THOMAS, a physician of equal eminence for his talents and philanthropy, was born at Shifnal, in Shropshire, on the 13th of April 1760, and was originally of Welsh extraction. He received the first rudiments of his education at a school in his native town, and afterwards at a seminary at Brood, in Staffordshire. The strength of his intellectual powers was apparent at a very early period of his life; and he was remarkable from his infancy for his insatiable thirst for books and his indifference to the common objects of amusement which usually capti- vate the attention of children. His rising abilities were discerned and justly appreciated by his grandfather, a man of great natural acuteness of mind, and who by his industry and enterprise in trade had acquired a consider- able fortune. To this intelligent relation he was deeply indebted for many of the advantages of his early educa- tion, and for prevailing on his father (who, wishing to re- tain his son beneath the paternal roof, and train him up to business, was less anxious about his literary acquire- ments) to fix his destination for one of the learned profes- sions. When he was only nine years old, the circum- stance of an accident which befell his benefactor, and which, after being followed by some remarkable symptoms, terminated fatally, was calculated to make a deep and lasting impression on a mind like that of young Beddoes, and was sufficient to give it a decided direction. By the extraordinary acuteness and interest which he manifested on this occasion, he attracted the notice of Mr Yonge, the surgeon who attended the sufferer; and a foundation was thus laid for the friendship which ever after subsisted between them, and which appears to have had a consider- able influence in his choice of that profession, in which he was destined to run so brilliant a career. Under the tuition of the Rev. Mr Harding, at the free grammar school in Bridgenorth, he made rapid progress in classical learning, and was distinguished by his great fondness for reading, by his facility in acquiring knowledge, and by the possession of a memory surprisingly retentive, a faculty which he retained through life. When about thirteen years of age, he was placed as a pupil with the Rev. Mr Dickenson, rector of Plymhill in Staffordshire, with whom he continued about two years, and who has given the following report of the zeal with which he pursued his studies. "During the period that Dr Beddoes was under my care," observes Mr Dickenson, "his mind was so intent upon literary pursuits, chiefly the attainment of classical learning, that I do not recollect his having devoted a single day, or even an hour, to diversions or frivolous amusements of any kind. His vacant hours were generally employed in reading reviews, of which he had access to a very numerous collection." It is singular, that, in giving a sketch of his mental powers, though he describes his judgment as solid, he represents his genius as not "enlivened by any remarkable brilliancy of fancy." We shall soon have occasion to observe how eminently he was afterwards gifted with the very quality, in which a near observer of his character pronounced him to have been at that time deficient. His moral conduct was ever irreproachable, and his docility and equanimity of temper were in the highest degree exemplary.

He continued the same habits of sedulous application, and retained the same independence and integrity of character, at the university, to which he was removed on quitting Mr Dickenson. He entered at Pembroke College, Oxford, in Michaelmas term 1776. The simplicity of his appearance, and the rusticity of his manners and address, could not long conceal the superiority of his mental powers, which became more conspicuous by extended competition, and soon met with the respect and applause to which they had so high a claim. The themes and declamations of young Beddoes were remarkable for their elegant Latinity; and he soon acquired distinguished reputation as a classical scholar. Success in one acquisition was to him but an inducement to the possession of another; and, already versed in the ancient, he resolved to become master also of the modern languages. He was found one morning by a friend, who casually entered his apartment, very busily engaged with a French grammar and dictionary before him. On inquiring what was the nature of his studies, Beddoes told him that he was only learning French. His friend expressed surprise that he should attempt it without a master. He replied that it was unnecessary, and that he should conquer the difficulties of the language by himself in about two months. His friend desisted from further interference; but, noting in his own mind the date of his visit, called upon him again at the expiration of two months, and taking the opportunity of turning the conversation to the subject, inquired whether he had mastered the language. Beddoes answered in the affirmative, and proved his assertion by reading in English, with perfect fluency, and much to the astonishment of the hearer, a French book which the latter presented to him. From the French he proceeded to the Italian, which, from its analogy with the former, he acquired with greater ease. The German language presented more serious difficulties; but his perseverance triumphed over them without the aid of any master. Not content with this, he afterwards added the Spanish language to his other acquisitions, as if determined to possess every avenue by which useful or ornamental knowledge could possibly be attained.

Whatever time he may have devoted to general literature while attending the university, chemistry, and the other sciences more closely connected with his future profession, were always his favourite objects of pursuit. The Beddoes splendid discoveries of Black and Priestley, which had opened a new field of discovery, and promised to lead to the most important results, were powerfully calculated to inflame the ardour of so inquisitive and sanguine a spirit as that of Beddoes; and he accordingly soon became perfectly conversant with the new doctrines of pneumatic chemistry, and used to exhibit with great delight the experiments which supported them, to a circle of literary friends in Shropshire, during his vacations. He was also much occupied with mineralogy and botany; and for the former of these sciences, especially, retained throughout life a remarkable fondness.

Having taken his bachelor's degree at one and twenty, he repaired to London, in order to commence the study of his profession, for which, as is well known, the English universities do not provide the means. He became a pupil of the celebrated Sheldon, and devoted his time to the details of practical anatomy, and the physiological inquiries connected with it. It was while he was engaged in these studies that he gave to the world, in 1784, a translation from the Italian of Spallanzani's Dissertations on Natural History; a work which, in the year 1790, went through a second edition. In the year following, 1785, he published a translation of Bergman's Essays on Elective Attractions, the first work to which Beddoes affixed his name, accompanied by numerous original notes, which display an accurate acquaintance with all the modern improvements in the physical sciences. In 1786 he became again known to the public as the editor of Scheele's Chemical Essays. Previous to this, in 1783, he took his degree of master of arts; and, in the autumn of 1784, removed to Edinburgh, where he remained during three successive winters and one summer. Shortly after his arrival, he became a member of the Medical Society and of the Natural History Society of that place, and took an active part in the series of physiological experiments in which some of the members of the former were at that period engaged; to the latter he contributed two papers, one on the Sexual System of Linnaeus, the other on the Scale of Being, both of which have been preserved at full length in Dr Stock's Memoirs of his Life. The high estimation in which his talents were held at Edinburgh was shown, not only by his receiving every mark of honourable distinction from his fellow-students which it was in their power to confer, but also by their choosing him as the organ of their remonstrances with the managers of the Infirmary, on the occasion of a misunderstanding which had arisen between them as to the hours at which they should be permitted to attend; and they were eminently indebted to him for the firmness with which he on that occasion maintained their privileges.

After taking his degree of doctor of medicine at Oxford, in December 1786, he made, in the ensuing summer, an excursion into the Highlands, and also spent a short time at Paris and Dijon, where he cultivated the acquaintance of Lavoisier and Guyton de Morveau. Soon after his return he was appointed to succeed Dr Austin in the chemical lectureship at Oxford, an office which he was eminently qualified to fill. The success which attended his exertions to inspire a taste for scientific researches was soon apparent, in the full and generally overflowing audience attracted by his lectures, and by his communicating to most of his hearers a large portion of that enthusiasm for the pursuit of which he was himself possessed. Enjoying the reputation of distinguished talents, in a place where so much deference is paid by all ranks to the possessor of so noble a distinction, and surrounded by men of learning and abilities, who courted his society, his situation at the university appears to have been truly enviable; and it is difficult to understand the motives which could have led him to relinquish all these advantages for the uncertain prospects afforded by his establishing himself in any other town. The decided part which he took in the political discussions that were agitated at the beginning of the French revolution, seems to have had a principal share in this determination. His opinions, which it was no part of his character ever to conceal within his own breast, were on this occasion expressed with his usual freedom, and were of a nature to give offence to many of his former admirers; and the circulation of a political article which he inserted in a Shropshire paper, in reply to some misrepresentations which had previously been made, in an advertisement soliciting relief for the French emigrant clergy, excited a clamour against him, which accelerated his adoption of the step he had previously determined upon, that of resigning his lectureship, and quitting Oxford.

During his connection with the university, he published, at the Clarendon press, in 1790, an analytical account of the writings of Mayow, under the title of Chemical Experiments and Opinions, extracted from a work published in the last century; in which he asserts the claims of that extraordinary man to the discovery of the principal facts on which the modern system of pneumatic chemistry is founded; discoveries which Mayow had achieved at a very early period of life, and which had failed, for upwards of a century, to attract any notice from the philosophic world. In the Philosophical Transactions for 1791 and 1792 we also find three papers by Dr Beddoes; the one containing Observations on the Affinity between Basaltes and Granite, in which he rejects the common division of mountains into primary and secondary, and states some strong arguments in favour of the volcanic origin of both; the other giving An Account of some Appearances attending the Conversion of Cast into Malleable Iron, which he supposes to consist in its purification from oxygen, charcoal, and hydrogen, which escape, during the process, in the form of carbonic acid and carburetted hydrogen gases; and, in a paper which forms an appendix to the latter, he relates a variety of experiments which he had made, confirming this theory.

The uncertainty of his future destination on his retiring from Oxford does not appear to have interrupted his literary labours; for it was at this period that he published his Observations on the Nature of Demonstrative Evidence, with an Explanation of Certain Difficulties occurring in the Elements of Geometry, and Reflections on Language, 8vo, London, 1793. In this essay he contends, in opposition to the doctrines of the ontologists, and particularly to that of Mr Harris, the author of Hermes, that geometry is essentially founded in experiment; and that mathematical reasoning proceeds, at every step, upon the evidence of the senses; or, in other words, that this science is a science of experiment and observation, as much founded solely upon the induction of particular facts, as mechanics, astronomy, optics, or chemistry. He endeavours to show that Euclid sets out from experiment, and appeals constantly to what we have already learned, or may immediately learn, from the exercise of our senses. This paradox he attempts to support by a sophistical analysis of one of the elementary theorems in the first book of Euclid, and of the leading definitions and axioms prefixed to it. He is afterwards led to consider the origin of abstract terms and the philosophy of language, and adopts on these subjects the views which have been presented by Mr Horne Tooke, in his Περιπτώσεις, whose speculations, together with those of Lord Monboddo, Schultens, Hems-terhuis, and other Dutch etymologists, he severally reviews and criticises in an appendix of some length.

About the same period he published a work entitled Remarks on the Nature and Cure of Calculus, Scrofula, Consumption, Catarrh, and Fever; together with Conjectures upon several other Objects of Physiology and Pathology. He there recommends, as a cheap and commodious remedy for calculus, the exsiccated carbonate of soda made into pills with an equal weight of soap; in proof of the efficacy of which, he adduces a number of interesting cases. He then proceeds to develop his favourite pathological theories on the diseases which destroy so large a proportion of the human species; theories on which he afterwards built so many specious but unfortunately abortive projects for their cure. Scrofula and pulmonary consumption he conceived to arise from opposite chemical conditions of the body; the former consisting in a gradual abstraction, the latter in a gradual accumulation, of oxygen in the system. He supports these opinions by a variety of ingenious and plausible arguments, and proposes submitting them to the test of experiment, by administering to consumptive patients such gases as may contain a smaller proportion of oxygen than is contained in common atmospheric air. The new views of pathology which these speculations presented, and the hopes of valuable practical results which they raised, excited great attention in the medical world, and contributed much to increase the reputation of their author.

On leaving Oxford, he retired to the house of his friend Mr Reynolds of Ketley, in Shropshire. It was here that he published his admirable History of Isaac Jenkins, a story intended to impress the most useful of moral lessons on the labouring classes, by exhibiting the reformation of a drunkard, and his return to habits of sobriety and industry. The execution of this work is worthy of the design. There is, probably, none of Dr Beddoes's productions which unites so many peculiar excellencies as this inimitable fiction, or which displays at once, in so favourable a light, the vigour of his genius, his deep knowledge of the human heart, and the power with which he could command the interest and sympathy of his reader. No work of its kind has ever had the same success; repeated editions, amounting to above forty thousand copies, were rapidly sold; and a large impression has since been issued at the request of a society for promoting knowledge by the distribution of useful popular books.

A prospect now opened to him of realizing a scheme to which his wishes had for a long time been ardently directed; that of establishing a pneumatic institution, where the medical efficacy of the permanently elastic fluids, the fruits of the modern improvements in chemistry, could be fairly put to the test of experiment, by being administered on an extensive scale. The metropolis first suggested itself as an eligible spot for the formation of the projected establishment; but several obstacles having occurred in the execution of this plan, the neighbourhood of Bristol was at length fixed upon as the most proper place for the purpose. In making the various arrangements required in the infancy of such an institution, and which presented peculiar difficulties, he derived material assistance from the cordial co-operation of Mr Edgeworth, the author of Practical Education, with whose family he soon became more closely connected, by marrying one of that gentleman's daughters, an event which took place in April 1794. The pneumatic institution continued to occupy his attention for many years, in the course of which a great number of publications issued from his pen, illustrating the principles on which he expected it to be useful, and detailing the experiments and the results to which it gave rise. The principal of these are the following: A Letter to Dr Darwin, on a new mode of treating Pulmonary Consumption, in 1793,—as a supplement to which appeared, in 1794, Letters from Dr Withering, Dr Ewart, Dr Thornton, &c. together with an analysis of a paper by Lavoisier, on the state of the air in crowded assemblies, and of another by Vaquelin, on the liver of the skate; Considerations on the Medical Use, and on the Production of Factitious Airs, in five parts, which came out successively at different periods, from the year 1794 to 1796; in 1795, he published an Outline of a Plan for determining the Medicinal Powers of Factitious Airs; in 1797, Suggestions towards setting on foot the projected Establishment for Pneumatic Medicine, and Reports relating to Nitrous Acid, in confirmation of the efficacy of that remedy in syphilitic affections; in 1799, Contributions to Medical and Physical Knowledge, collected principally from the West of England; notice of some Observations made at the Pneumatic Institution; a second, and afterwards a third, Collection of Reports relating to Nitrous Acid. Considerable difficulty was at first experienced in the construction and management of the apparatus required for carrying on the objects of this institution; these were, however, in no long time entirely surmounted by the friendly assistance of Mr Watt, whose exertions at this critical period were eminently serviceable, and are acknowledged in a dedication prefixed to the first part of the Considerations. Mr William Clayfield and Mr Read also contributed their assistance in the invention of different parts of the pneumatic apparatus. At the opening of the institution in 1798, the sums subscribed were found to be very inadequate to the purposes for which it was designed; but every deficiency in this respect was amply supplied by the liberality of Mr Thomas Wedgwood, who offered Dr Beddoes £1000 to enable him to carry the plan into immediate execution. All that was now wanted was to procure a superintendent; and he had the good fortune to engage in that capacity a young man who had already given proofs of extraordinary talents, and to whose penetrating genius chemistry has since been so deeply indebted.

There needs no other indication to suggest the name of Davy—a name that will descend to distant ages as associated with so many important discoveries in philosophical science. The history of the pneumatic institution indeed derives considerable splendour from many of these discoveries, which were perfected in its laboratory, and which were first announced to the world through the medium of the publications above mentioned; and in the work entitled Researches Chemical and Philosophical, chiefly concerning Nitrous Oxide, or Dephlogisticated Nitrous Air, and its Respiration. By Humphry Davy, Superintendent of the Medical Pneumatic Institution. London, 1800. The discovery of the chemical properties of this gas, and of its astonishing effects on the system when respired, were among the first, and must ever be esteemed the most brilliant, of the results of this institution; it raised the most sanguine anticipations in the mind of Dr Beddoes, and called forth all his eloquence in the description of what it already had and might be expected to accomplish. These, like the other splendid visions in which his ardent imagination was but too prone to indulge, have never been realized; and have even created, by their signal failure, an unfortunate prejudice against future attempts to improve the art of medicine by novel methods of treatment founded on chemical or philosophical principles. The original objects of the institution being found unattainable, were successively abandoned; and it assumed, by insensible gradations, the form of the more common establishments for the relief of the sick; and the prevention rather than the cure of diseases became the principal aim of its conductors. In 1807 it was finally relinquished by Dr Beddoes to the care of Mr King and Dr Stock.

A great variety of medical topics in the mean time engaged the active mind of Dr Beddoes, and gave employment to his pen. In the strictly practical branch of the art we may enumerate, in addition to the works above mentioned,—in 1793, A Letter to Dr Darwin on a new mode of treating Pulmonary Consumption; in 1795, an edition of Brown's Elements of Medicine, with a preface and notes; translation from the Spanish, of Gimbernat's new Method of operating in Femoral Hernia; in 1799, Popular Essay on Consumption; in 1801, Essay on the medical and domestic Management of the Consumptive, on Digitalis, and on Scrofula; in 1807, Researches Anatomical and Practical, concerning Fever as connected with Inflammation. In this latter work he successfully combats the theory of Dr Clutterbuck and of Plouquet, in which fever is supposed to consist essentially in topical inflammation or its membranes.

The object which Dr Beddoes had ever most at heart was, to excite a lively and general attention to the means of preserving health, and of repelling the first inroads of disease, by the diffusion of medical knowledge throughout all ranks of the community, as far as they were capable of acquiring it. His attention was uniformly directed to this favourite object, and he suffered no opportunity to escape of enforcing those maxims which tend to prevent the necessity of the interference of his art. His works on popular subjects, on the improvements of medical education, and the exercise of the profession, and the popular lectures which he promoted, and in which he himself took an active part, all tended to this object. To this head may be referred the following publications: in 1794, A Guide for Self-preservation and Parental Affection; A Proposal for the Improvement of Medicine; in 1797, A Lecture introductory to a Popular Course of Anatomy; in 1798, A suggestion towards an Essential Improvement in the Bristol Infirmary; but more especially his Hygeia, or Essays Moral and Medical, on the causes affecting the Personal State of the Middling and Affluent Classes, in 3 vols. 1801–2, in which he embraces a great variety of topics, and describes, with a glowing pencil, and occasionally with extraordinary eloquence, the sufferings of patients under different diseases. In 1806, there appeared The Manual of Health, or the Invalid conducted safely through the Seasons; in 1808, A Letter to Sir Joseph Banks on the prevailing Discontents, Abuses, and Imperfections in Medicine; and, in the same year, Good Advice for the Husbandman in Harvest, and for all those who labour hard in hot Births; as also for others who will take it in Warm Weather; which was the last production he ever wrote, his death happening soon after, of dropsy and enlargement of the pericardium, in December 1808.

Dr Beddoes has been very justly characterized as a pioneer in the road to discovery. He was full of ardour and enterprise in the pursuit of knowledge, and was easily captivated by every new project that seemed to lead towards any practical improvement. He was more active, however, in exciting the labours of others, than in labouring himself in the field of experiment. He had the imagination of a poet, and could paint in the most vivid colours the sufferings entailed by disease, and enforce with the most powerful eloquence whatever he wished to impress on the minds of his readers. He has been accused of versatility of opinion; but if he was, perhaps, hasty in publishing the first conceptions which he formed, he has atoned for this fault by the remarkable candour with which he retracted them the moment his confidence in them was shaken. He took a decided line in politics, as appears in the following political publications of his, which appeared in 1795, 1796, and 1797; viz. A Word in Defence of the Bill of Rights against Gagging Bills; Where would be the Harm of a Speedy Peace? An Essay on the Public Merits of Mr Pitt; A Letter to Mr Pitt on the Scarcity; Alternatives Compared, or What shall the Rich do to be Safe? (See Dr Stock's Memoirs of the Life of Dr Beddoes. London, 1811.)