John Fothergill (293)

John Fothergill (8 March 1712–26 December 1780) was a physician, and a member of the American Philosophical Society, elected in 1770. He was born in Yorkshire, England to a Quaker family and entered a distinguished grammar school in Sedbergh. In 1728 he apprenticed under a Quaker minister who encouraged Fothergill to study medicine at Edinburgh University. He graduated with his M.D. in 1736 and continued his medical training at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London. He found difficulty establishing himself amongst the elite Londoner physicians, so he decided instead to focus his practice on the urban poor. Finally in 1744, he became the first English Edinburgh graduate to be licensed by the Royal College of Physicians. Four years later he published an account of a London epidemic in which he advised against blood-letting and purging in favor of a proper diet and a plant-based febrifuge for treatment. The instantaneous success of this book made him one of the wealthiest physicians in England. Fothergill then published early and innovative accounts of tic douloureux, migraine headaches, angina pectoris, epilepsy, tubercular meningitis, rabies, obesity, and menopause. Developing connections in the colonies, he became a political advisor to fellow Quakers in the Pennsylvania assembly. In 1757 the assembly sent Benjamin Franklin to London, where Fothergill would treat an ill Franklin shortly after his arrival. Fothergill’s relationship with America grew: he became a trustee of the Pennsylvania Land Company (1760), he published a pamphlet advocating for the repeal of the Stamp Act (1765), and he joined Franklin in an attempt to negotiate peace before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War (1775). Fothergill continued advocating for the downtrodden until his death, founding the Ackworth School in Yorkshire for the education of the poor, raising funds for the New York Hospital, supporting the abolition of the slave trade, and continuing to provide free medical treatment to the poor. He died of a urinary retention, likely having to do with prostate cancer. (DNB)

Although this bibliography excludes collections of works and serials as a general rule, researchers should note that APS holds three copies of two separate editions of the collected works edited and printed posthumously, which can be found in the catalog.