JOHN FOTHERGILL MISIDENTIFIED

Abstract

I read with interest the article by MJ Eadie on men of science and the migraine aura (Hubert Airy, contemporary men of science and the migraine aura. J R Coll Physicians Edinb 2009; 39:263-7). Unfortunately there is a serious misidentification of the Dr John Fothergill whose paper on the subject is referred to in reference l0. There was no such individual as Dr John Fothergill of Manchester in l784. The individual who wrote about the migraine aura was Dr John Fothergill, the famous Quaker physician of London. An Edinburgh graduate of l736, he was the first graduate of the Edinburgh Medical School to be licensed by the Royal College of Physicians of London, wrote a classic book on the malignant sore throat and was the first to recognise the relationship between angina pectoris and disease of the coronary arteries. He was a close friend and physician to Benjamin Franklin. His paper on the sick headache was read to a Society of Physicians in London, of which he was then President, on l4 December l778. After Fothergill’s death in l780, his pupil John Coakley Lettsom wished to publish this paper among his works but was refused permission by his executors. He therefore had to wait until it was published in the sixth volume of the Medical Inquiries and Observations in l784, four years after Fothergill’s death. Fothergill was one of the most distinguished graduates of the early Edinburgh Medical School. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the American Philosophical Society as well as being a strong supporter of the American colonists in their struggle for independence.