William Black (physician) facts for kids
William Black (1749–1829) was an Irish doctor and writer. He became a doctor in 1772 after studying at Leyden University. Later, in 1787, he joined the Royal College of Physicians. Dr. Black worked in London and was one of the first doctors in English-speaking countries to publish information about diseases and how many people died from them. He used a new way of looking at numbers, called statistics, to understand health better.
Early Life and Education
William Black was born in Ireland in 1749. He studied medicine at a famous university called Leyden, which is in the Netherlands. On March 20, 1772, he earned his degree as a Doctor of Medicine (MD). His final project for his degree was about how to diagnose, predict, and understand the causes of death in fevers.
After his studies, on April 2, 1787, he became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. This meant he was officially allowed to practice medicine. He then moved to London, England, and set up his medical practice in an area called Piccadilly. He later retired from his work before he passed away. William Black died in December 1829 in Hammersmith, when he was 80 years old.
Contributions to Medicine
William Black might not have been the most famous doctor of his time, but his books were very important. He showed how using numbers and data, known as statistics, could help improve medicine. Before him, statistics were mostly used for things like politics or business. Black was one of the first to realize that these numbers could also help us understand diseases and health better.
He gave a special talk to the Medical Society of London. He then turned this talk into a book called A Comparative View of the Mortality of the Human Species. This book, published in 1788, included charts and tables about how many people died at different ages and from various illnesses. He quickly released a second, updated version in 1789.
In his books, William Black wanted to show that births, deaths, and diseases could be understood using math. He called this idea "medical arithmetic." This was similar to "Political Arithmetic," a way of using numbers to understand society. Even though other scientists like Louis and Quetelet later made even bigger discoveries in this field, Black's work was very important for its time. He also wrote a book about mental illness, which used information from Bethlehem Hospital. His short book about the history of medicine was even translated into French.
Published Works
Here are some of the books William Black wrote:
- Observations, Medical and Political, on the Smallpox, the Advantages and Disadvantages of General Inoculation, and on the Mortality of Mankind at every age (1781)
- A Comparative View of the Mortality of the Human Species at all Ages, and of Diseases and Casualties, with Charts and Tables (1788)
- An Arithmetical and Medical Analysis of the Diseases and Mortality of the Human Species (1789)
- A Historical Sketch of Medicine and Surgery from their Origin to the Present Time, with a Chronological Chart of Medical and Surgical Authors (1782)
- Reasons for preventing the French, under the mask of liberty, from trampling on Europe (1792)
- Observations on Military and Political Affairs by General Monk, new edition (1796)
- A Dissertation on Insanity, illustrated with tables from between two and three thousand cases in Bedlam (1810)
