James Ware (opthalmologist)
| James Ware | |
|---|---|
.jpg)
portrait by Mather Brown
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| Born |
11 February 1756 Portsmouth, Hampshire, England |
| Died | 13 April 1815 (aged 59) Chiswick, London, England |
| Occupation | Physician |
| Years active | 1791 - 1815 |
| Known for |
Eye surgeon, and Fellow of Royal Society |
James Ware, M.D., F.R.S. (1756–1815) was an English eye surgeon, and Fellow of the Royal Society, who practiced in London during the Georgian era. He is considered one of the founding fathers of modern ophthalmology in Britain.
Ware was born on 11 February 1756 in Portsmouth, England to Martin Ware and Elizabeth Dale, Martin being the master shipbuilder at the royal dockyards of Sheerness, and later at Plymouth and Deptford. James received his primary education at the Portsmouth grammar school, after which he began a trial apprenticeship on 3 July 1770 to Dr. Ramsay Karr, the surgeon at the King's Yard in Portsmouth, ultimately being bound on 2 March 1771 to Karr as a full apprentice. During this period, he worked with surgeons at the Haslar Naval Hospital, assisting in treatments of the many accidents that were frequent occurrences in the shipyards. Upon conclusion of this apprenticeship, he enrolled as a student on 25 September 1773 at the St. Thomas' Hospital in London, where he remained for three years, making such remarkable progress that Dr. Joseph Else (d. 1780), the surgeon to the hospital, appointed Ware in 1776 as his Demonstrator of Anatomy in Else's medical classes.
Ware in London was fortunate enough to meet Jonathan Wathen (c.1728-1808), a prominent London surgeon who specialized in diseases of the eye. This resulted in Ware becoming on 1 January 1777 Wathen's assistant, and then a junior partner on 25 March 1778 in Wathen's practice. This partnership, which is said to have been most beneficial to both men, continued until 1791, when Ware began his own practice at New Bridge Street in London, at which time Wathen took on his grandson Jonathan Wathen Phipps (1789-1853) in Ware's place. Phipps went on to become the oculist of King George III, and later William IV, with Phipps subsequently being knighted as Jonathan Wathen Waller for that service. Wathen, Ware and Phipps were the three foremost eye doctors practicing in London during the latter part of the Georgian era, and they are credited with raising ophthalmology from a vocation of quacks and charlatans, rife with malpractice, into a legitimate branch of modern medical science.
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