Thomas Addison - The early years, Guy's Hospital, Diseases Addison described, The end

Physician, born in Longbenton, Northumberland, NE England, UK. He studied medicine at Edinburgh, settled in London, and in 1837 became physician to Guy's Hospital. His chief researches were on pneumonia, tuberculosis, and especially on the disease of the adrenal glands now known as Addison's disease.

Thomas Addison (April, 1793 - June 29, 1860) was a renowned 19th-century English physician and scientist.

The early years

Thomas Addison was born in Longbenton, Northumberland, the son of Sarah and Joseph Addison, a grocer and flower-seller.

Addison's father wanted him to become a lawyer, but he entered the University of Edinburgh in 1812 as a medical student.

Addison moved from Edinburgh to London the same year and became a house surgeon (a surgical resident) at the Lock Hospital. Addison was also a pupil of Thomas Bateman at the public dispensary.

Thanks to his teachers, Addison became fascinated by diseases of the skin (dermatology. This fascination, which lasted the rest of his life, led him to be the first to describe the changes in skin pigmentation typical of what is now called Addison's disease.

Guy's Hospital

Addison's memorable career as a physician and scientist is usually dated to 1817 when he enrolled as a physician pupil at Guy's Hospital. Addison, M.D., paid pounds 22-1s to be a perpetual Physician's pupil." Addison obtained his licentiateship in the Royal College of Physicians in 1819 and some years later was elected a fellow of the Royal College.

Addison was promoted to assistant physician on January 14, 1824 and in 1827 he was appointed lecturer of materia medica. In 1835 Addison was joint lecturer with Richard Bright on practical medicine, and in 1837 he became a full physician at Guy's Hospital. When Bright retired from the lectureship in 1840 Addison became sole lecturer. Addison was a brilliant lecturer.

Thomas Addison was a superb diagnostician but rather a shy and taciturn man and had a small practice, at a time when physicians of his position usually had large practices.

Diseases Addison described

Addison is known today for describing a remarkably wide range of diseases. His name has entered into the annals of medicine and is part of the name of a number of medical disorders, including:

Addison's disease, sometime called bronze skin disease - progressive destruction of the adrenal glands with the result being deficiency of secretion of adrenocortical hormones. Addison described this condition in his 1855 publication: On the Constitutional and Local Effects of Disease of the Suprarenal Capsules. Addisonian crisis (or Addison's crisis) - an acute, life-threatening crisis caused by Addison's disease. Addisonism - a set of symptoms resembling Addison's disease but not due to Addison's disease, that is, not due to any disease of the adrenal glands. Addison-Schilder syndrome is a metabolic disorder combining the characteristics of Addison’s disease (bronze skin disease) and cerebral sclerosis Also known as Schilder's disease.

Addison gave one of the first adequate accounts of appendicitis and wrote a valuable study of the actions of poisons.

Alibert's disease I - a skin disease characterized by pinkish patches, bordered by a purplish halo Allgrove's syndrome - a congenital defect in lacrimation Rayer's disease - a disorder characterized by depigmented patches of skin, jaundice, and enlargement of the liver and spleen, and Schilder's disease (a progressive fatal disease of the central nervous system characterized by adrenal atrophy and cerebral demyelination.

The end

Thomas Addison suffered from many episodes of marked depression. The next day the Brighton Herald recorded that: "Dr Addison, formerly a physician to Guy's Hospital, committed suicide by jumping down the area (i.e. He made as if towards the front door, but suddenly threw himself over a dwarf-wall into the area - a distance of nine feet - and, falling on his head, the frontal bone was fractured, and death resulted at one o'clock yesterday morning"

One the "great men" of Guy's Hospital had passed but he was not forgotten. Thomas Addison was at Guy's forever.

A fuller account of his life, written by those who knew him, Drs.