Fothergill & Lead

[Terrance Flaherty]

John Fothergill (1712-1780), son of a Quaker missionary, was born
in Yorkshire. He chose medicine but as a dissenter was excluded from the
English universities and hence attended the medical school in Edinburgh.
By
1740, he had established himself in London. During the course of a very
successful career, he contributed materially to clinical medicine. His
1748
paper on throat ulcers represented the first comprehensive description
of
what would later be called diphtheria. His published studies on the
effects
of lead intoxication in house painters and his paper on the relationship
of
coronary artery narrowing to angina pectoris represented some of the
finest
clinical writings of the 18th Century. Benjamin Franklin, his friend,
co-religionist and sometime patient, shared his curiosity concerning
industrial lead poisoning and would latter publish a book on this
subject.
        Fothergill was a devout Quaker, devoting much of his energies to
philanthropic causes (including contributions to the University of
Pennsylvania and Harvard medical schools). He was a leader in the
English
movement to abolish the slavery of Africans. He also had a scholarly
interest in marine biology and medicinal botany. Fothergill organized a
personal arboretum that became second only to Kew Gardens as England's
most
extensive botanical collection.