Richard Blackburne
Richard Blackburne M.D. F.R.C.P. (b. 1652) was an English physician and writer. Blackburne was born in London in 1652, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his degree of B.A. in 1669. ‘ He was entered on the physic line at Leyden University, 23 May 1676, being then twenty-four years of age, and he graduated doctor of medicine in that university, where his thesis was published as ‘Disputatio medica inauguralis de Sanguificatione,' &c., 8vo, Lugduni Batavorum, 1676. About the year 1681 Dr. Blackburne co-operated with John Aubrey, who says that he was ‘one of the College of Physicians, and practiseth yearly at Tunbridge Wells,’ to bring into public repute for their curative properties the chalybeate springs discovered by Aubrey in 1666 at Seend near Devizes, and which Dr. Blackburne declared ‘to be of the nature and virtue of those at Tunbridge, and altogether as good;’ but ‘it was about 1688 before they became to be frequented’ Blackburne was admitted an honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 25 June 1685, and, being created a fellow of the college by the charter of King James II, was admitted as such at the extraordinary comitia of