Hall, Marshall (1790-1857), English physician and neurophysiologist

8 letters (1830 - 1855; 2 with incomplete dates, 1 undated and one dated detached signature) with some written on embossed headed paper

Correspondence includes letters to: Mrs. Levis; Sir Joseph [1808–1869] (physician) and Lady Olliffe; Philip B. Ayres [1813-1863] (physician); Sir James Paget [1814 - 1899] (surgeon); and Dr Elliott.

Addresses include 14 Manchester Square (where Hall and his wife Charlotte Green lived for 20 years from September 1830 and where their only son, also named Marshall, was born in 1831); and 38 Grosvenor Street where Hall's family took up their last London abode in 1850.

1830 - 1855

1 file (8 items)

Purchased from: Stevens, London, July 1930 (acc.56407); Stevens, London, January 1929 (acc.89269); Sotheby's, London, February 1932 (acc.76088); Mrs. Watson, Burnley, March 1945 (acc.72200), presumably once part of the Thomas Madden Stone autograph collection; Bloomsbury Book Auctions, London, October 1992 (acc.349050)

Marshall Hall, son of Robert Hall (1755 - 1827) was born at Basford, near Nottingham, on 18 February 1790. He entered as a medical student the University of Edinburgh in October 1809 and was elected senior president of the student Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh for the session 1811-12, the year of his graduation. In 1818 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and, following a short period of travelling around medical schools in Paris, Gottingen and Berlin between 1814-16 and practicing in Nottingham between 1817 - 1825, he later moved to London in 1826.

Hall showed great skill in dissection and as a medical experimenter, and his research included, most significantly, diseases of the nervous system and the theory of reflex action, the circulatory system, disorders in women and children and the therapeutic use of bloodletting amongst others. Hall was one of The British Medical Association's earliest vice-presidents, received honours in many countries and was elected corresponding member of the French Institute in 1855. He retired in 1852 and later died in Brighton on 11 August 1857.

More information can be found via the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

At Wellcome Collection:

MS.5374; Letter to Dr. Pettigrew from Hall dated 26th May 1836

MS.3218; (10), (11) Hall (Mrs. Charlotte), Wife of Marshall Hall, Physiologist [1790-1857]. A.l.s. dated 18/3/1861. 1 p. 11 x 17½ cm. A.l.s. dated 2/4/1861. 3 pp. 11 x 17½ cm. The first enclosing her husband's letters on loan to Dr. Lee, the second referring to her biography of Marshall Hall upon which she is engaged (p. 164, p. 169).

MS.5382; Correspondence with Mantell, Gideon Algernon F.R.S. (1790-1852), geologist, paleontologist and surgeon.

MS.7548/92-101; Correspondence with Roulin, François Désiré (1797-1874), physician and naturalist.

MS.8289; Short biographical essays, chiefly of 19th century medical figures including Marshall Hall.

RAMC/474/41; Parkes Pamphlet Collection: Volume 4 includes The threatenings of apoplexy & paralysis, by Marshall Hall. 1851.