Life

Farr was born at Taunton, Somerset, in 1741. His parents were protestant Dissenters. He was educated first at Warrington Academy

Warrington Academy

Warrington Academy, active as a teaching establishment from 1756 to 1782, was a prominent dissenting academy, that is, a school or college set up by those who dissented from the state church in England...

, then at Edinburgh University, and finally at Leyden University, where he took the degree of M.D. (1765). He was a physician to the Bristol Infirmary from 1767 to 1780, and practised for some years in Bristol.

Returning to Taunton he acquired an extensive practice there. He died at Upcott, near Taunton, in the house of John Fisher, on 11 March 1795.

Works

His published works are:

• ‘An Essay on the Medical Virtues of Acids,’ London, 1769.
• ‘A Philosophical Inquiry into the Nature, Origin, and Extent of Animal Motion, deduced from the principles of reason and analogy,’ London, 1771.
• ‘Aphorismi de Marasmo ex summis Medicis collecti,’ 1772.
• ‘Inquiry into the Propriety of Blood-letting in Consumption,’ 1775; against the practice.
• ‘The History of Epidemics, by Hippocrates, in seven books; translated into English from the Greek, with Notes and Observations,’ &c.
• ‘A Preliminary Discourse on the Nature and Cure of Infection,’ London, 1781.
• ‘Elements of Medical Jurisprudence,’ London, 1788; 2nd edit. 1811; a translation from the work of Faselius, with additions by the translator.
• ‘On the Use of Cantharides in Dropsical Complaints’ (Memoirs Med. ii. 132, 1789).