John Ferriar

John Ferriar
John Ferriar
Born	1761 Jedburgh, Roxburghshire
Died	4 February 1815 Manchester, Lancashire
Alma mater	University of Edinburgh
Occupations	Physician Poet

John Ferriar (1761 – 4 February 1815) was a Scottish physician and a poet, most noted for his leadership of the Manchester Infirmary, and his studies of the causes of diseases such as typhoid.

Background

Ferriar was born near Jedburgh, Roxburghshire in 1761. He obtained his MD at the University of Edinburgh in 1781, and became a physician (and later senior physician) at the Manchester Infirmary, from 1789 until 1815. He was a founder of the Portico Library and acted as its first Chairman alongside its first Secretary, Peter Mark Roget.

Manchester Board of Health

In 1795, he helped to set up a Board of Health in Manchester which rented houses in Portland Street for use as a fever hospital. He described to the Committee for the Regulation of the Police the appalling living conditions of the poor in cellars without lighting, sanitation or ventilation. People newly arrived from the country were particularly vulnerable to fevers. Consequently, he introduced many sanitary reforms.^[1]

His obituary, published in 1815, read:

Died, on the 4th of February, aged 52, JOHN FERRIAR, M. D. Senior Physician of the Manchester Infirmary. The eminent rank which he held in his profession, not only in that town and its immediate neighbourhood, but through a widely extended district of the surrounding country, was founded on long and general experience of the efficacy of his counsels. He was endowed by nature with an acute and vigorous understanding, which he had matured by a life of diligent study, and of careful and well-digested observation, into a judgment unusually correct and prompt in its decisions. The purposes of his sagacious mind were pursued, also, with a steadiness of determination which generally secured their accomplishment; and unexpected difficulties, in the treatment of diseases, he encountered with firmness, and with great fertility of invention. As a professional author he had obtained a high station, and the world is indebted to him for a large fund of valuable knowledge, conveyed in a style, which, for perspicuity, aud for manly strength and simplicity, deserves to be proposed as a model to medical writers. His character as a polite scholar will be preserved, in the literary annals of his country, by writings, in which he has displayed correct taste, extensive and various readings and original views of the subjects of his investigations. In the relations of private life he will long be remembered as a man of inflexible honour and integrity; a faithful arid steady friend; find a tender and most indulgent parent.^[2]

Works

His essay on Massinger was reprinted in Gifford's edition (1805), and his other published works includes Medical Histories and Reflections 1792-5-8, and Illustrations of Sterne 1798. In 1813, he also published An essay towards a theory of apparitions in which he argued that apparitions could be explained by optical illusions.^[3] A review of this essay appears in The Quarterly.^[4]

References

^ Brockbank, William (1952). Portrait of a Hospital. London: William Heinemann. pp. 28–38.
^ "Biographical Notice of the Late John Ferriar, M.D." in Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 11, 2nd edition (1815) p. 263.
^ Ferriar, John (1813). An Essay Towards a Theory of Apparitions.
^ "Review: An Essay towards a Theory of Apparitions by John Ferriar, M. D." The Quarterly Review. 9: 304–312. July 1813.

External links

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Professional and academic associations
Preceded by Thomas Barnes	Secretary of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society 1787–92	Succeeded by James Watt Jnr

Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society

Presidents

18th Century	Peter Mainwaring James Massey Dr Thomas Percival (I)
19th Century	Dr Thomas Percival (II) George Walker Thomas Henry (I) Dr John Hull Thomas Henry (II) John Dalton Dr Edward Holme Eaton Hodgkinson John Moore Sir William Fairbairn, Bt James Prescott Joule (I) Edward William Binney (I) Dr Robert Angus Smith Dr Henry Edward Schunck (I) James Prescott Joule (II) Edward William Binney (II) James Prescott Joule (III) Dr Henry Edward Schunck (II) Edward William Binney (III) James Prescott Joule (IV) Edward William Binney (IV) Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe William Crawford Williamson Robert Dukinfield Darbishire Balfour Stewart Osborne Reynolds Dr Henry Edward Schunck (III) Prof. Sir Arthur Schuster Henry Wilde Dr Henry Edward Schunck (IV) James Cosmo Melvill Prof. Sir Horace Lamb
20th Century	Prof. Sir Horace Lamb Charles Bailey Prof. Sir William Boyd Dawkins Sir William Henry Bailey Prof. Harold Baily Dixon (I) Francis Jones Prof. Frederick Ernest Weiss Francis Nicholson Prof. Sydney John Hickson William Thomson Prof. Sir Grafton Elliot Smith Prof. Sir Henry Alexander Miers Thomas Alfred Coward Prof. Harold Baily Dixon (II) Rev. Aloysius Laurence Cortie Herbert Levinstein Prof. Sir William Lawrence Bragg Charles Edmond Stromeyer Prof. Bernard Mouat Jones John Allan Prof. Reginald William James Robert Henry Clayton Prof. Douglas Rayner Hartree Prof. Herbert John Fleure Prof. Michael Polanyi Prof. Thomas Bertram Lonsdale Webster Dr Eric John Francis James Horace Hayhurst (I) Prof. Sir Geoffrey Jefferson Sir Peter Percy F. R. Venables Dr F. C. Toy C. E. Young Prof. Henry Solomon Lipson (I) Leonard Cohen Margaret Pilkington Horace Hayhurst (II) Brian Rodgers Dr George N. Burkhardt Dr George James Kynch Dr Edward Noah Abrahart Anthony Edmund Rivers Goulty Prof. Henry Solomon Lipson (II) Harry M. Fairhurst David G. Wilson Dr Lionel J. R. Postle Prof. Sir Netar P. Mallick (I) Dr Brian S. H. Rarity Philip G. Livesey Prof. Donald Stephen Lowell Cardwell Dr Edward Fletcher Cass Prof. Alexander Donnachie Dianne Wilson
21st Century	Iain E. Gillespie Angus G. D. Yeaman Keith D. Buckley Vivienne Blackburn Mary, Lady Mallick David J. Higginson Prof. Kenneth M. Letherman Prof. Sir Netar P. Mallick (II) Dr Diana M. Leitch Dr Susan R. Hilton Ian Cameron