# American Medical Biographies/Blatchford, Thomas Windeatt

​Blatchford, Thomas Windeatt (1794–1866)
Thomas W. Blatchford was born in Topsham, Devonshire, England, on the twentieth of July, 1794. His father, the Rev. Samuel Blatchford, removed to this country in the year 1795, when Thomas was an infant, and first settled in Bedford, New York.
Blatchford's early studies were prosecuted under the direction of his father, in Lansingburgh Academy, of which his father was the principal. In October, 1810, he began to study medicine in the office of Dr. John Taylor, of Lansingburgh, and in November, 1813, matriculated at the College of Physicians and Surgeons. In August, 1814, he was appointed resident physician, for one year, of the New York State Prison, in Greenwich Street, then a suburb of New York. At the end of the year he received an offer to travel in Europe as physician to a gentleman, a purser in the United States Navy, who during the War of 1812 had become suddenly wealthy and thereby lost the balance of his mind. But the patient attempted to kill Blatchford, so upon landing at Liverpool the engagement was concluded, and he went to London, where he attended two courses of lectures at the united schools of Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospitals, given by Sir Astley Cooper and Prof. Cline. In the spring of 1816 he returned to New York, and after attending another full course of lectures at the college at which he had previously matriculated, he graduated in 1817. His graduating thesis was upon "Feigned Diseases," being the result of his observations and experience during his residence as physician at the New York State prison. Immediately after receiving his degree he practised at No. 85 Fulton Street, New York, for one year. At this time he was induced to remove to Jamaica, Long Island, and in February, 1819, married Harriet, the daughter of Thomas Wickes, a descendant of one of the original patentees of the town of Huntington in 1666.
After nine years, in consequence of arduous duty, he was attacked with fever which brought him very low, and in 1828 he began practice in Troy.
Dr. Blatchford was favorably known by his published papers and essays, which are as follows: "Inaugural Dissertation on Feigned Diseases," 1817; "Letter on Corsets," 1823; a work entitled "Letters to Married Ladies," about 1825; "Homeopathy Illustrated," 1842; "Report on Hydrophobia," 1856, read before the American Medical Association and published in their transactions; "Report on Rest and the Abolition of Pain, as Curative Remedies," 1856, besides many papers to the medical and surgical journals.
He kept a meteorological journal from the year 1824 and the testimony of his record on these subjects was regarded as conclusive in the community.
Once someone in the West had forwarded in the winter a quantity of apples in barrels. Upon their arrival in New York they were found to have been frozen. The owner sued the forwarding company for damages alleging that the apples had been left out, and exposed to injury by freezing, on a certain night. The ​doctor's register, produced in court, proved that it did not freeze on that night, and the amount was saved to the company.
Dr. Blatchford was connected with the Marshall Infirmary of Troy from its foundation. The Lunatic Asylum connected with the infirmary was projected by him, and will remain as a monument of his tender regard for the unhappy ones who shall be its occupants in the long future. He left his valuable medical library of over six hundred volumes to the institution.
His reputation as a man of science was recognized in the degree of A. M. by Union College in 1815; in his election as fellow of the Albany Medical College in 1834; president of the Rensselaer County Medical Society 1842–3; president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, 1845; corresponding fellow of New York Academy of Medicine, 1847; vice-president of the American Medical Association, 1856; fellow of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York, 1861; honorary member of the Medical Society of New Jersey, 1861, and of the Medical Society of Connecticut, 1862.
The doctor's labors in relieving the wants of those who suffered by the great fires of 1862 were so severe that his health was thereby seriously impaired. His last illness developed itself into an attack of "typhoid pneumonia" which continued for fifteen days, when, having finished his work, he fell asleep on the seventh of January, 1866.