thumb|Ernest Abraham Hart

thumb|Ernest Abraham Hart

Ernest Abraham Hart (26 June 18357 January 1898) was an English medical journalist. He was the editor of The British Medical Journal.

Biography

Hart was born in London, the son of a Jewish dentist. He was educated at the City of London school, and became a student at St George's hospital. In 1856, he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, making a specialty of diseases of the eye. He was appointed ophthalmic surgeon at St Mary's hospital at the age of 28, and occupied various other posts, introducing into ophthalmic practice some modifications since widely adopted. His name, too, is associated with a method of treating popliteal aneurism, which he was the first to use in Great Britain.

His real life-work, however, was as a medical journalist, beginning with the Lancet in 1857. He was appointed editor of the British Medical Journal on 11 August 1866. In 1891 he travelled to Japan with his second wife, Alice Hart.

Hart was also editor of The Sanitary Record for a period, and chairman of the National Health Society.

Vaccination

In 1880, Hart authored the book The Truth About Vaccination. It refuted the arguments made by anti-vaccinators. Each anti-vaccination allegation was disproved with medical and statistical evidence. Hart demonstrated from a vast body of evidence the advantages of how a vaccinated person can resist an attack of smallpox, compared to those un-vaccinated.

Selected publications

  • An account of the condition of the infirmaries of London workhouses, 1866
  • The Truth About Vaccination: An Examination and Refutation of the Assertions of the Anti-Vaccinators (1880)
  • Hypnotism, Mesmerism and the New Witchcraft (1896)

Family

Hart married his first wife, Rosetta Levy, in 1855. He married his second wife, in 1872, Alice Marion Rowland, the sister of social reformer Henrietta Barnett. Rowland had herself studied medicine in London and Paris, and was no less interested than her husband in philanthropic reform. She was most active in her encouragement of Irish cottage industries, and was the founder of the Donegal Industrial Fund.