George Pinckard

George Pinckard M.D. (1768–1835) was an English physician, known as an author, an abolitionist, and in the field of insurance.

Life The son of Henry Pinckard of Handley Hall, Northamptonshire, he was tutored by a clerical relative, studied medicine first at the then united hospitals of St. Thomas's and Guy's, then at Edinburgh, and finally at Leyden, where he graduated M.D. on 20 June 1792. He resided afterwards for a short time with his brother and sister at Copet, near Geneva, and witnessed the capture of the city by the French forces under General Montesquieu.

On 30 September 1794 Pinckard was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London. In October 1795 he was appointed a physician to the forces, and accompanied Sir Ralph Abercromby's expedition to the West Indies. He was on the Santo Domingo staff, and had numerous delays before starting, during which he made the acquaintance of James Lind, then in charge of Haslar Hospital. He reached Barbados in February 1796. He was chairman and a director from its foundation in 1824 to his death in 1835. In 1808 he published Dr. Pinckard's Case of Hydrophobia, from Chipping Barnet in Hertfordshire. He subsequently published in the London Medical Journal two other cases of hydrophobia, and reprinted all three, with another, in a pamphlet entitled Cases of Hydrophobia (1819), dedicated to John Latham. In April 1835 he published Suggestions for restoring the Moral Character and the Industrious Habits of the Poor; also for establishing District Work-farms in place of Parish Workhouses, and for reducing the Poor-rates. He recommended farms laid out for the purpose by the spade-labour of paupers.