Home > Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin ( December 12, 1731 – April 18, 1802) trained as a physician and wrote extensively on medicine and botany, as well as poetry. Living in Birmingham and Lichfield, England. He was one of the founder members of the Lunar Society. He was a member of the Darwin-Wedgwood family, most famously including his grandson, Charles Darwin.
He was born near at Elston Hall near Nottingham. he was educated at Chesterfield School then later at St. John's College, Cambridge. He obtained his degree at Edinburgh Medical School . He settled in 1756 as a physician at Nottingham, but meeting with little success he moved in the following year to Lichfield. He practised medicine in Lichfield in Staffordshire for twenty years; George IIIGeorge III (George William Frederick) ( 4 June 1738 29 January 1820) was King of Great Britain, and King of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until 1 January 1801, and thereafter King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland until his death. He was c invited him to be royal physician but he declined. In 1781Events January 5 American Revolutionary War: Richmond, Virginia is burned by British naval forces led by Benedict Arnold. January 30 Articles of Confederation ratified by 13th state, Maryland. January William Pitt the Younger, later Prime Minister, enters he moved to DerbyThis article is about the city of Derby in England. For other meanings, see Derby (disambiguation Derby (pronounced 'Darby') is a city in the East Midlands of England. It lies on the banks of the River Derwent and is surrounded by the county of Derbyshire, where he died suddenly on the 18th of April 1802.
His most important scientific work is his Zoönomia (1794–1796), which contains a system of pathologyPathology is the study of diseases. It is a form of science and a branch of medicine that involves testing samples and diagnosing physical health problems from their evidence. Pathologists are skilled in interpreting test results and physical evidence., and a treatise on generation, in which he, in the words of his famous grandson, Charles Robert Darwin, anticipated the views and erroneous grounds of opinions of Jean-Baptiste LamarckJean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck ( August 1, 1744 December 28, 1829) was a major 19th century naturalist, who was one of the first to use the term biology in its modern sense. Lamarck is usually remembered today mainly in connec. The essence of his views is contained in the following passage, which he follows up with the conclusion that one and the same kind of living filaments is and has been the cause of all organic life : Would it be too bold to imagine that, in the great length of time since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind would it be too bold to imagine that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which the great First Cause endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions and associations, and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down these improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end!
Zoönomia is widely considered to foreshadow the pre-Darwinian theories of Jean-Baptiste LamarckJean-Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monet, Chevalier de Lamarck ( August 1, 1744 December 28, 1829) was a major 19th century naturalist, who was one of the first to use the term biology in its modern sense. Lamarck is usually remembered today mainly in connec, and maybe even the theory of evolution formulated by his grandson Charles Darwin. Another of his grandsons was Francis Galton.
His experiments in galvanism inspired Mary Shelley to write Frankenstein. His poetry was admired by Coleridge and Wordsworth; and often made reference to his interests in science, for example botany and steam engines. His most famous work of poetry was The Botanic Garden.
He is remembered by the Moonstones in Birmingham.
