Robert Bland

For the American mathematician, see Robert G. Bland. For the British civil servant, see Robert Norman Bland.

Robert Bland (1730–1816) was an English physician and man-midwife (obstetrician). He was physician to the London Dispensary.

Biography

He was born the son of an attorney at King's Lynn. He was educated at London hospitals and was awarded at M. D. from St Andrew's University, Scotland, in 1778, and was licensed by the college of Physicians on 30 September 1786. In London he built up a considerable practice as an obstetrician and was invited to write all midwifery articles for Rees's Cyclopædia. The plates for these were suppressed.^[1]

Robert Bland died at Leicester Square, London on 29 June 1816.^[2]

Family

His second son, William Bland, was a naval surgeon, and after killing a man in a duel was transported to Australia, where he became a politician.

His daughter Sophia married John Benjamin Heath, a governor of the Bank of England.^[3]

Writings

• "Some calculation of accidents or deaths which happen in consequence of parturition, &c. taken from the midwifery reports of the Westminster Dispensary." (Phil. Trans, 1781, p 355)
• Observations on Human and Comparative Parturition, 1794
• Proverbs chiefly taken from the Adagia of Erasmus ..., 1814

References

1. Rees's Cyclopædia (1802–1819), Vol 39. Analytical list of plates.
2. Lee 1886.
3. Lehane, Robert (2011). Duelling Surgeon, Colonial Patriot: The Remarkable Life of William Bland. Australian Scholarly. p. 7. ISBN 9781921509841.

Attribution

•   This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1886). "Bland, Robert (1730-1816)". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 5. London: Smith, Elder & Co.