BEDDOES, THOMAS, a physician of remarkable talents, and a popular writer on chemistry, physics, physiology, disease, etc., was b. at Shiffnall, in Shropshire, 1760. In his studies at Oxford and Edinburgh, he distinguished himself by his knowledge of ancient and modern languages—the modern he acquired without the aid of a teacher—and by his varied attainments in botany, mineralogy, geology, chemistry, etc. In Edin burgh he attracted the notice of Dr. Cullen, who employed him to add notes to Berg man's Physical and Chemical Essays. In 1785, lie published a translation of Bergman's Essays on Elective Attractions, with valuable original notes. In 1787, lie was appointed to the chemical lectureship in the university of Oxford. here his lectures became exceedingly popular; but his unconcealed sympathies with the French revolutionary party in England, appear to have rendered his post so uncomfortable that he resigned it in 1792, and retired into the country. While in retirement, he wrote his work On tlur Nature of Demonstrative Evidence, with an Explanation, of Certain Difficulties Occurring in the Elements of Geoinetry, which was intended to show that mathematical reasoning pro ceeds entirely on the evidence afforded by the senses, and that geometry is based on experiment Several patriotic pamphlets followed, and the _History qf Isaac Jenkins, in which he laid down, in a popular style, rules of sobriety, health, etc., for the benefit of
the working classes. Of this work, 40,000 copies were sold in a short time. In 1798, after having spent considerable time in studying the use of artificial or medicated gases in the cure of diseaies, especially consumption, aided by his father-in-law, Mr. Edge worth, and pecuniarily assisted by his friend, Thomas 1Vedgwood, he opened a pneu matic hospital at Bristol. This institution did not succeed in its main object, which was to show that all diseases being, as B. maintained, referrable to an undue proportion or deficiency of some elementary principle in the human organism, could be cured by breathing a medicated atmosphere; and B., whose zeal had abated, retired from it about a year before his death, in 1808. The only results of the enterprise were several works by B. on the application of medicated air to diseases, and the introduction to the world of Davy (afterwards sir Ilumphry), who «as thLi superintendent of the institution. Sir Ilumphry Davy says of B.: " He had talents which would have exalted him to the pin nacle of philosophical eminence, if they had been applied with discretion." A life of B. was published in 1811 by Dr. Stock.