- George Bodington
George Bodington (1799 - 1882) was a British
general practitioner andpulmonary specialist.Born in
Buckinghamshire and educated atMagdalen College, Oxford , he served a surgical apprenticeship then studied atSt Bartholomew's Hospital . In 1825 he was licenced by theSociety of Apothecaries , and became aphysician and GP inErdington (then inWarwickshire , now West Midlands).His great professional interest was pulmonary
disease and in 1836 he acquired the asylum and sanitorium at Driffold House,Maney ,Sutton Coldfield .In 1840 he published his essay, "On the Treatment and Cure of Pulmonary Consumption", condemning contemporary treatments and advocating instead dry frosty air, gentle exercise, and a healthy diet. This was attacked by reviewers and he became disenheartened with his work.
He later turned to the treatment of insanity. In 1851 the local census recorded eleven "lunatics" and six staff, including the doctor and his family, at Driffold House.
At some point the asylum was moved to the White House, Maney, which was demolished in 1935 to provide a site for an Odeon cinema (now part of the
Empire Cinemas group). In 1881 the Doctor was living at Manor Hill where his two daughters ran a girls boarding school. The census of that year shows nine pupils of which five were nieces.He was also a local politician and served on the Sutton Corporation for forty years (having as usual being appointed for life).
He was the paternal grandfather of barrister
Oliver Bodington and the great-grandfather ofNicholas Bodington .ee also
Jane Davage, "The life and times of George Bodington", 1981
References
* [http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1251640#fn7 Margaret Campbell, "What Tuberculosis did for Modernism: the influence of a curative environment on modernist design and architecture", Medical History, October 1 2005, Vol 49(4), pp.463–488, footnote 7]
* [http://thorax.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/abstract/35/7/483 RY Keers, "Two forgotten pioneers. James Carson and George Bodington", Thorax: an international journal of respiratory medicine, 1980, Vol 35(7), pp.483-489]
* [http://www.institutions.org.uk/asylums/england/WAR/warwickshire_asylums.htm Warwickshire Asylums from the Rossbret Institutions website]
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