Tweedy John Todd

Tweedy John Todd (1789–1840) (also known as Tweedie John Todd, or John Tweedy Todd) was an English doctor, Royal Navy surgeon and naturalist who conducted early experimental work on healing and regeneration in animals.

Biography Early life Tweedy John Todd was born in 1789 in Berwick-Upon-Tweed where his father was a borough treasurer.

Navy career Todd began his career as a Royal Navy surgeon working in the Royal Naval Hospital at Plymouth. He later sailed to the East Indies and the Cape of Good Hope and was appointed surgeon on the flagship of Sir Robert Stopford aged only 23.

Todd retired from the navy in 1816, and lived in Italy for 6 or 7 years. Following this he returned to his studies and completed two medical degrees, first at the University of Montpellier, then at the University of Aberdeen In 1831 wrote The Book of Analysis. A New Method of Experience, in order to encourage physicians and scientists to apply the Baconian method of inductive reasoning to medicine and the other natural sciences.

Todd's research was not well known in the second half of the 19th century, and more recently the importance of Todd's work has been acknowledged by medical historians.

Todd died from tuberculosis on 4 August 1840, in Hurst, Sussex. He was aged 50 or 51. After his death his large collection of microscope slides came to the attention of Richard Owen, who was then the conservator of the Hunterian Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, but would later become the first director of the Natural History Museum. Owen was impressed by the quality of the slides and in 1841 he purchased 1,500 of them for £150 to use in the teaching of surgeons. The slides are considered to be important in the history of medicine, histology and microscopy and they remain in the College's collection today.

Published works Some Observations and Experiments Made on the Torpedo of the Cape of Good Hope in the Year 1812. John T. Todd Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. 1816 106, 120-126, published 1 January 1816 The Regeneration of Parts in the Aquatic Salamander Quarterly Journal of Science, Literature and Arts 1823 The Luminous Power of Some of the Lampyrides 1827 The Book of Analysis: Or, a New Method of Experience, Whereby the Induction of the Novum Organon [Of F. Bacon] Is Made Easy of Application, 1831, Published by John Murray, London