author
Herbert Tibbits
1838–1907
A Victorian doctor and medical writer, he helped introduce a wide readership to the fast-changing world of electrotherapy. His books explain how electricity was being used in medicine, surgery, massage, and the treatment of nervous disorders in late 19th-century Britain.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1838 and dying in 1907, Herbert Tibbits was a British physician best remembered for writing practical books about medical electricity. Surviving catalog and library records connect him with works such as A Handbook of Medical Electricity, Handbook of Medical and Surgical Electricity, and How to Use a Galvanic Battery in Medicine and Surgery.
His career was closely tied to hospitals and training in nervous diseases and electrotherapy. Sources linked to his publications describe him as having worked with the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, with Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, and with the West End Hospital's School of Massage and Electricity in London.
Today, Tibbits is mainly of interest as a guide to Victorian medical practice. His writing captures a moment when electricity, massage, and new therapeutic technologies were being presented as modern tools for doctors, nurses, and trained masseuses.