Correspondence of William Heberden, F.R.S. with the Reverend Stephen Hales and Sir Charles Blagden.

Abstract

The letters transcribed below from unpublished manuscripts were written by men of three different generations, William Heberden (1710—1801) providing the link between Hales (born in the reign of Charles II) and Blagden, who was still a boy at the time of Hales’s death. Heberden, son of a Southwark innkeeper, received a classical education at the local grammar school, proceeded to St John’s College, Cambridge, was in due course elected Fellow and then began his study of medicine. He received his M.D. in 1739 and his ambitious course of lectures on Materia Medica, which he delivered annually, helped to establish his reputation. He was elected F. R. C. P. in 1746 and F. R. S. three years later, soon after settling in London. It is clear from his lectures and other works that he was a voracious reader and that his interest in scientific matters was not limited to the field of Physic. In 1758 he was busy preparing ‘A Collection of the Yearly Bills of Mortality’ and it was no doubt this preoccupation, combined with his interest in obtaining pure, uncontaminated drinking water, that prompted the enquiries contained in the (lost) letter to which Hales is replying.