# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Moseley, Benjamin

​MOSELEY, BENJAMIN, M.D. (1742–1819), physician, was born in Essex in 1742. He studied medicine in London, Paris, and Leyden, and settled in practice in Jamaica in 1768, where he was appointed to the office of surgeon-general. He performed many operations, and records that a large number of his patients died of tetanus. He visited other parts of the West Indies and Newfoundland, and, when he grew rich from fees, returned to England and obtained the degree of M.D. at St. Andrews 12 May 1784. Beginning in the autumn of 1785, he made a series of tours on the continent, commencing with Normandy, and in 1786 visiting Strasburg, Dijon, Montpellier, and Aix. He visited the hospitals in each city, and at Lausanne talked with the celebrated Tissot ; he crossed to Venice by the Mont Cenis pass, 23 Oct. 1787, and went on to Rome. He was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London 2 April 1787, and in the following year was appointed physician to the Royal Hospital at Chelsea, an office which he held till his death at Southend on 25 Sept. 1819. He was buried at Chelsea.
His first publication was 'Observations on the Dysentery of the West Indies, with a new and successful Method of treating it,' printed in Jamaica, and reprinted in London (1781). The method consisted in giving James's powder or some other diaphoretic, and wrapping the patient in blankets till he sweated profusely. In 1775 he published 'A Treatise concerning the Properties and Effects of Coffee,' a work of which the only interesting contents are some particulars as to the use of coffee in the West Indies, and the incidental evidence that even as late as 1785, when the third edition appeared, coffee was little drunk in England. A fifth edition appeared in 1792. His most important work appeared in 1787, 'A Treatise on Tropical Diseases and on the Climate of the West Indies.' In 1790 it was translated into German, and a fourth edition appeared in 1803. It contains some valuable medical observations, curious accounts of the superstitions of the negroes ​ about Obi and Obea, thrilling tales of sharks, and an interesting history of the disastrous expeditions of General Dalling in January 1780 and of General Garth in August 1780 against the Spaniards. In 1799 he published 'A Treatise on Sugar,' which contains no scientific information of value, but the exciting story of the death of Three-fingered Jack, a famous negro outlaw slain by three Maroons, who described their encounter in 1781 to Dr. Moseley. In 1800 he published a volume of medical tracts on sugar, cow-pox, the yaws, African witchcraft, the plague, yellow fever, hospitals, goitre, and prisons. A second edition appeared in 1804. In 1808 he published in quarto 'On Hydrophobia, its Prevention and Cure.' He claims to be the first to have observed that the scratches of a mad cat will produce hydrophobia. His method of treatment, which he declares was always successful, was to extirpate the wounded part and to administer a full course of mercury. He also published many controversial letters and pamphlets on cow-pox, in which he declares himself an opponent of vaccination. In the West Indies, Where he was engaged in active practice and in observation of a series of phenomena with which he became familiar, he made some small additions to knowledge: but in England, where he was in an unfamiliar field, his observations were of less value, and his professional repute seems to have gradually diminished. The unscientific character of his mind is illustrated by the fact that he believes the phases of the moon to be a cause of haemorrhage from the lungs, because a captain in the third regiment of guards coughed up blood six times at full moon and twice just after the new moon (Tropical Diseases, p. 548). He often wrote letters in the 'Morning Herald' and other newspapers.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 368; Gent. Mag. lx. 9-11; Morning Herald, 14 Nov., 15 Dec. 1807, 25 Jan. 1808; Works.]
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