1712-1780

English Physician, Botanist and Reformer

Fothergill added to the medical knowledge of diphtheria, scarlatina, trigeminal neuralgia, migraine, and other disorders. He created an important botanical garden in England and, through his philanthropy, helped found several educational and clinical institutions.

He was born into a yeoman Quaker family in Wensleydale, Yorkshire, England. His mother, Margaret, died when he was seven. His father, also named John, was a deeply religious man and spent much of his time on the circuit of Friends' meetings, even going to America three times.

Young John's education became the responsibility of his maternal uncle, Thomas Hough. After attending day school in Frodsham, Cheshire, and grammar school in Sedbergh, Yorkshire, he was apprenticed in 1728 to a Quaker apothecary, Benjamin Bartlett, in Bradford, Yorkshire. He served six years of his seven-year apprenticeship, then, with Bartlett's approval, decided to try the formal study of apothecary...