Richard Fowler

author

Richard Fowler

1765–1863

Known for a remarkably long medical career in Salisbury, this English physician also wrote curious early works on galvanism, the mind, and the senses. He helped found Salisbury Museum when he was already in his nineties, which says a lot about his energy and range of interests.

1 Audiobook

Experiments and Observations Relative to the Influence Lately Discovered by M. Galvani and Commonly Called Animal Electricity

Experiments and Observations Relative to the Influence Lately Discovered by M. Galvani and Commonly Called Animal Electricity

by Richard Fowler

About the author

Richard Fowler was an English physician, born in London on November 28, 1765, and educated in Edinburgh. He completed his M.D. there in 1793 after further study that included time in Paris, then settled in Salisbury in 1796, where he spent the rest of his long professional life.

He became physician to the Salisbury Infirmary and served the institution for decades, while also building a strong local reputation. Fowler was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1802, and even in old age he remained active in scientific and learned circles.

Although best remembered as a doctor, he also published on subjects that show how wide his curiosity was: early experiments related to Galvani's work on electricity, and later books about thinking and perception in blind and deaf people. Local accounts also credit him with founding Salisbury Museum in 1860, only a few years before his death on April 13, 1863.