Thomas Addison (April 179529 June 1860) was an English physician and medical researcher. He is traditionally regarded as one of the "great men" of Guy's Hospital in London.

Thomas Addison began his career at Guy's Hospital in 1817, eventually becoming a full physician in 1837. He was a noted and respected lecturer and diagnostician. He experienced episodes of mental depression throughout his life, culminating in his suicide in 1860.

Addison's legacy includes the description of conditions such as Addison's disease (a degenerative disease of the adrenal glands), and pernicious anemia, a hematological disorder later found to be caused by failure to absorb vitamin B<sub>12</sub>.

Early years

He was born in April 1795 in Long Benton, nearby to the northeast of Newcastle upon Tyne, the son of Joseph Addison, who was a grocer and flour dealer there. His father's family was Cumbrian, and Thomas was attached to the family house at Banks near Lanercost, as his personal background. Joseph Addison had married Sarah Shaw, and gone into the Shaw family business.

Thomas Addison attended the Long Benton parish school, run by the parish clerk, Thomas Rutter. He then went to the Royal Free Grammar School in Newcastle, where the headmaster was Edward Moises, nephew of the noted Hugh Moises. There he gained a good knowledge of Latin. He became a member of the Royal Medical Society. In 1815, he received the degree of MD. His thesis was on Dissertatio medica inauguralis quaedam de syphilide et hydrargyro complectens (Concerning Syphilis and Mercury). He enrolled as a physician pupil at Guy's Hospital in London, in 1817. Guy's Medical School recorded his entrance as follows: "Dec. 13, 1817, from Edinburgh, T. Addison, M.D., paid pounds 22-1s to be a perpetual Physician's pupil." Subsequently he became a house surgeon (surgical resident) at the Lock Hospital.

Physician

Addison obtained his licentiate from the Royal College of Physicians in 1819, where in 1838 he was elected a Fellow. He was promoted to assistant physician, with the support of Benjamin Harrison, in January 1824 and in 1827 he was appointed lecturer of materia medica. He bought a house in Hatton Garden in 1819, and from that time had a private practice. What is now called Addison's disease, sometimes called bronze skin disease, is the progressive destruction of the glands, resulting in adrenocortical hormone deficiency. Addison described this condition in his 1855 publication: On the Constitutional and Local Effects of Disease of the Suprarenal Capsules. The function of the glands, known as suprarenal capsules, was at that time unknown. After Addison's work, it was concluded that they were essential to life. An Addisonian crisis (or Addison's crisis) is an acute, life-threatening crisis caused by Addison's disease.

Pernicious anemia as described in 1849 by Addison is now also known as Addison-Biermer disease. It is a type of megaloblastic anemia, in which a lack of intrinsic factor causes absorption of vitamin B<sub>12</sub> to be impaired. It is caused by a lack of parietal cells in the stomach.

In 1829, Addison published a study of the actions of poisons. He gave one of the first adequate accounts of appendicitis, in 1839.

Works

  • A Collection of the published writings of the late Thomas Addison, M.D. 1868, edited by Thomas Mee Daldy and Samuel Wilks

Family

In 1847 Addison married at Lanercost Priory Elizabeth Catherine Hauxwell, a widow, with two children from her first marriage.

References

Further reading

  • Addison's digitized works in the Iowa Digital Library
  • Epitaph and gravestone at Lanercost Priory.