Thomas Garnett (physician)

Thomas Garnett (21 April 1766 – 28 June 1802) was an English physician and natural philosopher.

Garnett was born on 21 April 1766 at Casterton in Westmoreland, where his father had a small landed property. After attending Sedbergh School, he was at fifteen articled at his own request to the John Dawson (surgeon) of Sedbergh, Yorkshire, who was a surgeon and mathematician. Garnett obtained a knowledge of chemistry and physics, and he matriculated at the university of Edinburgh in 1785 with "exceptional scientific knowledge". He was particularly zealous in his attendance on the lectures of Dr. Black and of Dr. John Brown, and he became a disciple of the Brunonian theory. "He avoided," says his anonymous biographer, "almost all society, and it is said he never allowed himself at this period more than four hours sleep per day. He graduated in 1788, completed his medical education in London, and, returning for a short time to his parents and wrote his treatise on optics for the Encyclopædia Britannica. In 1790 he practiced in Bradford and in the following year in Knaresborough and Harrogate. He published the first scientific analysis of the Harrogate waters and several schemes for the benefit of the inhabitants of Knaresborough."

Lord Rosslyn built him a house at Harrogate, but his success did not answer his expectations, and he was meditating emigration to America when he succumbed to the attractions of Catharine Grace Cleveland, whom he had received as a boarder into his house. They were married in March 1795, and as he was in Liverpool endeavouring to arrange for a passage to America a casual invitation to deliver lectures on natural philosophy changed the current of his life. The success of the course, which was repeated at Manchester and other places, brought him an invitation to become professor at Anderson's Institution at Glasgow. He obtained great success at Glasgow, both as lecturer and physician, and in 1798 undertook the tour in the highlands of which his account was published in 1800. It is too diffuse, but was a valuable work in its day, and is interesting even now as an index to subsequent changes.

...
Wikipedia