Richard Morton

1. Federal State Budget Educational Establishment Of Higher education “Penza state university” Penza state university Medical

institute
Department of History
Course Paper
in History of Medicine
Richard Morton
Student: Ali Harb
Group: 19lc4a
Check: Tatyana Gavrilova

2. Richard Morton

3. Richard Morton

Richard Morton (1637–1698) was an English physician who was the first to
state that tubercles were always present in the tuberculosis disease of the
lungs.
In Morton's time, this wasting disease was termed consumption, or by its
Greek name of phthisis.
Recognition of the many possible symptoms of this infection belonging to a
single disease was not until the 1820s and it was J.L.
Schönlein in 1839 who introduced the term "tuberculosis".

4. Life

He was born in Worcestershire, England and, having trained at Oxford's
Magdalen Hall, elected to enter the Church, becoming Vicar of Kinver in
Staffordshire.
With his refusal to acquiesce to the Act of Uniformity 1662 following the
Restoration of Charles II, he was forced to resign.
His whereabouts for the following eight years are unclear, although he
probably travelled to Holland.
Reappearing in 1670, he was awarded doctorate of medicine by Oxford
University.

5. Work

His landmark paper
comprehensae.
Phthisiologica,
seu
exercitationes
de
phthisi
libris
Totumque opus variis histories illustratum was published in Latin in 1689, with an
English translation appearing in 1694.
A second English edition was published in 1720.
Its significance is partly due to the disease receiving little study by other doctors
of the time despite it being a major cause of death; accounting for over 18% all
deaths in the City of London in 1700.
Medicine of that time was deferential to the ideas of Galen and so Morton
understandably mistook tubercles for being caused by glandular degenerations;
mycobacterium tuberculosis not being identified until 1882 by Robert Koch.
The paper is also significant in that it also contains the first recognised medical
descriptions of the wasting condition now known as Anorexia Nervosa.

6. Work in Medicine Field

IN 1689, Richard Morton,1 a fellow of the College of Physicians, published his
magnum opus, Phthisiologia, seu Exercitationes de Phthisi.
In this seminal volume, translated into English five years later and subtitled A
Treatise of Consumptions,2 he outlined in painstaking detail the many disease
processes that cause wasting of body tissues.
All of the material was based on his own clinical observations, with little
reference to books.
The text, which is richly descriptive, is best known for his comments on
tuberculosis.

7. Work in Medicine Field

A specialist in the treatment of this disease, he was the first physician to
state that tubercles are always present in the pulmonary form.
Morton is best known today as the author of the first medical account of
anorexia nervosa,5 a condition that he referred to as "a Nervous Consumption"
caused by "Sadness and Anxious Cares."
The clinical description, printed in its entirety, is as

8. Richard Morton Books