Thomas Beddoes

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Thomas Beddoes

Thomas Beddoes (born April 13, 1760 in Shifnal, Shropshire , † December 24, 1808 in Clifton near Bristol ) was an English doctor and author of scientific works. He was considered a progressive practitioner and teacher of medicine and was acquainted with important scholars of his time. Beddoes was a friend of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and, according to ES Shaffer, had a significant influence on Coleridge's thinking by introducing him to the historical-critical method . The poet Thomas Lovell Beddoes was his son. There is a painting by the painter Samson Towgood Roch by him in the National Portrait Gallery in London .

Life

Beddoes spent his school years at the "Bridgnorth Grammar School" in Bridgnorth and studied at Pembroke College in Oxford . He received medical training from the University of Edinburgh in the early 1780s. There he learned chemistry with Joseph Black and natural history with John Walker . He also studied medicine in London with John Sheldon (1752-1808). In 1784 he published a translation of Lazzaro Spallanzani's Dissertations on Natural History and in 1785 he wrote a translation with annotations of Torbern Olof Bergman's Essays on Elective Attractions .

In 1789 he received his doctorate in medicine from Oxford. After a visit to France, where he became acquainted with Lavoisier , he received a position as a lecturer in chemistry at the University of Oxford in 1788. His lectures attracted a large audience, but his sympathy with the French Revolution provoked an uproar against him, so that in 1792 he had to resign. The following year he published the History of Isaac Jenkins , a story of the horrors of alcoholism that sold 40,000 copies.

Hope Square, Bristol

Beddoes' first tuberculosis clinic in Bristol, Hope Square
Plaque: Thomas Beddoes MD (1760-1808). Scientist. Worked here 1793-1799. Clifton and Hotwells Improvement Society
Roll of honor for Beddoes in Hope Square

Between 1793 and 1799 Beddoes ran a clinic in Hope Square, Hotwells. There he treated patients with tuberculosis . Observing that Fleischer contracted tuberculosis less frequently, he kept a herd of cows next to the hospital and made them breathe in his patients. This led to prejudice against him and there was talk that he kept cows in the patient rooms of his clinic. Despite this enthusiasm for the "mad cow therapy," he remained skeptical when Edward Jenner from Berkeley began, vaccines of cows for the treatment of smallpox to use.

Bristol Pneumatic Institution

Pneumatic Institution property at 6 Dowry Square in Bristol.

At the same time, he started a project with the aim of setting up an institute to treat diseases by inhaling certain gases. He called this therapy method "pneumatic medicine" based on ancient models. He was supported by Richard Lovell Edgeworth . His daughter, Anna, he married in 1794. In 1799 he founded his "Pneumatic Institution" in Dowry Square in Bristol , the first director of which was Humphry Davy . Davy researched the properties of laughing gas there . The original intention that Beddoes pursued with the establishment of his institute was gradually abandoned and the "Pneumatic Institute" became an ordinary hospital and a few years before Beddoes death he abandoned it.

Selected Works

In addition to the works already mentioned, Beddoes was involved in the following publications:

literature

  • Jacques Barzun : Thomas Beddoes MD . Harper Collins, 1972. - essay reprinted in A Jacques Barzun Reader (2002)
  • Jay, Mike: The Atmosphere Of Heaven: The Unnatural Experiments of Dr Beddoes and His Sons of Genius . Yale University Press, New Haven 2009, ISBN 978-0-300-12439-2 .
  • Levere, Trevor H .: Dr. Thomas Beddoes at Oxford: Radical politics in 1788 - 1793 and the fate of the Regius Chair in Chemistry . In: Ambix . 28, No. 2, 1981, pp. 61-69 . PMID 11615866 .
  • Porter, Roy : Doctor of Society: Thomas Beddoes and the Sick Trade in Late Enlightenment England . Routledge, London 1992.
  • Robinson, Eric: Thomas Beddoes, MD, and the reform of science teaching in Oxford . In: Annals of Science . June 11, 1955, pp. 137-141.
  • Stansfield, Dorothy A .: Thomas Beddoes, MD, 1760-1808: Chemist, Physician, Democrat . Springer, 1984, ISBN 90-277-1686-2 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Beddoes,_Thomas_(1760-1808)_(DNB00)
  2. ↑ Stansfield DA. Thomas Beddoes MD 1760-1808. Chemist, Physician, Democrat. Dordrecht - Boston - Lancaster, D. Reidel Publishing Company (Kluwer Academic) 1984
  3. ↑ Kubla Khan and The Fall of Jerusalem (1975), particularly p. 28.
  4. ↑ a b c Mike Jay: The Atmosphere of Heaven: The Unnatural Experiments of Dr Beddoes and his Sons of Genius
  5. ↑ Miller, David Philip and Levere, Trevor (March 2008) "Inhale it and See?" The Collaboration between Thomas Beddoes and James Watt in Pneumatic Medicine " Ambix 55 (1): pp. 5 - 28
  6. ↑ Stansfield, Dorothy A. and Stansfield, Ronald G. (1986) "Dr Thomas Beddoes and James Watt: Preparatory Work 1794-1796 for the Bristol Pneumatic Institute" Medical History 30: pp. 276-302
  7. ↑ Trevor H Levere: Dr Thomas Beddoes and the Establishment of His Pneumatic Institution: A Tale of Three Presidents . In: Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London . 32, No. 1, July 1977, pp. 41-49 . PMID 11615622 .
  8. ↑ biology, n . . In: Oxford English Dictionary online version . Oxford University Press. September 2011. Retrieved November 1, 2011.
personal data
SURNAME Beddoes, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English doctor and author
DATE OF BIRTH April 13, 1760
PLACE OF BIRTH Shropshire
DATE OF DEATH December 24, 1808
Place of death Clifton near Bristol