Nationality English Occupation physician | Name James Bennett Died December 24, 1891 | |
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Born 29 September 1809 ( 1809-09-29 ) | ||
Sir James Risdon Bennett (29 September 1809 – 24 December 1891) was an English physician.
Contents
Life
The eldest son of the Rev. James Bennett, a nonconformist minister, he was born at Romsey on 29 September 1809. He received his education at Rotherham College, Yorkshire, of which his father became principal; and at the age of fifteen was apprenticed to Thomas Waterhouse of Sheffield. In 1830 he went to Paris, and then to Edinburgh, where he graduated M.D. in 1833.
In the autumn of 1833 Bennett accompanied Lord Beverley to Rome, and spent two or three summers in his company and that of Lord Aberdeen. On his return to England in 1837 he became physician to the Aldersgate Street dispensary, and lectured on medicine at the Charing Cross Hospital medical school, and also at Grainger's school of medicine.
In 1843 Bennett was appointed assistant physician to St. Thomas's Hospital, and in 1849 full physician. On the foundation of the City of London Hospital for Diseases of the Chest in 1848 he was appointed physician there; and from 1843 to its dissolution in 1867 acted as secretary to the Sydenham Society. In 1850 he was President of the Medical Society of London. In 1875, he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society.
Settling in Finsbury Square on his marriage in 1841, he had success as a consultant, especially in connection with chest diseases, an early adopter of the stethoscope. In 1876 he was elected President of the Royal College of Physicians, and was knighted. He then moved to Cavendish Square, where he died on 14 December 1891.
Works
Bennett's published works included:
Family
Bennett married, in June 1841, Ellen Selfe, daughter of the Rev. Henry Page of Rose Hill, Worcester, by whom he had nine children, of whom six survived.