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Lunar lecture
Lunar lecture 'A short, fat little democrat' and a pioneering doctor, scientist and poet: Thomas Beddoes and the legacy of the Lunar Society.
Thomas Beddoes was Erasmus Darwin’s self-appointed protégé.
In the 1790s, he set up the world’s first scientific research institute — the Pneumatic Institution -- in Bristol. Funded by Darwin and his Lunar Society friends the Wedgwoods, the Watts and James Keir, it aimed to create a revolutionary therapy that would cure one of the deadliest of diseases — TB. Using breathing apparatus designed by James Watt, Beddoes administered to consumptive patients the new gases discovered by Joseph Priestley — a project Darwin had begun but not taken very far. Oxygen and later nitrous oxide were the bright new hopes of scientific medicine — very much the legacy of the Lunar Society. Beddoes was a pioneering epidemiologist, one of the first to recognise — as flu killed thousands — that the only way to slow its spread was to collect and analyse data about infections and to give consistent advice about social distancing.
In this illustrated lecture, Professor Tim Fulford, who is editing Beddoes’s letters for Cambridge University Press, will sketch Beddoes’s life and work, focusing especially on the relationships with Darwin, Watt and Wedgwood that are revealed in his correspondence.
Thomas Beddoes was Erasmus Darwin’s self-appointed protégé.
In the 1790s, he set up the world’s first scientific research institute — the Pneumatic Institution -- in Bristol. Funded by Darwin and his Lunar Society friends the Wedgwoods, the Watts and James Keir, it aimed to create a revolutionary therapy that would cure one of the deadliest of diseases — TB. Using breathing apparatus designed by James Watt, Beddoes administered to consumptive patients the new gases discovered by Joseph Priestley — a project Darwin had begun but not taken very far. Oxygen and later nitrous oxide were the bright new hopes of scientific medicine — very much the legacy of the Lunar Society. Beddoes was a pioneering epidemiologist, one of the first to recognise — as flu killed thousands — that the only way to slow its spread was to collect and analyse data about infections and to give consistent advice about social distancing.
In this illustrated lecture, Professor Tim Fulford, who is editing Beddoes’s letters for Cambridge University Press, will sketch Beddoes’s life and work, focusing especially on the relationships with Darwin, Watt and Wedgwood that are revealed in his correspondence.
Tuesday 13 Jun 2023
Erasmus Darwin House Museum
Beacon Street
Lichfield Staffordshire WS13 7AD
7:30pm to 8:30pm.£6 via the website.
Access requirements
The museum has a lift to all floors. To avoid the steps, please access the museum via Cathedral Close and through our herb garden.
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