author
Sir Raymond Henry Payne Crawfurd
1865–1938
A doctor, medical educator, and writer, he brought a historian’s curiosity to the lives and illnesses of figures from the past. His books blend clinical insight with a strong feel for character and period detail.
1 Audiobook
Plague and pestilence in literature and art
by Sir Raymond Henry Payne Crawfurd
About the author
Born in East Grinstead in 1865, Sir Raymond Henry Payne Crawfurd was a British physician who also became a respected medical historian and author. He studied classics at New College, Oxford, then trained in medicine at King’s College Hospital, a combination that helps explain the distinctive mix of scholarship and clinical observation in his writing.
Alongside his literary work, he built a substantial medical career. He was active in postgraduate medical education and held important posts at the Royal College of Physicians, where he served as registrar and examiner, and at King’s College Hospital Medical School, where he became dean. He was also known for writing about the medical histories of well-known historical figures, including studies connected with Dr Johnson and the last illness of Charles II.
Crawfurd died in 1938, but his work still appeals to readers who enjoy the meeting point of medicine, biography, and history. His books are especially interesting for the way they use a physician’s eye to revisit famous lives and deaths from earlier centuries.