Name William Blair Role Surgeon | Died December 6, 1822 | |
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William Blair (28 January 1766 – 6 December 1822) was an English surgeon with an interest in ciphers and stenography. He was known also for contributing articles to Rees's Cyclopædia.
Contents
Biography
William Blair was born in 1766 in Lavenham, Suffolk. He was the youngest son of William Blair, M.D., and his wife Ann Gideon. He qualified as a surgical practice in London under Mr. J. Pearson of Golden Square, who introduced him to the London Lock Hospital, and when a vacancy arose he was given a position as a surgeon to that charity. Blair was an M.A. but it is not known where he graduated. He became very eminent in his profession, and was surgeon to the Asylum, the Finsbury Dispensary, the Bloomsbury Dispensary for the Relief of the Sick Poor in Great Russell Street, the Female Penitentiary at Cumming House, Pentonville, and the New Rupture Society.
He was a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, and of the medical societies of London, Paris, Brussels, and Aberdeen. For some time he was editor of the London Medical Review and Magazine. Blair was a keen Methodist, and worked in the cause of the British and Foreign Bible Society, to which he presented his valuable collection of rare and curious editions of the Bible, and many scarce commentaries in different languages. He attempted lectures on anatomy and other subjects, but with little success. On his wife's death in March 1822 he resolved to give up professional practice, and to retire into the country. He took a house in the neighbourhood of Colchester, but before the preparations for removing were completed he was seized with illness, and died at his residence in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury on 6 December 1822.
William Blair's portrait was painted by and presented to the Bloomsbury Dispensary by Henry Meyer.
Ciphers and stenography
Blair was greatly interested in ciphers and stenography, and wrote articles about the subject in Rees's Cyclopædia. David Kahn, in his work The Code breakers (1967), characterized Blair's "superb article" as "the finest treatise in English on cryptology" until Parker Hitt's military manual was published by the U.S. Army in 1916. Blair's article on ciphers from the American edition of the Cyclopedia has been digitized and can be linked from the website about the Beale ciphers.
Works
For Rees's Cyclopædia he contributed articles on Surgery as well as: