Complete Record - Heirs of Hippocrates No. 1167

THOMAS BEDDOES (1760-1808) Observations on the nature and cure of calculus, sea scurvy, consumption, catarrh, and fever. Printed for J. Murray 1793 xvi, 278 [2] pp. 20.9 cm.

Beddoes was a graduate of Oxford, and, after his appointment there in 1788 as reader in chemistry, he attracted audiences larger than any since the thirteenth century. His fervent belief was that true medical science must have a chemical basis, and, with this in mind, he set up a Pneumatic Institution where diseases were treated by the administration of gases. He appointed Humphry Davy (1778-1829), then a lad of nineteen, as superintendent, and it was at the Institution that Davy, in the course of his experiments on the medical properties of gases, discovered the anesthetic effects of nitrous oxide, or "laughing gas." Davy stayed at the Pneumatic Institution only three years, after which it became primarily a clinic for preventive medicine. Beddoes' theories as to inhalation may have been overdone but they have found some vindication in open-air treatment of tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases, and his general plan of inhalation therapy has become standardized as pneumotherapy. In this, Beddoes' first medical work, he fully recognizes the importance of applying new developments in chemistry to medicine. The initial section on calculus describes a new therapy for stone in which the recently discovered carbon dioxide plays a prominent role. Beddoes considered scurvy and obesity to be caused by a deficiency of oxygen, while consumption and catarrh were caused by excessive oxygen. He believed that oxygen should be increased to cure the deficiency disorders and that could be done by adhering to a diet of meat or fresh vegetables. For consumption and catarrh he recommended decreasing the oxygen by mixing harmless gases to the air breathed by the patient. Although he neglected to discuss fever, he does include two memoirs on the laws of irritability by Christoph Girtanner (1760-1800).

Cited references: Cushing B241; Wellcome II, p. 128

Gift of William B. Bean, M.D