Nathan Drake (essayist and physician)

Nathan Drake (15 January 1766 – 1836), English essayist and physician, son of Nathan Drake, an artist, was born in York. He is well known for his book summarizing the knowledge of Shakespeare available at the time.

Drake was apprenticed to a doctor in York in 1780, and in 1786 proceeded to Edinburgh University, where he took his degree as M.D. in 1789. In 1790 he set up as a general practitioner at Sudbury, Suffolk, where he found an intimate friend in Dr. Mason Good (d. 1827). In 1792, Drake relocated to Hadleigh, where he died in 1836.

Drake's works include several volumes of literary essays, and some papers contributed to medical periodicals, but his most important production was:

The title sufficiently indicates the scope of this ample work, which has the merit, says G.G. Gervinus "of having brought together for the first time into a whole the tedious and scattered material of the editions and the many other valuable labours of Tyrwhitt, Heath, Ritson, etc".

An important medical work is On the Use of Digitalis in Consumption (five papers published in the Medical and Physical Journal, London, 1799-1800). His Literary Hours (1798) were exceedingly popular early in the nineteenth century (4th ed. 1820).

Drake is also credited with discovering the poet Henry Neele.

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