author
Benjamin Moseley
1742–1819
Trained in Europe and tested by years of practice in Jamaica, this 18th-century physician wrote influential books on tropical diseases and the health effects of sugar. He is also remembered for his forceful, controversial attacks on smallpox vaccination.
1 Audiobook
A treatise concerning the properties and effects of coffee
by Benjamin Moseley
About the author
Born in Essex in 1742, Benjamin Moseley studied medicine in London and Paris before beginning practice in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1768. His years in the Caribbean shaped much of his writing, and he became known for medical works on tropical disease, including books on dysentery and on sugar.
After returning to Britain, he built a successful London practice and continued to publish. His writing often drew on colonial medicine and plantation economies, which helped make his work widely discussed in its time.
Moseley is now remembered not only as a physician and medical author, but also as an early and energetic opponent of smallpox vaccination. He died on September 25, 1819.