John Clarke (1761–1815) was an English physician and obstetrician.

Life

John Clarke, the son of a surgeon of the same name, was born at Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, in 1761. He was educated at St. Paul's School, where he was admitted 6 November 1772, aged 11, and afterwards at St. George's Hospital.Moore 1887, p. 434. After becoming a member of the Corporation of Surgeons, as the body then separated from the Barbers, but not yet raised to the degree of a college, was called, he began practice in Chancery Lane, and at the same time lectured on midwifery in the private medical school founded by William Hunter. His lectures were popular, and

William Munk William MunkFRCP (1824 September 1816 – 20 December 1898) was an English physician, now remembered for his work as a medical historian and "Munk's Roll", a biographical reference work on the Royal College of Physicians. Life The eldest son ...

was told by his brother, Sir Charles Mansfield Clarke, that this was in part due to a custom of illustrating the points of midwifery by familiar analogies. Clarke received a license in midwifery from the College of Physicians in 1787, and took a Scotch degree. He was the chief midwifery practitioner of London for several years, but later in life gave up midwifery, and, moving to the west end of the town, was consulted on the diseases of women and children. He was also lecturer on midwifery at

St. Bartholomew's Hospital St Bartholomew's Hospital, commonly known as Barts, is a teaching hospital located in the City of London. It was founded in 1123 and is currently run by Barts Health NHS Trust. History Early history Barts was founded in 1123 by Rahere (died ...

. He died in August 1815.

Works

Besides a paper on a tumour of the placenta, read before the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

, he published three books: # ''An Essay on the Epidemic Disease of Lying-in Women in 1787–8'',

4to Quarto (abbreviated Qto, 4to or 4º) is the format of a book or pamphlet produced from full sheets printed with eight pages of text, four to a side, then folded twice to produce four leaves. The leaves are then trimmed along the folds to produc ...

, London, 1788; # Practical Essays on Pregnancy and Labour, and the Diseases of Lying-in Women,

8vo Octavo, a Latin word meaning "in eighth" or "for the eighth time", (abbreviated 8vo, 8º, or In-8) is a technical term describing the format of a book, which refers to the size of leaves produced from folding a full sheet of paper on which multip ...

, London, 1793; # ''Commentaries on some of the most important Diseases of Children'', 8vo, London, 1815. The last, of which his death prevented the publication of more than one part, is the work on which his fame rests, and it entitles him to rank as a medical discoverer; for it contains the first exact description of laryngismus stridulus or

tetany Tetany or tetanic seizure is a medical sign consisting of the involuntary contraction of muscles, which may be caused by disorders that increase the action potential frequency of muscle cells or the nerves that innervate them. Muscle cramps cause ...

. This disease, which consists in a sudden onset of difficult breathing, obviously originating in the windpipe, was confused by

Boerhaave Herman Boerhaave (, 31 December 1668 – 23 September 1738Underwood, E. Ashworth. "Boerhaave After Three Hundred Years." ''The British Medical Journal'' 4, no. 5634 (1968): 820–25. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20395297.) was a Dutch Botany, b ...

with asthma, and by later writers with true

croup Croup, also known as laryngotracheobronchitis, is a type of respiratory infection that is usually caused by a virus. The infection leads to swelling inside the trachea, which interferes with normal breathing and produces the classic symptoms o ...

. Its anatomical cause was still unknown in 1887; but Clarke's exact clinical description (''Commentaries'', chap. iv.) was the first step to a precise study of the affection.

Notes

References

* Brigo, Francesco; Lattanzi, Simona; Trinka, Eugen; et al. (July 2018). doi:10.1007/s00381-018-3769-y, "'Infantile convulsions' in the early nineteenth century. Abnormal brain blood flow and leeches, teething and gums' scarification and food and purgatives: the historical contribution of John Clarke (1760–1815)". ''Child's Nervous System'', 34: pp. 1,271–1,278. SpringerLink. * Hunter, Kenneth R. (2004)
"Clarke, John (bap. 1760, d. 1815), physician and obstetrician"
In ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. Oxford University Press. * * Ruhräh, John (January 1934)
"John Clarke 1761-1815"
''

American Journal of Diseases of Children ''JAMA Pediatrics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal published by the American Medical Association. It covers all aspects of pediatrics. The journal was established in 1911 as the ''American Journal of Diseases of Children'' and rename ...

'', 47(1): pp. 184–186. {{DEFAULTSORT:Clarke, John 1761 births 1815 deaths 18th-century English medical doctors English medical writers English obstetricians