Oscar Jennings

Oscar Jennings was a physician and writer active in France and Britain around the turn of the 20th century. The sources found here identify him as a doctor, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of London, and a member of the Société d'anthropologie de Paris; a French scholarly directory gives his lifespan as 1851–1914.

His medical writing covered a striking range of subjects, including hysteria, spinal disease, antipyrine poisoning, cancer treatment, exercise and health, and the treatment of morphine dependence. Records from Wellcome Collection confirm works such as On the Cure of the Morphia Habit (1890) and later books on the same subject, while French library and scholarly records also connect him to La santé par le tricycle and other health-related titles.

He is also remembered for Early Woodcut Initials (1908), a detailed collection of more than thirteen hundred ornamental letters from 15th- and 16th-century books. In that volume, published in London, he presents himself as a member of the Bibliographical Society, showing how his interests reached beyond medicine into printing history and book design.