university. From this point he was chief of the Edinburgh Medical School. Gregory attained a high reputation and had the leading consulting practice in Scotland, until his death. He was a friend of the poet Robert Burns.

He was widely popular as a teacher, particularly for his command of language, his excellent recollection of cases, his outspokenness, energy and humour. He was very practical in his approach, and advocated temperance, bodily exertion without fatigue, and mental occupation without anxiety, although he `by no means followed his own prescription' (DNB, 1890, p.100).

Gregory was a keen controversialist, and was keen-witted and sarcastic, but wasted his great powers on temporary and irritating controversies' (ibid). His controversy with the physician James Hamilton led to him severely beating Hamilton with a stick, for which he was fined £100 and costs for defamation. He then attacked, in hisMemorial to the Managers' of 1800, the practice of allowing all surgeons in Edinburgh to officiate at the Royal Infirmary in turn.

Gregory spoke out vehemently in opposition to the Edinburgh College of Physicians' recommendation to relax its regulations against the dispensing of medicines by members. The College charged him with violating his oath not to divulge its proceedings and having made false statements. He was found guilty by the College in September 1803, and was suspended from the rights and privileges of the fellowship in May 1809.

Gregory died on 2 April 1823, and was buried in Canongate churchyard, Edinburgh. Five sons and two daughters, by his second wife a Miss McLeod, survived him.

Publications:
De Morbis Coeli Mutatione Medendis (Edinburgh, 1774)
Conspectus Medicinae Theoreticae (Edinburgh, 1780-82)
Philosophical and Literary Essays (2 vols; Edinburgh, 1792)
Additional Memorial to the Managers of the Royal Infirmary (Edinburgh, 1803)
First Lines on the Practice of Physic, William Cullen, edited by James Gregory (Edinburgh, 1812)
Letter from Dr James Gregory in Defence of his Essay on the Difference of the Relation between Motive and Action and that of Cause and Effect in Physics, with replies by A. Crombie, Alexander Crombie and James Gregory (London, 1819)

Publications by others about Gregory:
Answer for the Junior Members of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh to the Memorial of Dr James Gregory, John Bell (Edinburgh, 1800)
Narrative of the Conduct of Dr James Gregory towards the RCPE, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1809)
Letters on Professional Character and Manners: On the Education of a Surgeon, and the Duties and Qualifications of a Physician: Addressed to James Gregory, MD, John Bell (Edinburgh, 1812)

White , Reginald , Hale- , 1895-1967 , general practitioner

Halford , Sir , Henry , 1766-1844 , Knight , physician

Sir Henry Halford was born Henry Vaughan in Leicester on 2 October 1766, the second son of James Vaughan, a successful physician in Leicester. Halford's father devoted his entire income to the education of his seven sons. Halford was educated at Rugby from 1774 before he entered Christ Church, Oxford, in 1781, where he graduated BA and MA in 1788. He spent some months in Edinburgh and practiced for a short time with his father in Leicester, before graduating MB in 1790 and MD in 1791. In 1792, after a few months practice at the fashionable resort of Scarborough, he settled in Mayfair in London. He had borrowed £1,000 on his own security on the advice of Sir George Baker, President of the Royal College of Physicians and recognised head of the medical profession in England.

He was elected physician to the Middlesex Hospital in 1793. In the same year, before he was 27 years old, he was appointed physician extraordinary to King George III. In 1794 he was made Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and served in the office of censor in 1795, 1801, and 1815. In 1800 he delivered the Harveian Oration at the College. In the same year, as a result of his practice having become so large, he relinquished his hospital appointment. In 1802 he moved to Curzon Street, where he remained throughout his life. By 1805 his income exceeded £7,000 a year. His patients included the statesmen Charles James Fox, William Pitt and George Canning, and several members of the Royal Family including the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, and three of the King's sons, the Dukes of York, Kent and Cumberland.

Halford inherited a large estate on the death of Lady Denbigh, widow of his mother's cousin, Sir Charles Halford. Consequently he changed his name by Act of Parliament from Vaughan to Halford in 1809. In the same year George III created him baronet. Halford attended the King during his illness, and the Prince Regent made him physician in ordinary to the King in 1812. In 1813 he attended, with the Prince Regent, the opening of the coffin of Charles I, undertaken to identify the former King's remains. On the ascension of George IV he was again made physician in ordinary, and subsequently performed the same duty to William IV and Queen Victoria.

It has been said that he was an eminent physician with good perception and sound judgment, wielding the resources of his art with a confidence, precision, and success, which was unapproached by any of his contemporaries' (Munk's Roll, 1878, p.430). However it is recognised that his knowledge of pathology and accuracy of diagnosis were inferior to Matthew Baillie's, his eminent colleague, and it is said that he disliked innovation. Many of his contemporaries criticised him for behaving as a courtier outside of his role as royal physician. James Wardrop, who had been appointed surgeon to the King in 1828, referred to him as 'the eel-backed baronet'. Ultimately thoughfor many years after Dr Matthew Baillie's death he was indisputably at the head of London practice' (DNB, 1890, p.39).

From 1820 Halford served as president of the Royal College of Physicians, to which office he was unanimously re-elected every year for 24 years until his death. During his presidency one of the most significant changes in the College's history occurred, the ending of the restriction of the Fellowship to Oxbridge graduates alone. He also inaugurated a series of monthly evening meetings, the audiences of which came from all walks of life. Halford was largely instrumental in securing the removal of the College from Warwick Lane to Pall Mall East in 1825, and officially opened the new premises. To mark the occasion the King conferred on him the Star of a Knight Commander of the Guelphic Order (KCH). William IV subsequently promoted him to a Grand Cross of Hanover (GCH).

In 1831 Halford published Essays and Orations Delivered at the Royal College of Physicians, which included papers on 'Tic Douloureux', 'The Treatment of Gout', and 'The Climacteric Disease'. However he made neither significant nor extensive contributions to medical literature. In 1835 he again delivered the Harveian Oration at the College. Due to his office as president of the Royal College of Physicians he became a trustee of the British Museum and president of the National Vaccine Establishment. He had been a keen advocate of vaccination since its introduction by Edward Jenner in 1798. He also became a fellow of the Royal Antiquarian Societies and a trustee of Rugby School.

Halford spent much time in his latter years composing Latin poetry. He continued in practice to within a few months of his death. He had married Elizabeth Barbara St John, daughter of Lord St John of Bletsoe, in 1795. His wife died in 1833, whilst their son and daughter both survived Halford.

Halford died at his home on 9 March 1844, at the age of 77. He was buried in the parish church of Wistow, Leicestershire, where a monument was erected in his memory.

Publications:
An Account of What Appeared on Opening the Coffin of King Charles I, in the vault of King Henry Eighth in St George's Chapel at Windsor (London, 1813)
Oratio in Collegii Regalis Medicorum Londinensis, aedibus novis, habita die dedicationis, Junii XXV, MDCCCXXV (London, 1825)
Essays and Orations Delivered at the Royal College of Physicians; to which is added an Account of the Opening of the Tomb of Charles I (London, 1831; 1842)
On the Education and Conduct of a Physician (London, 1834)
On the Deaths of some Eminent Persons of Modern Times (London, 1835)
On the Effects of Cold (London, 1837)
Nugae Metricae (Latin & English) (London, 1842)

Publications by others about Halford:
The Life of Sir Henry Halford, Bart, William Munk (London, 1895)

Harvey , William , 1578-1657 , physician and discoverer of the circulation of the blood

William Harvey was born on 1 April 1578 in Folkestone, Kent, the son of Thomas Harvey, a Kentish yeoman, and his second wife Joane. He was the second child and eldest son of a family of ten children. In 1588 he went to King's Grammar School, Canterbury, and then in 1593 to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He graduated BA in 1597 and decided to pursue a career in medicine. In 1598 he traveled through France and Germany to Padua, to study at the most renowned medical school of the time. He studied under Fabricus of Aquapendente, Professor of Anatomy, as well as Thomas Minadous, Professor of Medicine, and Julius Casserius, Professor of Surgery. He graduated on 25 April 1602, before returning to England and graduating MD from Cambridge in the same year.

Harvey moved to London and took a house in the parish of St Martin-extra-Ludgate. In 1604 he married Elizabeth Browne, daughter of Dr Lancelot Browne, former physician to Queen Elizabeth I. On 5 October 1604 he was admitted a candidate of the Royal College of Physicians, and was elected Fellow on 5 June 1607. In February 1608-9 he applied for reversion of the office of physician at St Bartholomew's Hospital, whereupon he produced a recommendation from the King and testimonials from Dr Atkins, President of the Royal College of Physicians, and several senior doctors of the College. He was elected to the reversion, a position equivalent to assistant physician, and worked under Dr Wilkinson. Upon the latter's death in the summer of 1609 Harvey was elected full physician.

From 1609 onwards Harvey's time was divided between his hospital duties, his private practice, his anatomical and physiological research, and his numerous duties at the Royal College of Physicians. He became Censor at the College in 1613, and in 1615 was elected Lumleian Lecturer, a role he fulfilled every other year for the next thirty years. He gave his first set of anatomical lectures at the College on 16-18 April 1616. Originally it was believed that Harvey publicly revealed his concept of the circulation of the blood during these earliest demonstrations, although he did not publish his beliefs until 1928. However it is now accepted that

`complete realization of this doctrine was only arrived at by stages during the first twelve years covered by the lectures' (Keynes, 1978, p.106).

In 1618 Harvey was made physician extraordinary to James I. Five years later he received a promise that he would be made physician in ordinary to the King on the next vacancy, although this did not take place until Charles I had been on the throne for some time. In 1620 Harvey was appointed by the Royal College of Physicians to watch the proceedings of the surgeons who were moving Parliament in their own interest, and was sent to Cambridge where the university declined to join the College. Harvey was Censor again for the College in 1625 and 1629, was named Elect in 1627, and was Treasurer in 1628 and 1629.

In 1628 Harvey published at Frankfurt his discovery of the circulation of the blood, in a book entitled Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sangiunis in Animalibus. Throughout the seventeen chapters `the whole subject is made clear from the beginning and incontestably demonstrated' (DNB, 1891, p.96). Harvey's success in his research has been attributed to the fact that

`his originality stemmed not from the amassing of observations per se but from his remarkable gift for perceiving and pursuing the theoretical implications of his observations' (DSB, 1972, p.152).

In his book he described the movement of the blood around the body, and covered the motions of the arteries and of the ventricles and auricles of the heart, and the use of these movements. He explained that blood is carried out of the heart by arteries and comes back to it via veins, performing a complete circulation. He finally demonstrated that the right ventricle is thinner than the left, as it only has to send the blood to the lungs, whilst the left ventricle has to pump it over the whole body. The book immediately attracted attention and discussion. Whilst a few opposed his theory, such as Caspar Hofmann of Nuremburg, his momentous discovery, `the greatest of the discoveries of physiology' (ibid, p97), was certainly accepted throughout the medical world before his death.

In 1630 he requested leave of absence from St Barts, and resigned from his position of Treasurer at the Royal College of Physicians, to travel with the Duke of Lenox on the King's command to France, Spain and Italy, between 1630 and 1632. It was probably on his return to England that he was sworn in as physician in ordinary to the King. In May 1633 he journeyed to Scotland with Charles I for Charles' coronation as King of Scotland, 18 June 1633. In October of that year St Barts appointed a full physician to allow Harvey more liberty to fulfill his many duties. Harvey then drew up sixteen regulations for the hospital, essentially stating that absolutely incurable cases should not be admitted, and that the surgeon, apothecary, and matron were to discharge all services decently and in person.

Once back in England Harvey was in full attendance on Charles I. He remained heavily involved with the Royal College of Physicians however, regularly attending the comitia, examining applicants for Candidate, and drawing up rules for the library. In July 1634 he made a speech to the apothecaries persuading them to conform to the College orders.

In April 1636 he again left England, this time for Germany and Italy, as part of an embassy sent to Emperor Ferdinand of Germany. Harvey was in attendance on his friend the ambassador Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. During this diplomatic mission he was able to visit a number of medical colleges, and lectured to students and professors on his theory of blood circulation. Whilst in Germany he visited his critic Hofmann, in Nuremburg, in an attempt to convince him of his theory on the circulation of the blood, but failed.

On returning to England, at the end of 1636, Harvey remained in London until the outbreak of Civil War. From 1639 he was the King's chief physician, and in 1642 he left London with the King. Shortly afterwards his apartment in Whitehall Palace had been ransacked and most of his papers destroyed by the Parliamentarian soldiers. Harvey was present at the Battle of Edgehill, and was in charge of the Prince of Wales and Duke of York during the fighting, although it is said that he `cared little for politics' (ibid, p.98). He subsequently went to Oxford with the King and was incorporated MD on 7 December 1642. In 1643 he resigned from St Barts. He continued his anatomical work, making dissections at Oxford. In 1645 he was made royal mandate warden of Merton College, Oxford.

In 1646, after the surrender of Oxford, Harvey left the university and his appointment as warden and returned to London to live with one of his brothers, all of who were wealthy merchants. His wife had died the previous year in London, unable to leave the capital to join her husband in Oxford. He was now 68 years old and withdrew from practice and from the royal cause. Three years later he published Exercitatio Anatomica de Circulatione Sanguinis, ad Joannem Riolanem filium Parisiensem (1649), a discussion of the arguments against his doctrines set out in Riolanus's book Encheiridium Anatomicum (1648). His last publication, Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium, quibis accedunt quaedam de Partu, de Membranis ac Tumoribus Uteri et de Conceptione, based on his study of embryology, appeared in 1651.

From this period until his death it is said that `the chief object which occupied the mind of Harvey was the welfare and improvement of the College of Physicians' (Munk's Roll, 1878, p.133). In July 1651 Harvey built a library for the College. Although he wished to remain anonymous the source of this generous donation soon became known, and in December 1652 the College decided to erect a statue of Harvey. The library was completed in February 1653-4 and handed over to the College with the title deeds and his whole interest in the building. In 1654 he was elected president, but declined the honour on the grounds of his age. He did however serve on the Council, in 1655 and 1656. In 1656 he also resigned his Lumleian lectureship, but before leaving he donated to the College, in perpetuity, his estate at Burmarsh, Kent, and left an endowment to pay for a librarian and the delivery of an annual oration.

Harvey had suffered from gout for sometime but the attacks became more severe towards the end of his life. He died of a stroke on 3 June 1657 at the age of 79. His body was placed in the family vault at Hempstead, Essex, the fellows of the Royal College of Physicians forming part of the procession from London to Essex. His body remained there until 18 October, St Luke's Day, 1883 when it was moved to a sarcophagus, provided by the College, in the Harvey chapel erected in Hempstead Church. In his will Harvey left his books and papers to the College, a benefaction to Christ's Hospital, and many bequests to his relations. The College posthumously published a collected edition of his works in 1766, whilst a complete translation into English, by the Sydenham Society, appeared in 1847. In his honour the Harveian Oration is delivered every year on St Luke's Day.

Publications:
Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sangiunis in Animalibus (1628; Translated with Introduction & Notes by G. Whitteridge, Oxford, 1976)
Exercitatio Anatomica de Circulatione Sanguinis, ad Joannem Riolanem filium Parisiensem (1649)
Exercitationes de Generatione Animalium, quibis accedunt quaedam de Partu, de Membranis ac Tumoribus Uteri et de Conceptione (1651)
Harvey's post mortem examination of Thomas Parr, the old man of 152, in De Ortu et Natura Sanguinis, Treatise of John Betts (London, 1669)
Eleven Letters of William Harvey to Lord Feilding, June 9 - November 15 1636 posthumously published (privately printed, London 1912)
De Motu Locali Animalium, posthumously published, edited, translated, and introduced by Gweneth Whitteridge (Cambridge, 1959)

Publications by others about Harvey:
Guilielmi Harveii Opera Omnia a Collegio Medicorum, Akenside (ed.), with prefixed biography by Dr Thomas Lawrence (London, 1776)
The Works of William Harvey: Translated from the Latin with a Life of the Author by R. Willis, Robert Willis (Sydenham Society, 1847)
William Harvey: A History of the Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood, Robert Willis (London, 1878)
A Brief Account of the Circumstances Leading to and Attending the Reintombment of the Remains of Dr William Harvey in the Church of Hempstead in Essex, October 1883, William Munk (privately printed, London 1883)
The Life of William Harvey and his Discovery of the Circulation of the Blood, Rowland Hills (London, 1893)
William Harvey (Masters of Medicine), Sir D'Arcy Power (London, 1897)
William Harvey 1578-1657, Raymond Benedict Hervey Wyatt (London, 1924)
A Bibliography of the Writings of William Harvey, MD, Discoverer of the Blood, 1628-1928, Sir G.L. Keynes (Cambridge, 1928)
William Harvey, Thomas Archibald Malloch (New York, 1929)
William Harvey: His Life and Times: his Discoveries: his Methods, Louis Chauvois (London, 1957)
William Harvey, Norman Wymer (Oxford, 1958)
William Harvey, Englishman, 1578-1657, Kenneth James Franklin (London, 1961)
William Harvey, the Man, the Physician and the Scientist, Kenneth David Keele (London, 1965)
William Harvey: Trailblazer of Scientific Medicine, Rebecca B. Marcus (London, 1965)
William Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood, Gweneth Whitteridge (London, 1971)
William Harvey and the Circulation of the Blood (Pioneers of Science and Discovery), Eric Neil (London, 1975)
New Light on William Harvey, Walter Pagel (Basel, 1976)
The Celebration of the 400th Anniversary of the Birth of William Harvey - Scientific and Social Programme, 9-13th July 1978, Royal College of Physicians of London (London, 1978)
The Life of William Harvey, Geoffrey Keynes (Oxford, 1978)
William Harvey and His Age: The Professional and Social Context of the Discovery of the Circulation, Jerome J. Bylebyl (Baltimore, c.1979)
The Diary of William Harvey: The Imaginary Journal of the Physician who Revolutionised Medicine, Jean Hamburger, translated by Barbara Wright (New Jersey, 1992)
William Harvey's Natural Philosophy, Roger Kenneth French (Cambridge, 1994)

Latham , John , 1761-1843 , physician

John Latham was born on 29 December 1761, at Gawsworth, Cheshire, the eldest son of the Rev. John Latham, vicar of Siddington, Cheshire. Latham acquired his early education at Manchester Grammar School. In 1778 he entered Brasenose College, Oxford. He proceeded BA in 1782, and MA in 1784. Between 1782 and 1784 he studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. In 1784 he began to practice medicine in Manchester, where he was elected physician to the town's infirmary. In 1786 he resigned the office and returned to Oxford where he graduated MB in the same year. The following year he was appointed physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary and graduated MD in 1788.

In 1788 Latham moved to London and set up his home and practice in Bedford Row. His exertions on settling in the capital were excessive, and he consequently established a large, lucrative practice. He was admitted a candidate of the Royal College of Physicians in the same year, and became a fellow in 1789. It was also in 1789 that he was elected physician of the Middlesex Hospital and the Magdalen Hospital. From his election as fellow he played an active roll in the life of the College, for example acting as censor on several occasions between 1790 and 1807. In 1791 he published A Plan of a Charitable Institution to be Established on the Sea Coast. In 1792 Latham undertook to arrange the College library, the result proved so satisfactory that his colleagues voted him the sum of £100. In 1793 he resigned from the Middlesex and became physician to St Bartholomew's Hospital.

Latham gave several of the eponymous lectures of the Royal College of Physicians, including the Goulstonian Lectures in 1793, the Harveian Oration in 1794, and the Croonian Lectures in 1795. In 1795 he was appointed physician extraordinary to the Prince of Wales. The following year Latham published On Rheumatism and Gout, in which he detailed an elaborate treatment and argued that neither acute rheumatism nor gout were hereditary. In 1802 Latham retired from his position at St Bartholomew's.

In 1807, at the age of 46, Latham retired to the country, due to exhaustion brought on by his intense labour. It was believed that he was consumptive and that he might die. However away from his professional business he regained his health and eventually recovered. He returned to London and began a more moderate practice, based in Harley Street.

In 1811 Latham published Facts and Opinions concerning Diabetes, and authored many medical papers which were published in the Royal College of Physicians's Medical Transactions. His writings `show that the parts of physic in which he excelled were clinical observation and acquaintance with the materia medica' (DNB, 1892, p.166). Latham was President of the College from 1813-19. In 1816 he founded the Medical Benevolent Society. When the Prince of Wales ascended to the throne as George IV in 1820, Latham was reappointed physician extraordinary.

In 1829 Latham finally left London and retired to Bradwall Hall in Cheshire. He had married Mary Mere in 1874, and they had had three sons. Their second son Peter Mere Latham, born in 1789, also became a physician, whilst the first and third sons, John and Henry, were both poetical writers. Latham died on 20 April 1843 at the age of 81, after suffering from stones in the bladder.

Publications:
Diatribae duae encaemicae coram Collegio Regali Medicorum Londinensi, scilicet Oratio Harveiana et Praelectio Crooniana (London, 1795?)
On Rheumatism and Gout: A Letter Addressed to Sir George Baker (London, 1796)
The New Pharmacopoeia of the Royal College of Physicians (index by John Latham) (London, 1796, 7th edition; 1801 8th edition)
Facts and Opinions concerning Diabetes (London, 1811)

Latham , Peter Mere , 1789-1875 , physician

Peter Mere Latham was born in London on 1 July 1789, the second son of John Latham, physician. He was first educated at the free school of Sandbach, Cheshire, and then from 1797 at Macclesfield Grammar School. He entered Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1806. He graduated BA in 1810 and began his medical studies at St Bartholomew's Hospital and the Carey Street Public Dispensary under the tutelage of Thomas Bateman, dermatologist and physician. Whilst studying at the Dispensary he met the celebrated Richard Bright, physician, with whom he established a life-long friendship. He proceeded MA in 1813, and then MB in 1814. Latham took a house in Gower Street and in 1815 was appointed physician to the Middlesex Hospital. In 1816 he delivered a course of lectures on the practice of physic in London. He graduated MD in the same year.

Latham was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1818, and delivered the College's Goulstonian Lectures the following year. In 1820 he was a censor for the College, and held that office again in 1833 and 1837. In March 1823 he and Peter Mark Roget, fellow physician and savant, were asked by the government to undertake the investigation of an epidemic disorder then rife in the Millbank Penitentiary. They found the epidemic to be scurvy and dysentery, which they concluded was due to an insufficient diet. Consequently they recommended for the prisoners at least one solid meal a day, better bread, and 3lbs of meat every fortnight. Latham subsequently published An Account of the Disease lately prevalent at the General Penitentiary (1825).

In 1824 Latham resigned from the Middlesex Hospital and was appointed physician to St Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1827 he delivered the Royal College of Physician's Lumleian Lectures. Latham published his Essays on some Diseases of the Heart' in the Medical Gazette (1828). In them he maintained that administering mercury until it produced salivation was essential for the cure of pericarditis. Latham's particular interest in heart diseases had been encouraged by the recent invention of the stethoscope by the French physician Laennec. In 1836 Latham was elected joint lecturer on medicine, with fellow physician Dr (later Sir) George Burrows, at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School. It has been said of Latham thathis clinical teaching was excellent' (DNB, 1892, p.167). It was also in 1836 that he published Lectures on Subjects connected with Clinical Medicine, of which the first six are on methods of study and observation, the next six on auscultation and percussion, and two more on phthisis.

In 1837 he was appointed physician extraordinary to Queen Victoria, an office which he retained until his death. Latham never acquired a large private practice. In 1839 he delivered the Harveian Oration at the Royal College of Physicians, which he subsequently published. In 1841 he resigned from St Bartholomew's Hospital due to frequent attacks of asthma, from which he had suffered from an early age. Latham published Lectures on Clinical Medicine, comprising Diseases of the Heart in 1845. This was described as `a work of great originality, full of careful observation, and containing a discussion of all parts of the subject' (ibid). It has also been said of his work that

`although most remedies Latham advocated have proved ineffective, his descriptions of the clinical symptoms and physical findings in his patients remain interesting and instructive' (Fye, 1989, p.610).

In 1865 he relinquished his small practice and left London to settle in Torquay. He was married twice, firstly to Diana Clarissa Chetwynd Stapleton in 1824, who had died the following year, and then to Grace Mary Chambers, with whom he had four children all of whom survived him. He died in Torquay on 20 July 1875, at the age of 86.

Publications:
An Account of the Disease lately prevalent at the General Penitentiary (London, 1825)
Lectures on Subjects connected with Clinical Medicine (London, 1836)
Oratio ex Harveii instituto habita..., MDCCCXXXIX (London, 1839?)
Lectures on Subjects connected with Clinical Medicine, comprising Diseases of the Heart (London, 1845-46, 2nd ed.)
Collected Works, with Memoir by Sir Thomas Watson, Robert Martin (ed.) (London, 1876-78)
Aphorisms from Latham; edited by W.B. Bean, William Bennett Bean (ed.) (Iowa, 1962)

Macmichael , William , 1783-1839 , physician and medical biographer

William Macmichael was born in Bridgnorth, Shropshire on 30 November 1783, the son of William Macmichael, a banker of Bridgnorth. He was educated at Bridgnorth Grammar School and then entered Christchurch, Oxford, in 1800 on a scholarship. He proceeded BA in 1805, MA in 1807, and MB in 1808. He spent the next three years continuing his medical studies in Edinburgh and then at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. In 1811 he was elected to one of the Radcliffe traveling fellowships, and traveled for several years, visiting Greece, Russia, the Danubian principalities (now Romania), Bulgaria, Turkey and Palestine. In 1812 whilst in Thermopylae, Greece, he contracted malaria. He suffered intermittently from fevers for the next two years. In 1814, less than two years after Napolean Bonaparte's defeat, Macmichael visited Moscow, which he found to be in ruins. He was employed for a short time as physician to the Marquis of Londonderry, Charles William Vane, whilst he was ambassador at Vienna. Macmichael returned from his travels, having received the news that his bankers had failed and that most of his money was lost. He graduated MD at Oxford in 1816.

He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1817, and a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians the following year. He returned to Europe in 1817-18 before settling to practice in London. In 1819 he published an account of his travels illustrated by his own drawings, A Journey from Moscow to Constantinople in the Years 1817, 1818. He became closely involved with the Royal College of Physicians, where he was appointed censor in 1820. In 1822 he was elected physician to the Middlesex Hospital. In the same year he published his first medical work, A New View of the Infection of Scarlet Fever: Illustrated by Remarks on other Contagious Disorders. Having realised that second attacks of the scarlet fever were rare, he advocated if one child in a family developed the disease it was wise to let the other children contract it.

From 1824-29 he was registrar at the College, serving during the College's move from its premises in Warwick Lane, to Pall Mall East, in 1825. During this time Macmichael anonymously published the biographical work The Gold-Headed Cane (1827), which tells of the adventures of the physician's cane carried by John Radcliffe, Richard Mead, Anthony Askew, William Pitcairn and Matthew Baillie in turn. It gives both good biographies of the owners and information on the condition of medicine in 18th century England.

In 1829 Macmichael was appointed physician extraordinary to the King, George IV. The following year he published a small volume entitled The Lives of British Physicians (1830), again anonymously. This work consisted of eighteen biographies by himself and others, of such eminent physicians as Thomas Linacre, John Caius, and William Harvey. It has been said that the work was of `the same merit of style as the Gold-Headed Cane; they contain much information, and are never dry' (DNB, 1893, p.230). It was also in 1830 that Macmichael became librarian to the King, and in 1831 physician in ordinary to the new King, William IV. He had treated the King for gout before he succeeded to the throne, and the King gave Macmichael his own gold-headed cane, as free from gout he no longer needed it. He was indebted to his patron Sir Henry Halford for these appointments, but despite this powerful patronage Macmichael never acquired a large practice.

In 1831 he resigned from the Middlesex Hospital. He was censor again for the Royal College of Physicians in 1832. The following year Macmichael was appointed as Inspector General of Lunatic Asylums, one of four commissioners whose job it was to license and inspect London's madhouses. Macmichael carried out this duty until 1835. The following year, at the College, he was made Consiliarius (adviser or counsellor to the President).

In 1837 he suffered an attack of paralysis. Compelled to withdraw from professional life, he retired to Maida Hill. He had married Mary Jane Freer in 1827 and they had one daughter. Macmichael died on 10 January 1839 at the age of 55.

Publications:
A Journey from Moscow to Constantinople in the Years 1817, 1818 (London, 1819)
A New View of the Infection of Scarlet Fever: Illustrated by Remarks on other Contagious Disorders (London, 1822)
A Brief Sketch of the Progress of Opinion upon the Subject of Contagion, with some Remarks on Quarantine (London, 1825)
The Gold-Headed Cane (London, 1827; 2nd ed. 1828; 3rd ed. by Munk with additions, 1884)
Lives of British Physicians (London, 1830)
Is the Cholera Spasmodica of India a Contagious Disease? The Question Considered in a Letter to Sir Henry Halford, Bart, MD (London, 1831)
Some Remarks on Dropsy, with a Narrative of the Last Illness of the Duke of York, read at the Royal College of Physicians, May 25, 1835 (London, 1835)

Showing 15887 results

Find results with:

Limit results to:

Filter results by:

Find results where:

Narrow your results by:

Entity type

Showing 15887 results

Advanced search options

Find results with:

Limit results to:

Filter results by:

Find results where: