An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2022 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

15961 entries, 13944 authors and 1935 subjects. Updated: March 22, 2024

WELLS, William Charles

5 entries
  • 863.1

Observations and experiments on the colour of blood.

Phil. Trans., 87, 416-31, 1797.

Wells showed that the coloring matter in the blood was not iron but a complex organic substance subsequently identified as hematin.



Subjects: HEMATOLOGY
  • 2740

On rheumatism of the heart.

Trans. Soc. Improve. med. chir. Knowl. 3, 373-424, 1812.

David Pitcairn is accredited with the first reference to rheumatism as a cause of cardiac disease, in a lecture given in 1788. Jenner read a paper on the same subject in 1789, but the first clinical report on the subject to be published was that by Wells. Reprinted in Willius & Keys, Cardiac classics, 1941, pp. 294-312.



Subjects: CARDIOLOGY › CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE › Rheumatic Heart Disease, RHEUMATOLOGY
  • 4205

On the presence of the red matter and serum of blood in the urine of dropsy, which has not originated from scarlet fever.

Trans. Soc. Improve. med. chir. Knowl., 3, 194-240, 1812.

Wells was the first to notice the presence of blood and albumin in edematous urine. He also established the fact that the edema occurred in the upper parts of the body, and he described the uremic seizures to which such cases are liable.



Subjects: NEPHROLOGY › Renal Disease
  • 1604

An essay on dew.

London: Taylor & Hessay, 1814.

For this work Wells was awarded the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society. His researches on the subject were of major importance in the development of the science of ventilation, particularly in its relation to relative humidity and the influence of the latter on the comfort of the occupants of factories, ships, theatres, etc. Wells was physician to St. Thomas’s Hospital, London, from 1800 until his death.



Subjects: PUBLIC HEALTH, Ventilation, Health Aspects of
  • 216.2

Two essays: upon single vision with two eyes; the other on dew…An account of a female of the white race of mankind, part of whose skin resembles that of a negro…

London: Archibald Constable, 1818.

First statement of the theory of natural selection. Wells’s paper on a white woman with patchy brown discoloration of the skin contains an almost complete anticipation of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, although it was completely ignored until it was resurrected by a correspondent of Darwin in the 1860s. The volume also contains Wells’s autobiography. See no. 1604.



Subjects: ANTHROPOLOGY, EVOLUTION