Richard Smith : Bristol surgeon and medical collector, 1772-1843 / Michael Whitfield.

"Richard Smith lived in one of the great ages of culture, learning and debate in Bristol. He was a contemporary and colleague of the great Thomas Beddoes. Robert Southey was his neighbour, and Humphry Davy and Samuel Coleridge were lecturing here in his time. The first history of Bristol by William Barrett came out when he was an apprentice surgeon; and the first census only a decade later. It was an age of Revolution and of Reform with two major riots in Bristol itself. Smith himself was a man of the time and place, a very successful practising surgeon, a lecturer, a notable collector of medical records and statistics, a figure in civic affairs, a voice in the City Council and the press, a poet evemn. Here Michael Whitfield tells the story of a lively, extrovert, but representative figure."--From back cover.