Richard Powell (physician)

Sir Charles Bell, in the course of his researches on the nervous system, afterwards redescribed and explained this affection; but the credit of its first clinical description belongs to Powell, who also initiated a method of treatment by warm applications which became commonly used, and is often efficacious. In the following year (2 Dec.) he read ‘Some Cases illustrative of the Pathology of the Brain,’ a description of thirteen cases of interest. In the course of the paper he describes several diseases which have since become well known, but had then scarcely been noticed—such as hæmatoma of the dura mater, meningitis following necrosis of the walls of the inner ear, and new growth of the pituitary gland. On 7 May 1818 he read a paper ‘On certain Painful Affections of the Alimentary Canal’ (Med. Trans. vi. 106), which describes a variety of acute but recurring enteric inflammation associated with the formation of flakes of false membrane. He also published an account of a case of hydrophobia. He gave some attention to the study of the history of St. Bartholomew's Hospital; and on 27 November 1817 a letter from him to Dr. William George Maton was read, describing the most ancient charter preserved in the hospital and its seal. He printed for the first time the whole text of this charter (Archæologia, vol. xix.), which is a grant from Rahere in 1137. Powell lived in Bedford Place, London, for some years, and, after he retired from practice, in York Terrace