Medico-Botanical Society of London Frost , John , 1803–1840 , medical entrepreneur

The Society (est circa 1821) was instituted for the collection, cultivation, study and exploitation of medicinal plants. Fellows, including those drawn from the medical professions, attended lectures, submitted reports and awarded annual medals for the encouragement of medical botany. John Frost (1803-1840), the founder of the Medico-Botanical Society of London. Frost abandoned medicine for botany after quarrelling with his teacher Dr Wright, the apothecary of Bethlem Hospital. He founded the Medico-Botanical Society of London in 1821 and became Secretary to the Royal Humane Society in 1824; in 1830 he was expelled from the Medico-Botanical Society of London on the grounds of his arrogant behaviour and in 1832, as a result of financial liabilities, he fled to Paris. Subsequently he practised as a physician in Berlin.