Commentaries on the history and cure of diseases / by William Heberden.

  • Heberden, William, 1710-1801.
Date:
1845
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Commentaries on the history and cure of diseases / by William Heberden. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    WILLIAM HEBERDEN Was born in London in the year 1710, and received the early part of his ed ucation in that city. At the close of the year 1724 he was sent to Saint John's College in Cambridge, and six years after was elected a Fellow. From that time he directed his attention to the study of medicine, which he pursued partly at Cambridge and partly in London. Hav- ing taken his degree of Doctor of Physic he practised in the University for about ten years, and during that time read every year a course of lectures on the Materia Medica. In the year 1746 he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and two years afterwards, leaving Cambridge, he settled in London and was elected into the Royal Society. He very soon got into great business, which he followed with unremitting attention above thirty years, till it seemed prudent to withdraw a little from the fatigues of his profes- sion. He therefore purchased a house at Windsor, to which he used ever afterwards to retire during some of the sum- mer months; but returned to London in the winter, and still continued to visit the sick for many years. In 1766 he recommended to the College of Physicians the first design of the Medical Transactions, in which he proposed to collect together such observations as might have occurred to any of their body, and were likely to illustrate the history or cure of diseases. The plan was soon adopt- ed, and three volumes have successively been laid before the public. In 1778 the Royal Society of Medicine in Paris chose him into the number of their Associates. Besides the observations contained in the present volume, Doctor He- berdenwas the author of several papers in the Medical Trans- actions, and of some in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society He declined all professional business several years before his death, which was mercifully post- poned till the year 1801, when he was advancing to the age of ninety-one.