Five eighteenth-century medical polymaths

Abstract: Five eighteenth-century medical men, like many of their contemporaries, achieved renown for their medical skills and research abilities. They lived during an exciting period marked by the questioning of many traditional beliefs. Coeval scientific achievements increased knowledge of the challenging natural world around them. Outside medicine, John Wall (1708– 1776) established the fashionable spa of Malvern, known for the purity of its water, and co-founded the prestigious Worcester Porcelain Company. Erasmus Darwin (1731–1802) had a remarkably inventive mind ranging over many interests, including canal construction, steering equipment for carriages and a copying machine for documents. Edward Jenner (1749–1823) was interested in bird migration, and researched the brood parasitism of the cuckoo. His vacci-nation of cowpox to prevent smallpox eventually led to the elimination of the disease in 1980. Caleb Parry (1755–1822) practised medicine in Bath and was admired for his knowledge and integrity. He was interested in sheep and produced high-quality merino wool. Since boyhood he had hunted for fossils with his friend, Edward Jenner. John MacCulloch (1773–1835) produced the first geological map of Scotland, published posthumously in 1836. A prolific writer, his book on the Western Isles (1819) is considered a classic. This author’s interest in medical history stemmed partly from her husband’s career as a Warwickshire general practitioner and academic. In addition she developed an interest in the early seventeenth-century doctor, John Hall (1575–1635), who lived and worked in Stratford-upon-Avon and married Susanna, elder daughter of William Shakespeare (1564–1616). She was working on John Hall’s detailed case notes and became aware that perhaps she had something in common with Susanna and her concern for her husband’s patients. As an intel-ligent, caring woman, Susanna ‘wept with all that wept, yet set herself to chere them up with comforts cordial’. This inscription is on her grave beside her father’s in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon