The bicentenary of John Sims, M.D., F.R.S / [Laurence Dopson].

  • Dopson, Laurence.
Date:
[1950]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The bicentenary of John Sims, M.D., F.R.S / [Laurence Dopson]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    (as many candidates did, from motives perhaps not always dissociated from hopes for the results), but to John Fothergill, the famous Quaker physician. Among the points which Sims made in his thesis were that a moderate drink of water, by extending the muscles of the stomach, improved their tone, and that cold water, owing to its quality of being a fluid, cleansed the digestive passages and dissolved and carried away waste materials. He discussed its use in various forms of illness. LIFE IN LONDON In 1779 Sims came to London and bought the practise of Thomas Cogan (1736-1818), of Paternoster Row. The fact that he acquired this particular practise indicates that he had already decided upon his specialty, for Cogan, a founder of the Royal Humane Society who had been a clergyman but took up medicine at the instigation of his prospective father-in-law, was primarily an accoucheur. Sims was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London on June 25, 1779, but although he became a leading obstetrical physician, he was not among the ten who were granted the licentiateship in midwifery by the College. Sims was appointed physician to the Surrey Dispensary and to the Charity for Delivering Poor Married Women in their own Houses. The former was established in 1777 and was then at Southwark. Physicians holding consultations had the right of having their pupils in attendance; instruction was also given there to midwives. The Dispensary’s activities were not confined to midwifery, and an early medical communication by Sims, published in 1784, is an account of a 40-year-old serjeant of the Middlesex Militia who died at the Dispensary from cancer of the stomach. The Surrey Dispensary was the earliest appointment which Sims held in London. It was some years later that he succeeded Cogan as one of the three physicians to the Charity for Delivering Poor Married Women in their own Houses. This organization had as its treasurer and dispenser Mr. Peter Sharp, chemist and druggist, of Bishopsgate Without; founded in 1760, it should not be confused with the similar Benevolent Institution for De¬ livering Poor Married Women in their own Habitations, started in 1779. A Fellow, one-time President, and for many years member of council, of the Medical Society of London, Sims was a member of the Society’s Midwifery Committee. Another facet of Sims’ professional activities is shown by his being made the first consulting physician to the Royal Ear Dispensary, which was founded by Dr. John Harrison Curtis (1778-1856) at Carlisle Street in 1816, and was later moved to 10 Dean Street, Soho; it was under the patronage of the Prince Regent, and in 1904 was rebuilt as the Royal Ear Flospital at 42-3 Dean Street. SOME PRIVATE PATIENTS Dr. Sims had a number of distinguished private patients; one of them was
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