Beddoes, Thomas

In 1798, convinced that some of the gases that chemists had recently discovered might prove to be useful in the treatment of tuberculosis, Thomas Beddoes, a former lecturer in chemistry at Oxford University, founded a Pneumatic Institute in Bristol with the intention of carrying out a series of experiments. On the recommendation of a mutual acquaintance, Beddoes hired Davy as a research assistant. 

Dr. Thomas Beddoes, 1760-1808. English physician and chemist. Founder of the Pneumatic Institution at Clifton for studying the therapeutic value of gases. Sir Humphry Davy became the superintendent of this institution at the age of twenty years... 

D. A. Stansfield and R. G. Stansfield, Dr Thomas Beddoes and James Watt Preparatory Work 1794-6 for the Bristol Pneumatic Institute) Medical History, 30 (1986), pp. 276-302 D. P. Miller and T. H. Levere, Inhale it and See The Collaboration between Thomas Beddoes and James Watt in Pneumatic Medicine) Ambix, 55 (2008), pp. 5-28. 

Thus J. Watt, Thoughts on the Constituent Parts of Water andofDephlogisticated Air with an Account of some Experiments on that Subject. In a Letter from Mr James Watt, Engineer... T. Beddoes and J. Whtt, Considerations on theMedicinal Use, and on the Production of Factitious Airs. Part I by Thomas Beddoes M. D. Part II by James Watt, Engineer. Edition the Third, Corrected and Enlarged (Bristol J. Johnson and H. Murray, 1796). 

SeeJ. E. Stock, Memoirs ofThomas Beddoes, M. D. with an Analytical Account of his Writings (1811 Thoemmes Press, 2003), pp. 104-5, 133-4 Muirhead, Life of Watt,p. 429 Stansfield and Stansfield, Dr Thomas Beddoes and James Watt F. F. Cartwright, The... 

Association of Thomas Beddoes, M. D., with James Watt, E R. S. j Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 22 (1967), pp- 131-43. 

T. H. Levere, Dr Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808) Chemistry, Medicine, and Books in the French and Chemical Revolutions , in L. Principe (ed.), New Narratives in Eighteenth-Century Chemistry, (Dordrecht Springer, 2007), pp. 157-76. 

T. Beddoes, Reasons, For believing the friends of liberty in France not to be the authors or abettors of the crimes committed in that country , 9 October 1793, copy in Cornwall Record Office, DG 41/25CRO. See T. H. Levere, Dr. Thomas Beddoes at Oxford. Radical politics in 1788-1793 and the fate of the regius chair in chemistry , Ambix, 28 (1981), pp. 61-9, and idem, Dr. Thomas Beddoes (1760-1808) Science and Medicine in Politics and Society) The British Journal for the History of Science, 17 (1984), pp. 187-204. 

Several members of the Lunar Society were major contributors, the Wedgwoods more prominent than the Watts in this regard. See T. H. Levere, Dr. Thomas Beddoes and the Establishment of his Pneumatic Institution. A Tale of Three Presidents , Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, 32 (1977), pp. 41-9. The most extraordinary funding, a bond for 10,000 pounds, came from James Keir in Bond for performance of Covenant. Dr Beddoes to Jas. Keir Wm. Reynolds Esqrs., 27 August 1793, emended to 16 April 1794, National Archives (Kew), MSC 104/41. Keir was also a staunch phlo-gistonist. 

Josiah Wedgwood II to Thomas Poole, British Library Add MSS. 35, 345 ff. 148-149, dated 1799/12/19 describes Beddoes s use of a warm room and oxygenating the air. 

Levere, T. H., Dr. Thomas Beddoes and the Establishment of his Pneumatic Institution. A Tale of Three Presidents , Notes and Records of the Royal Society ofLondon, 32 (1977), pp.41-9. 

Dr. Thomas Beddoes at Oxford. Radical Politics in 1788-1793 and the Fate of the Regius Chair in Chemistry , Ambix, 28 (1981), pp. 61-9. 

Stock, J. E., Memoirs of Thomas Beddoes, M. D. with an Analytical Account of his Writings (1811 Thoemmes Press, 2003). 

In 1799, Thomas Beddoes initiated an effort to use nitrous oxide and other newly discovered gases in medicine by creating the Pneumatic Institution. This was a private laboratory funded by private philanthropy, with a major contribution by... 

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