Martin Wall

Who was Martin Wall?

Martin Wall FRS FRCP, was an English physician and educator.

Wall was the son of John Wall and was baptised at Worcester on 24 June 1747. He was educated at Winchester College, and entered at New College, Oxford, on 21 November 1763. He graduated B.A. on 17 June 1770, M.A. on 2 July 1771, M.D. on 9 June 1773, and was a fellow of his college from 1763 to 1778. He studied medicine at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and in Edinburgh. He began practice at Oxford in 1774, and on 2 November 1775 was elected physician to the Radcliffe Infirmary. He was appointed reader in chemistry in 1781, and delivered an inaugural dissertation on the study of chemistry on 7 May 1781, which he printed in 1783, with an essay on the 'Antiquity and Use of Symbols in Astronomy and Chemistry' and 'Observations on the Diseases prevalent in the South Sea Islands'. He drank tea with Dr. Samuel Johnson at Oxford in June 1784, and his essay was obviously the origin of the conversation on the advantage of physicians travelling among barbarous nations.

In 1785 he was elected Lichfield professor of clinical medicine at Oxford, an office which he retained till his death.