Merriman, Samuel, 1771-1852, physician

Person

Merriman, Samuel, 1771-1852, physician

1771-1852

Samuel Merriman, was born on 25 Oct 1771 at Marlborough, Wiltshire, the son of Benjamin Merriman (1722-1781) and his second wife Mary (nee Hawkes). He was educated at the Marlborough free school. In 1784 he arrived in London to study medicine under his uncle, Dr Samuel Merriman (1731-1818). He also attended the lectures at the Anatomical Theatre in Great Windmill Street, and the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, as well as aquiring clinical knowledge of disease by seeing the numerous patients of his cousin William (1766-1800), son of the elder Samuel Merriman (1731-1818). In 1807, having become a member of the Society of Apothecaries, he entered into partnership with Mr Peregrine, to whom he soon resigned the general practice, limiting himself to midwifery alone. In 1808 he was appointed physician-accoucheur to the Westminster General Dispensary, having previously received the honorary degree of MD from Marischal College, Aberdeen. He resigned the office in 1815, and was appointed consulting physician-accoucheur and subsequently vice-president of the charity. In 1809 he was elected to the same office at the Middlesex Hospital, where in 1810 he commenced his annual course of lectures on midwifery, and continued them regularly till 1825. In 1822, when his consultation practice as a physician for the diseases of women and children had largely increased, he removed to Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, and he subsequently purchased an estate at Rodborne Cheney, Wiltshire. Merriman resigned his post at the Middlesex Hospital on 7 March 1826, but continued to take a warm interest in the institution, and was one of the treasurers from 1840 until 1845. He was elected treasurer of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society in 1837. Merriman died in Brook Street on 22 Nov 1852. He married in 1799 his cousin Ann (1778-1831), daughter of his uncle, Samuel Merriman(1731-1818). Publications: 'Observations on some late Attempts to Depreciate the Value and Efficacy of Vaccine Inoculation.' 1805; Dissertation on the Retroversion of the Womb , London, 1810; Synopsis of the Various Kinds of Difficult Parturition , London, 1814; The validity of 'Thoughts on Medical Reform' , 1833; an edition of Dr M Underwood's Treatise on the Diseases of Children , London, 1827; essays and other papers of his were published in the London Medical Repository , London Medical and Physical Journal , and Medico-Chirurgical Transactions ; and articles contributed to Gentleman's Magazine , and Notes and Queries , London Journal of Medicine . Hugh Ley was born in 1790 at Abingdon, Berkshire, the son of Hugh Ley (1762-1826) a former medical practitioner. He was educated at Dr. Lempriere's school, Abingdon; the united medical schools of St. Thomas's and Guy's Hospitals in Southwark, and took the diploma of the College of Surgeons. He then studied at Edinburgh, where he graduated MD in 1813. On 30 Sep 1818 he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London, and began practice in London as a man midwife. He was elected physician to the Westminster Lying-in Hospital, and soon afterwards became lecturer on midwifery at the Middlesex Hospital. On 20 April 1835 he accepted the unanimous invitation of the staff of St Bartholomew's Hospital to deliver the lectures on midwifery in their school. He lived in Half-Moon Street, London, but died, from heart disease, at Stilton, Huntingdonshire, 24 Jan 1837. Publications: Graduation thesis : The pathology of phthisis , Edinburgh, 1813; An Essay on Laryngismus Stridulus, or Crouplike Inspiration of Infants , 1836.

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Further information is available at the National Archives (F73471)