Richard Poole (1783–1871) was a Scottish physician,[1] psychiatrist, and phrenologist.[2]
Lifeedit
Poole was born in Edinburgh, on 27 November 1781, from an English background.[3] His father Matthew Poole (or Pool) owned a coffee house and hotel at 1 Princes Street and lived above.[4]
In the late 1830s he was a pioneer advocate of mental health reform,[14] and in 1838 he became superintendent of the Montrose Asylum, succeeding W. A. F. Browne. He remained at Montrose until 1845. He then kept a private asylum at Middlefield, Aberdeenshire.[3]
Poole died in Coupar Angus on 18 February 1870 aged 88 at the house of his daughter, Mrs Kirkwood.[3] He is buried with his wife in the churchyard of St. Machar's Cathedral in Aberdeen.
Worksedit
An Essay on Education (1825).[15] In this work, from the Encyclopædia Edinensis, Poole acknowledges help in early life from Archibald Alison. He advocated education in cases of mental retardation.[16]
A Letter to Andrew Duncan, Senior, M.D. ... Regarding the Establishment of a New Infirmary (1825).[17] Pamphlet addressed to Andrew Duncan, the elder on the infirmary question; Duncan replied to the agitation for a new infirmary in a letter to William Fettes.[18]
Report on Examination of Medical Practitioners (1833)
Memoranda regarding the Royal Lunatic Asylum, Infirmary, and Dispensary, of Montrose (1841)[19]
He is credited with dramas, including "Willie Armstrong" performed in Edinburgh in 1829.[20][21]
An epitaph gives Jane Caird as Poole's wife; it also records his dates as 1781 to 1870.[23] Their children included Samuel Wordsworth Poole, a physician and episcopal clergyman.[24]
^ abRoger Cooter (1984). The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organization of Consent in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge University Press. p. 314 note 66. ISBN 978-0-521-22743-8.
^Roger Cooter (1984). The Cultural Meaning of Popular Science: Phrenology and the Organization of Consent in Nineteenth-Century Britain. Cambridge University Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-521-22743-8.
^ abcdeUM-MEDSEARCH Gateway (1870). The Lancet. J. Onwhyn. pp. 467–8.
^Hewett Cottrell Watson (1836). Statistics of phrenology: being a sketch of the progress and present state of that science in the British Islands. Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman. Paternoster- Row. p. 194.
^James J. Sack (1993). From Jacobite to Conservative: Reaction and Orthodoxy in Britain, C. 1760–1832. Cambridge University Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-521-43266-5.
^R. J. Cooter (1976). "Phrenology and British alienists, c. 1825–1845. Part I: Converts to a doctrine". Medical History. 20 (1): 1–21 (5–6). doi:10.1017/s0025727300021761. PMC1081688. PMID 765647.
^James Millar (1827) Encyclopedia Edinensis; or, Dictionary of arts, sciences, and literature vol. 1, p. vi.
^Charles W. J. Withers (2001). Geography, Science and National Identity: Scotland Since 1520. Cambridge University Press. p. 170. ISBN 978-0-521-64202-6.
^Minute Books of the Aesculapian Club. Library of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
^Watson Wemyss, Herbert Lindesay (1933). A Record of the Edinburgh Harveian Society. T&A Constable, Edinburgh.
^M. Barfoot (2009). "The 1815 Act to Regulate Madhouses in Scotland: A reinterpretation". Medical History. 53 (1): 57–76. doi:10.1017/s0025727300003318. PMC2629162. PMID 19190749.
^Richard Poole (1825). An essay on education, applicable to children in general;. Waugh and Innes.