William Charles Wells
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William Charles Wells MD FRS (1757 – 1817), a physician and printer, was the second son of Robert and Mary Wells. [1] Wells' parents were both Scots who had settled in South Carolina in 1753.
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[edit] Life
Wells was born in Charleston, and sent to school in Dumfries, Scotland at the age of eleven. After he completed his preparatory school studies he attended the University of Edinburgh.
Wells returned to Charleston in 1771 and became a medical apprentice under Dr Alexander Garden, a naturalist and physician, who himself was a pupil of Charles Alston, Director of the Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh. Between 1775 and 1778, Wells studied medicine and passed the preliminary exams at Edinburgh, but did not yet take his degree. In 1779 he went to Holland as a surgeon in a Scottish regiment, after which he prepared his dissertation at University of Leiden. This was the Inaugural Thesis, published at Edinburgh in 1780 when he took the degree of Doctor of Medicine; the subject of his thesis was Cold.
When the British withdrew from Charleston in December 1782, he traveled to St. Augustine, Florida. There he published the East Florida Gazette, the first weekly newspaper printed in Florida. Other publications during the British period of Florida included the Address of the principal inhabitants of East Florida. He returned to England in 1784 to practice medicine.
In 1790 he was appointed one of the Physicians to the Finsbury Dispensary, and remained so until 1798. In 1793 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1798 he was elected Assistant Physician to St Thomas's Hospital; and in 1800 became one of the Physicians. From about 1800, his health was uncertain, and he led a more limited life which was nevertheless fairly productive in medical research.
Wells was elected to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1814, and in 1816 the Royal Society of London awarded him the Rumford Medal for his Essay on Dew, published in 1814. He died in 1817 after suffering symptoms of heart malfunction.
[edit] Wells' idea
Wells was the elder of three British medical men who formulated evolutionary ideas in the period 1813-1819. He was, arguably, the most successful in this endeavour; the others were James Cowles Prichard and William Lawrence.
In 1813 a paper by Wells was read before the Royal Society; it was published in 1818. This was Two Essays... with some observations on the causes of the differences of colour and form between the white and negro races of men. By the Late W.C. Wells…with a Memoir of his life, written by himself.
Wells was clearly interested in how different races might have arisen.[2][3][4] After some preliminary remarks on the different races of man, and of the selection of domesticated animals, he observes that:
- "[What was done for animals artificially] seems to be done with equal efficiency, though more slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit. Of the accidental varieties of man, which would occur among the first scattered inhabitants, some one would be better fitted than the others to bear the diseases of the country. This race would multiply while the others would decrease, and as the darkest would be the best fitted for the [African] climate, at length [they would] become the most prevalent, if not the only race."
Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace were not aware of this work when they published their theory in 1858, but later Darwin acknowledged:
- "In this paper he [Wells] distinctly recognizes the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been indicated..." (Charles Darwin, Origin of Species 4th ed, 1867)
Credit for the first appreciation of natural selection should therefore go to Wells rather than to Edward Blyth or Patrick Matthew. The triumph is limited to the extent of being applied only to skin colour, and not, as Darwin and Wallace did, to the whole range of life.
[edit] References
- ^ Green J.H.S. 1957. William Charles Wells FRS (1757–1817). Nature 179, 997-99.
- ^ Wade N.J. 2003. Destined for distinguished oblivion: the scientific vision of William Charles Wells (1752–1817). Springer.
- ^ Wells, Kentwood D. 1973. William Charles Wells and the races of man. Isis 64, 215.
- ^ Zirkle, Conrad 1941. Natural selection before the Origin of Species. Proc Am Phil Soc 84, 71-123.
