| Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th Edition | Public Domain via Project Gutenberg |
(1722-1797), English physician, was born at Minehead, Somersetshire, on the 11th of August 1722. He was educated at Ballitore, in Ireland, where Edmund Burke was one of his schoolfellows, studied medicine at Edinburgh, and finally graduated at Leiden in 1745. Appointed physician to the army in 1758, he served in Germany during part of the Seven Years' War, and on his return settled down to practise in London. In 1764 he published Economical and Medical Observations, which contained suggestions for improving the hygiene of army hospitals. In his latter years he withdrew altogether into private life. The circle of his friends included some of the most distinguished literary men of the age. He was warmly attached to Dr Johnson, to whom about 1784 he offered an annuity of £100 for life, and whom he attended on his death-bed, while in 1788 he presented Burke, of whom he was an intimate friend, with £1000, and offered to repeat the gift "every year until your merit is rewarded as it ought to be at court." He died on the 11th of December 1797, leaving his house and part of his fortune to his grand-nephew, Dr Thomas Young.