Francis Prujean

Sir Francis Prujean (also Pridgeon) M.D. (1593–1666) was an English physician.

Life The son of Francis Prujean, rector of Boothby, Lincolnshire, he was born at Bury St Edmunds, and educated by his father. He entered Caius College, Cambridge as a sizar, on 23 March 1610, and graduated M.B. in 1617, and M.D. in 1625. He became a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London on 22 December 1621, and was elected a fellow in 1626.

Prujean practised in Lincolnshire till 1638, and then settled in London. In 1639 he was elected a censor at the College of Physicians, and again from 1642 to 1647. He was registrar from 1641 to 1647, and president from 1650 to 1654, in the last of which years he was chosen, on the recommendation of William Harvey who declined the post. He was treasurer from 1655 to 1663. Prujean also had some dealings with patients who were considered mad or of "weak understanding". Rochester Carre of Lincolnshire, the younger brother of Sir Robert Carre baronet of Aswarby, who was declared a lunatic in 1637, lived with him under treatment for upwards of twenty years and he also dealt with Sir Robert himself when his mental state was questioned by Parliament in 1646.

Prujean died on 23 June 1666, and was buried at Hornchurch in Essex. Baldwin Hamey the younger composed a Latin epitaph. Prujean lived near the Old Bailey, and the place was named Prujean Square after him.