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Dr. Thomas Beddoes (1750–1808): Science and medicine in politics and society

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Trevor H. Levere
Trevor H. Levere
Affiliation:
Institute for the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto, Victoria College, 73 Queen's Park Crescent East, Toronto, Ontario M5S 1K7, Canada.
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Extract

The career of Thomas Beddoes was moulded by British responses to the French Revolution. Beddoes, until appalled by the events of the Terror, saw France as the model for mankind. The government of England took the very different view that democracy was closely allied with jacobinism and sedition. The Home Office was the agency most immediately engaged in opposing sedition, and any criticism of the King, or of the constitution in church and state, was scrutinized as being potentially seditious. In 1793, England and France went to war, and the following years saw treason trials and gagging bills, profoundly disturbing even to the more conservative among the friends of peace and liberty in England, Beddoes among them.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , July 1984 , pp. 187 - 204
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1984

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References

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33 Rivington & Cooke.

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48 Beddoes's career was in England, but part of his education had been at Edinburgh under Black. This may suffice to account for the Scottish support for Beddoes's Pneumatic Institution (Levere, , op. cit. (5))Google Scholar. One should also note the extent of democratic protest in Edinburgh in the years immediately preceding the treason trials of the 1790's (Goodwin, , op. cit. (2))Google Scholar. There were significant parallels between English and Scottish interactions between science and politics. See, e.g., Morrell, J. B., ‘The Leslie affair: Careers, Kirk, and politics in Edinburgh in 1805’, Scottish Historical Review, 1975, 54, 62–82Google Scholar, and ‘Professors Robison and Playfair, and the Theophobia Gallica: Natural Philosophy, religion and politics in Edinburgh, 1789–1815’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 1971, 26, 43–63.Google ScholarBeddoes, & Watt, J., Considerations on the Medicinal Use and Production of Factitious Airs, Bristol, 1795, Part 3, 111–12.Google Scholar

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68 PRO MS HO 42.35. BRO 1795 Box 42, 28 Sept. 1795. Again, see Thompson, , op. cit. (15)Google Scholar for a gloss on the relations between marketing practices and popular protest.

69 BRO 1795 Box 42, 16 Oct. 1795.

70 PRO MS HO 42/36. BRO 1794 Box 18, 11 Dec. 1795, 22 Dec. 1795, 28 Dec. 1795.

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