Frank Nicholls
Frank Nicholls (1699 – 7 January 1778) was an English physician. He was elected a
Life
The second son of John Nicholls (d. 1714) of Trereife, Cornwall, a barrister, he was born in London. He was educated at Westminster School, and went to Exeter College, Oxford, where he entered 4 March 1714, his tutor being John Haviland. Besides the classics, he studied physics; he graduated B.A. 14 November 1718, M.A. 12 June 1721, M.B. 16 February 1724, M.D. 16 March 1729.[1]
He lectured at Oxford on anatomy, as a reader in the university, before he graduated in medicine. His lectures were well attended, and were mostly devoted to minute anatomy, then seldom taught. He demonstrated the minute structure of blood vessels, showed before the Royal Society experiments proving that the inner and middle coat of an artery could be ruptured while the outer remained entire, and thus made clear the method of formation of chronic aneurysm, which had not before been understood. He noticed that the arteries were supplied with nerves, and pointed out that these probably regulated blood pressure. He was the first to make corroded preparations, in which a particular part of an organ is left prominent after an injection, the surrounding structures being removed piecemeal.[1]
After a short period of practice as a physician in Cornwall, he settled in London. He was elected F.R.S. 1728, and a fellow of the
The college elected in 1749 a junior into the body of the elects, or council, over his head, whereupon he resigned his Lumleian lectureship. In 1753 he was appointed physician to George II. He examined the body of the king after death, and discovered a rupture of the right ventricle, which he described in a letter to
To aid in his son John's education he went to Oxford in 1762, and, when his son had graduated, to Epsom, where he lived till his death, 7 January 1778. His health was never very good, and he had attacks of fever at intervals throughout life, sometimes accompanied by the formation of abscesses. Of this disorder, probably tuberculosis, he died.[1]
Works
In 1732 he published in Oxford a compendium of his lectures, and in 1738 he had published in London an enlarged edition, ‘Compendium Anatomico-œconomicum,’ a tabular summary of anatomy, physiology, morbid anatomy, pharmacology, and midwifery, in seventy-eight quarto pages, with diagrams. Similar summaries on a smaller scale existed, by
An anonymous pamphlet, ‘The Petition of the Unborn Babes to the Censors of the Royal College of Physicians of London,’ published in 1751, is attributed to him. It is against
Family
He married Elizabeth, daughter of Dr. Richard Mead, and had five children. There survived of these one daughter; and one son John (c. 1745–1832), a barrister-at-law of Lincoln's Inn, who was MP for Bletchingley 1783–87, and for Tregony 1798–1802.[1]
References
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Nicholls, Frank". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
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