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John Fothergill (physician)
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
, plant collector, philanthropist and Quaker
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
.
Life and work
Fothergill was born of at Carr End, near Bainbridge in YorkshireYorkshire
Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...
, the son of John Fothergill (1676–1745), a Quaker preacher and farmer, and his first wife, Margaret Hough (1677–1719). After studying at Sedbergh School
Sedbergh School
Sedbergh School is a boarding school in Sedbergh, Cumbria, for boys and girls aged 13 to 18. Nestled in the Howgill Fells, it is known for sporting sides, such as its Rugby Union 1st XV.-Background:...
, Fothergill was apprenticed to an apothecary. He later took the degree of M.D.
Doctor of Medicine
Doctor of Medicine is a doctoral degree for physicians. The degree is granted by medical schools...
at Edinburgh
University of Edinburgh Medical School
The University of Edinburgh Medical School is part of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine of the University of Edinburgh. Established nearly 283 years ago, Edinburgh Medical School is one of the oldest medical schools in Scotland and the UK...
, in 1736, followed by further studies at St Thomas' Hospital
St Thomas' Hospital
St Thomas' Hospital is a large NHS hospital in London, England. It is administratively a part of Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust. It has provided health care freely or under charitable auspices since the 12th century and was originally located in Southwark.St Thomas' Hospital is accessible...
, London. After visiting continental Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
in 1740, he settled in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, where he gained an extensive practice. For example, during the epidemics of influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
in 1775 and 1776 he is said to have had sixty patients daily.
In 1745, he gave a brief lecture to the Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
of London, citing the work of a Scottish physician, William Tossach, which is the first known lecture on the practice of mouth-to-mouth ventilation.
He is credited with first identifying and naming trigeminal neuralgia
Trigeminal neuralgia
Trigeminal neuralgia , tic douloureux is a neuropathic disorder characterized by episodes of intense pain in the face, originating from the trigeminal nerve. It has been described as among the most painful conditions known...
in his work Of a painful affection of the face in 1765.
Fothergill's pamphlet, Account of the Sore Throat attended with Ulcers (1748), contains one of the first descriptions of diphtheria
Diphtheria
Diphtheria is an upper respiratory tract illness caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae, a facultative anaerobic, Gram-positive bacterium. It is characterized by sore throat, low fever, and an adherent membrane on the tonsils, pharynx, and/or nasal cavity...
in English, and was translated into several languages. His rejection of ineffective traditional therapies for this disease saved many lives.
Botany
In his leisure, John Fothergill made a study of conchologyConchology
Conchology is the scientific or amateur study of mollusc shells. Conchology is one aspect of malacology, the study of molluscs, however malacology studies molluscs as whole organisms, not just their shells. Conchology pre-dated malacology as a field of study. It includes the study of land and...
and botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
. At Upton, near Stratford
Stratford, London
Stratford is a place in the London Borough of Newham, England. It is located east northeast of Charing Cross and is one of the major centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically an agrarian settlement in the ancient parish of West Ham, which transformed into an industrial suburb...
, he had an extensive botanical garden
Botanical garden
A botanical garden The terms botanic and botanical, and garden or gardens are used more-or-less interchangeably, although the word botanic is generally reserved for the earlier, more traditional gardens. is a well-tended area displaying a wide range of plants labelled with their botanical names...
where he grew many rare plants obtained from various parts of the world (now West Ham Park). In the garden, with its glasshouse
Glasshouse
Glasshouse or Glasshouses may refer to:*Greenhouse, a building where plants are cultivated*Glasshouse , a 2006 novel by Charles Stross*Glasshouse , term for a military prison in the British Army...
es, John Coakley Lettsom (1744-1815), a Quaker physician and a protégé of his, exclaimed that "the sphere seemed transposed, as the Arctic Circle joined with the equator". Lettsom published a catalogue of the plants of Fothergill's garden Hortus Uptonensis, or a catalogue of the plants in the Dr. Fothergill’s garden at Upton, at the time of his decease anno 1780. Fothergilla
Fothergilla
Fothergilla is a genus of two or three species of flowering plants in the family Hamamelidaceae, native to the southeastern United States.They are deciduous shrubs growing to 1–3 m tall with downy twigs...
is named in his honour.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1763.
He was the patron of Sydney Parkinson
Sydney Parkinson
Sydney Parkinson was a Scottish Quaker, botanical illustrator and natural history artist.Parkinson was employed by Joseph Banks to travel with him on James Cook's first voyage to the Pacific in 1768. Parkinson made nearly a thousand drawings of plants and animals collected by Banks and Daniel...
, the South Sea
Pacific Ocean
The Pacific Ocean is the largest of the Earth's oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic in the north to the Southern Ocean in the south, bounded by Asia and Australia in the west, and the Americas in the east.At 165.2 million square kilometres in area, this largest division of the World...
voyager, and also of William Bartram
William Bartram
William Bartram was an American naturalist. The son of Ann and John Bartram, William Bartram and his twin sister Elizabeth were born in Kingsessing, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia. As a boy, he accompanied his father on many of his travels, to the Catskill Mountains, the New Jersey Pine Barrens,...
, the American botanist in his Southern travels 1773-1776.
A translation of the Bible
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
, known as the Quaker Bible
Quaker Bible
The Quaker Bible, officially A new and literal translation of all the books of the Old and New Testament; with notes critical and explanatory, is the 1764 translation of the Christian Bible into English by Anthony Purver , a Quaker. The translation was published in two Volumes in London by W....
(1764 sq.) by Anthony Purver, a Quaker, was made and printed at his expense.
He founded Ackworth School
Ackworth School
Ackworth School is an independent school located in the village of High Ackworth, near Pontefract, West Yorkshire, England. It is one of eight Quaker Schools in England. The school is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and SHMIS . The Head is Kathryn Bell, who succeeded...
, Pontefract
Pontefract
Pontefract is an historic market town in West Yorkshire, England. Traditionally in the West Riding, near the A1 , the M62 motorway and Castleford. It is one of the five towns in the metropolitan borough of the City of Wakefield and has a population of 28,250...
, Yorkshire in 1779.
John Fothergill died in London aged 68 on 26 December 1780.
Further reading
- contains information on John Fothergill, the author's father- See Chapter 5: Davidson, Luke, The kiss of life in the eighteenth century: the fate of an ambiguous kiss.