Home › R › Richardson (BENJAMIN WARD an English)

Richardson (BENJAMIN WARD an English)

BENJAMIN WARD, an English physician; born in Somerby, Leicestershire, England, in 1828; was graduated in medicine at St. Andrews University in 1854. In 1855 he edited the "Journal of Health"; and he gained the Astley Cooper prize by his treatise on "The Cause of the Coagulation of the Blood," and the Fothergillian gold medal by a disquisition on the "Diseases of the Fœtus," in 1856. He originated the use of ether spray for the local abolition of pain in surgical operations, and introduced methylene bichloride as a general anæsthetic. He was a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and of the Royal Society, and president of the Medical Society of London. He published several works on medicine and hygiene, and was an earnest sanitary reformer. In 1893 he was knighted and died in 1896.