THOMAS BEDDOES M.D. 1760-1808 CHEMISTS AND CHEMISTRY

A series of books devoted to the examination of the history and development of chemistry from its early emergence as a separate discipline to the present day. The series will describe the personalities, processes, theoretical and iechnical advances which have shaped our current understanding of chemical science. DOROTHY A. STANSFIELD

THOMAS BEDDOES M.D. 1760-1808 Chemist, Physician, Democrat

D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY

A MEMBER OF THE KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS GROUP

DORDRECHT/BOSTON/LANCASTER Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Stansfield, Dorothy A., 1914- Thomas Beddoes, M.D., 1760-1808.

(Chemists and chemistry) Bibliography: p. Includes indexes. 1. Beddoes, Thomas, 1760-1808. 2. Chemists - England• Biography. 3. Physicians - England - Biography. I. Title. II. Series. QD22.B263S83 1984 540'.92'4 [BI 84-8421 ISBN-13: 978-94-009-6305-4 e-ISBN-13:978-94-009-6303-0 DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-6303-0

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All Rights Reserved. © 1984 by D. Reidel Publishing Company. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1984

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PREFACE ix

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xiii

CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE xvi

CHAPTER 1. Introduction 1 CHAPTER 2. Early Life 6 I. Shropshire Background 6 II. Student Days: Oxford and London 13 CHAPTER 3. Edinburgh Medical School 21 CHAPTER 4. Chemical Reader 31 CHAPTER 5. The Midland Circle 60 CHAPTER 6. Revolutionary and Educationalist 80 CHAPTER 7. Bristol: Reviewing for The Monthly Review 97 CHAPTER 8. The Arrival of Coleridge/Political and Literary Activities 120 CHAPTER 9. The Pneumatic Institute/Humphry Davy 145 CHAPTER 10. Preventive Medicine 175 CHAPTER II. Religio Medici 197 CHAPTER 12. Behind the Print 216 CHAPTER 13. Family and Reputation 241

APPENDIX I. Thomas Beddoes' Contributions to The Monthly Review, 1793-1801 254 APPENDIX II. Dr Joseph Priestley's Letter to Humphry Davy, Oct. 31,1803 261 NOTES AND REFERENCES 262 BIBLIOGRAPHY 282 INDEX OF NAMES 289 INDEX OF SUBJECTS 296 PREFACE

We meet in Thomas Beddoes an able chemist, engaged in a field where impor• tant new discoveries were being made; a good doctor eager to fmd experi• mentally soun.d ways of healing and to make known the principles of maintaining good health; a vigorous, independent man sharing the hope which the ideas of the French Revolution gave so many 9f his contemporaries. In his life he was a controversial figure and judgement and detached appreciation of his work was often made impossible by anger at his 'revolutionary' political views. It becomes evident that where Beddoes was held in esteem and where he had influence it was not for particular activities but for what he was 'in the round'. With due respect - and with gratitude - to specialist accounts of his achievements as a chemist and of his endeavours to fmd a cure for pulmonary consumption and his efforts to bring about an understanding of the importance of preventive medicine, I have tried in this account to 'see him whole'. Historians of chemistry and of medicine; educationalists; and those concerned with 'women's studies' will each continue to find particular episodes or parts of Beddoes' life of special interest. At the same time I hope this, the first attempt at a biography - for J. E. Stock's 1811 account is truly named "Memoirs" - will add to our understanding of his varied activities. This study had originally a quite limited aim; to trace in greater detail the part Thomas Beddoes, a chemist, played in making known to Samuel Taylor Coleridge the work of the German philosopher, Emmanuel Kant and, in general, German ideas and writings. The warm account of Beddoes' personality given by Dr Cartwright in his "English Pioneers of Anaesthesia" led me to widen my scope. During the years 1789-1801 Coleridge was one of the group at the Pneumatic Institute in Clifton where Beddoes was testing his hypothesis that pUlmonary tuberculosis might be usefully treated by the use of gases and there he was introduced to new ideas and new experiences. As a result of Humphry Davy's work the experiments focussed on nitrous oxide and Coleridge took part in the serious experiments in the laboratory, not only in light-hearted sessions of breathing this 'laughing gas' just for the sensation. So he came to feel the intellectual excitement of the recent discoveries in the chemistry of gases and the mysterious elation and 'heightened sensibility' that came from a few inhalations of nitrous oxide.

ix x PREFACE

Once we attempt to go beyond this to discover the scientific ideas that made the experience at the Pneumatic Institute more than a short-lived excitement for Coleridge and to endeavour to find out what made Beddoes so important both for the poet and for the young chemist, Humphry Davy, we are in difficulties. For Davy, clearly, Beddoes was important as his mentor in chemistry, but for Coleridge there was much more than a simple introduction to new writers. From the time they met in 1794 a whole cluster of shared ideas and activities linked Beddoes and Coleridge. It was a time of develop• ment and change in Coleridge's political and philosophical thinking; he drew away from his older friend, but the excitement of chemistry, the friendship with Beddoes and Davy had important and lasting results. This has been treated in depth by Professor T. H. Levere. I hope the account given here of Coleridge and Beddoes' friendship will be a useful prelude and an addition to our understanding of Coleridge's early work. The origin of this study itself reminds us that the time was one before specialisation - certainly before the 'two cultures'. Thomas Beddoes himself wrote verse; his older contemporary, Erasmus Darwin, was admired as a poet. A century later, Erasmus' grandson Charles sadly admitted that as his mind had become a machine for "grinding general laws out of a large collection of facts", he had quite lost the power to enjoy poetry. Thomas Beddoes with his many interests and activities can give us some feel of that earlier world. To do justice to Beddoes' many-sided activities a thematic rather than a strictly chronological treatment has been used. I freely admit that I have written this account of Beddoes' life from a point of view entirely in sympathy with his generally 'progressive' and politically democratic views. The time seems right to correct the over-simplified rejection of Beddoes as a 'revolu• tionary' and only by standing on his side can we understand what his convic• tions were and how they penetrated all his work. I am not unmindful of the arguments in support of Pitt and Burke. My exploration began entirely to satisfy my own curiosity and has continued without being connected with any learned institution. In these circumstances I have been especially grateful to those busy academics who have found time to talk of Beddoes, to challenge and even to encourage. They are so many and over such a long period that some will probably have for• gotten and I must make my thanks in general to them all. Among them I most specially thank Dr Hugh Torrens of Keele University, who encouraged me from the beginning, strengthened my flagging will to continue and in the end generously shared with me his large collection of Beddoes material. My sincere thanks are due also to Professor T. H. Levere of the University of PREFACE xi

Toronto who has spared time on his visits to this country for helpful and stimulating conversation about the whole area of Beddoes' work, and to Michael Neve of the History of Medicine Unit, University College, London, who has frequently discussed with me the various stages of this work. Through the kindness of Lord Gibson-Watt, I was able to read the letters of Thomas Beddoes and of James Watt Jr in his private collection of Watt family papers. These letters were invaluable in connection with the help given by James Watt in the making of the apparatus for the breathing of gases and in the setting up of the Pneumatic Institution. To my friends, Mr and Mrs D. Corser, Miss E. Dudley and Miss B. Lewis, I offer most sincere thanks for their hospitality on many occasions during my search for Beddoes material and for their readiness to enter into my enthusi• asm. Miss Dudley's kind and expert help in identifying material in the Bodleian library has saved me much time and has been invaluable. At home I have received most kind help from those who have typed my untidy manuscript and who have given me loyal domestic support. I must put on record the part played by my husband, Ronald, in the making of this book. He has most patiently and kindly undertaken support work, correcting, editing, retyping. Much more: he has been ever ready to live with Beddoes, to make clear his scientific work, to discuss the significance of his activities. Without him, I could only have written another partial account of Beddoes, for, most important of all, it was my husband who first, long ago, led me to appreciate the excitement of science. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I take this opportunity of thanking the Librarians and Archivists who gave me so much help during the course of my research. I gratefully acknowledge permission to quote from manuscript collections listed here:

Trustees of the Matthew Letters of J. Watt, Junior Birmingham Pub• Boulton Trust lic Library Mrs C. Colvin Letters of Maria Edge• Bodleian Library, worth Oxford Mr C. E. Corbett Diary of Katherine Shropshire Record Plyrnley Office Mr C. J. Davies-Gilbert Correspondence of Davies Cornwall Record Gilbert Office Mrs T. Fletcher Papers of Thomas Bed• Bodleian Library, does Oxford Lord Gibson-Watt Watt family papers Private collection Mr T. D. G. Sotheron• Letters of Thomas Bed• Gloucester Record Estcourt, of Tetbury does Office Messrs Josiah Wedgwood, Correspondence of Keele University Barlaston, Stoke-on• Thomas Wedgwood Library Trent and Keele Uni• versity and

Bristol City Record Office Family records of Dr J. King Edinburgh University Library Joseph Black correspondence and papers Friends House Library Papers relating to Dr Edward Long Fox Lichfield Record Office and Shrop• Legal documents relating to the shire Record Office Beddoes family Royal Institution Library Letters and note book of H. Davy

xiii xiv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS and from holders of copyright material:

Dr. F. F. Cartwright The English Pioneers of Anaesthesia Miss M. Maby Life and Letters ofDr J. King

Bristol City Central Library Contemporary printed records British Library, Bloomsbury Extracts from the published works of Dr Thomas Beddoes and from nineteenth-century published sources THOMAS BEDDOES

1754 1758 W. Reynolds born. d. 1803 1760 Born at Shifnal, Shropshire 1766 1767 D. Giddy born. d. 1839 1772 S. T. Coleridge born. d. 1834 1774

1775 1775

1776 To Oxford, Pembroke Col- lege 1778 H. Davy born. d. 1829 1779 1781 To London: studying under Sheldon 1782/3 1784 To Edinburgh 1786 M. D. Oxford December 1787 Working in Oxford Visit to France 1788 Chemical Reader 1789 1791

1792 Decision to leave Oxford 1791/2 1792

1793 Leaves Oxford; to Bristol

xvi POLITICAL AND SCIENTIFIC EVENTS

1754 Black's work on carbon dioxide (fixed air)

1766 Cavendish's work on hydrogen (inflammable air)

177 4 Priestley's work on gases - discovers oxygen (dephlogisticated air) - isolated independently by Scheele 1772. Publication of 'Observa• tions on Different Kinds ofAir' 1774-86 1775 Lavoisier's work on nitrogen (azote) 1775-6 _ 177 5 War with America - American Revolution/American War of In• dependence

1779 The Iron bridge erected over the Severn at Coalbrookdale

1782/3 Treaty of Paris - Peace with America

1787 Publication of 'La Nouvelle Nomenclature Chimique'

1788 Trial of Warren Hastings (1788-1795) 1789 Fall of the Bastille 1791 Birmingham Riots, Destruction of Priestley's house and labora• tory 1792 French clergy required to take oath of allegiance to the state 1791/2 Paine's 'Rights of Man' published 1792 September massacres in Paris. 22nd September Declaration of the French Republic 1793 Jan.: England at War with France; Godwin's 'Political Justice' . published

xvii xviii THOMAS BEDDOES

1793/4

1794 Marriage to Anna Maria Edgeworth; Coleridge in Bristol

1796/98 1798-1801 Davy in Bristol: Pneumatic Institute active 1798/9 Coleridge in Germany 1800 Coleridge moves to Keswick 1801 Birth of Anna; Thomas Lovell b. 1803; Henry b. 1805; Mary b.1808 1801 Davy takes up his appointment at the Royal Institution, London 1802 1803 Dr Frank of Vienna visits Beddoes at Clifton, where Beddoes had established the Institution for Preventive Medicine 1805

1806 Thinks of moving to London; prevented by serious illness 1807

1808 Death in Clifton, 24th Dec. 1811 Publication of Stock's 'Memoirs' POLITICAL AND SCIENTIFIC EVENTS xix

1793/4 French armies victorious in the Netherlands; Threat of invasion by French armies; Food shortages and riots in England 1794 Trials of Hardy, Thelwall, Horne Tooke for Treason; Execution of Lavoisier 1795 The Two Acts (the 'Gagging Acts') against seditious meetings and publications passed 1796/98 French attempts to support rebellion in Ireland 1798 Irish Rebellion

1802/3 Peace of Amiens

1805 Davy isolates sodium and potassium 1805 Oct.: Battle of Trafalgar gives England naval supremacy and power to blockade France 1805 Dec.: Battle of Austerlitz. Napoleon in control of Western Europe

1807 Treaty of Tilsit between Napoleon and the Emperor Alexander of Russia consolidates Napoleon's power

1811 War with France continues for another four years Thomas Beddoes M.D. 1760-1808. (Reproduced by kind permission of the National Portrait Gallery, London.)