Henry Levett

Who was Henry Levett?

Dr. Henry Levett was an early English physician who wrote a pioneering tract on the treatment of smallpox and served as chief physician at London Charterhouse.

Levett was a graduate of Charterhouse who then attended Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1686 at age 17. Levett graduated with an MD from Oxford in 1699. He settled in London, where he was elected physician to St. Bartholomew's Hospital in 1707 and became physician to the nearby Charterhouse in 1713, becoming an early pioneer of the connection between the two institutions. Levett was also a ground-breaking doctor. In 1710 he wrote a paper at the request of Dr. John Freind urging the user of 'cathartics' in treating smallpox. Levett had made a study of two cases, and refers to those in his treatise, written in Latin, which Dr. Freind reprinted in its entirety in his collected works of 1733.

Henry Levett is also believed have authored the short memoir of Dr. William Wagstaffe, a well-known physician of the age. Levett's work on Wagstaffe, entitled 'Character,' which was prefixed to the Wagstaffe's 'Miscellaneous Works' published in 1725. In it, the author of the sketch on Wagstaffe is referred to as "an eminent Physician, no less valued for his skill in his profession, which he showed in several useful treatises, than admired for his Wit and Facetiousness in Conversation."