Primary sourceDocumentc. 1794-1796

Table from Considerations on Factitious Airs

Thomas Beddoes and James Watt · c. 1794-1796

A results table from a book Watt co-wrote with Thomas Beddoes on medical uses of gases, listing patients and outcomes.

Watt co-wrote this book, applying his technical knowledge to medical experiments with gases.

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Scanned printed table page with three sections: Pneumonia, Croup, and Catarrh; Typhus; and Ulcers Cancerous, Foul, Strumous. Columns list patient names, state in other respects, medicines besides, what air was used, circumstances, result as to the disease, and authority. Dense small print with footnotes. — T. Beddoes and J. Watt, Considerations on the Medicinal Use of Factitious Airs, Tab. 4, c. 1794-1796. Wellcome Collection.

About this source

What it is

This printed table is a plate from Considerations on the Medicinal Use of Factitious Airs, a book by Thomas Beddoes and James Watt published in Bristol around 1794-96. It lists patients treated with different gases, their conditions, the air used, and the results, held by the Wellcome Collection.

Why it matters

Watt, better known as an engineer, also worked with the physician Thomas Beddoes on early experiments using gases to treat illness. This table shows how Watt applied his technical skills to medicine, recording real patient outcomes in a period when the therapeutic use of different airs was being tested.

Look closer

What categories of information did Beddoes and Watt think were important to record?
Why might an engineer like Watt have been useful to a medical project like this?
What is missing from this table that a modern doctor might want to know?

This document is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of James Watt on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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