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mouth, in the year 1752. Having received a good classical 
education in his native town, he was placed with a respect¬ 
able apothecary, to whom he served a short apprenticeship. 
He afterwards proceeded to Edinburgh, where, after the usual 
residence, he obtained, in 1775, the degree of M. D., having 
written and defended a very ingenious thesis “ De irritabili- 
tate fibrarum motricium.” After passing some time on the 
Continent, he returned and settled near his native place, 
where he practised his profession five or six years. Dr. 
Woodville then came to London, and was soon appoint¬ 
ed one of the physicians to the Middlesex Dispensary, the 
duties of which office he discharged in an exemplary man¬ 
ner. In 1790 he published the first part, which was after¬ 
wards completed in four quarto volumes, of a highly valu¬ 
able work, intitled “ Medical Botany.” In 1791 he was 
elected physician to the Small-pox Hospital, in the room of 
the late Dr. Archer; and it may truly be said, that no man 
ever devoted, more conscientiously or zealously, time and 
great talents to the promotion of an object, than did Dr. 
Woodville to improvement in the medical treatment of the 
patients, as well as in the general government of the esta¬ 
blishment. To the officers of the hospital, and those gover¬ 
nors who took most interest in its welfare, his merits were 
well known ; and some of the fruits of his genius and indus¬ 
try are before the public in a volume which was published 
in 1796, intitled “ The History of the Small-pox in Great 
Britain, &c.” This work, which it was the author’s design 
to occupy two volumes in 8vo., was well conceived, inclu¬ 
ding a brief history of the disease, and a review of all the 
publications on the subject of inoculation, with an experi¬ 
mental inquiry into the relative advantages of the various 
measures that had been recommended. Only the first vo¬ 
lume of this work, which is well written, and contains much 
valuable information, was published, the happy discovery of 
the efficacy of vaccination having, in the author’s opinion, 
superseded the necessity of the second appearing. Dr. Jen- 
ner’s grand discovery made a due impression on the mind of 
Woodville ; and as no other man had equal opportunities of 
witnessing and lamenting the ravages of the small-pox, so no 
person could be more sincerely anxious and active in the 
adoption of those means that were found adequate to guard 
mankind against that pestilence. It is very true, that on the 
subject of vaccination he was, like every body else, at first 
sceptical; but he suffered no opportunity to be lost cf ascer¬ 
taining its efficacy, and then of proclaiming his belief in it. 
Unhappily, in some of his early experiments an error was 
committed ; he was not aware of the influence of the vario¬ 
lous atmosphere of the hospital. The result was, that in cer¬ 
tain instances, either pure small-pox matter, or a deteriorated 
vaccine lymph, had been inserted into the arms of some 
patients. The effects were faithfully detailed ; but being so 
different from those that had been described by Dr. Jenner, 
that excellent man and benefactor to the human race visited 
Dr. Woodville, with whom he argued and remonstrated on 
the subject. It is to be regretted that some asperities of re¬ 
mark took place between them, although both were equally 
and honourably engaged in the developement of truth. The 
discussion, however, as is always the case, proved very use¬ 
ful in the dissemination of the new practice; and if Dr. Jen¬ 
ner had reason to find fault with the result of Dr. Wood- 
ville’s early proceedings, he must have been abundantly gra¬ 
tified by his subsequent experiments and publications. The 
ample field in which Woodville was placed enabled him to 
vaccinate great multitudes, some thousands of whom he af¬ 
terwards tested by variolous inoculation, and thus gave that 
publicity to vaccination, and that confidence in it, which it 
could not otherwise have attained in the course of many 
years. His disease, which terminated in dropsy, had made 
such gradual advances during the last year of his life, that he 
frequently talked of his death, which no man ever contem¬ 
plated with greater equanimity, as likely to take place about 
a certain assigned period. 
He died at the hospital on the 26th of March, 1805 ; and 
on the 3d of April, a warm and just eulogium was pronoun¬ 
ced over the body in the saloon by his friend Mr. Highmore. 
Vol. XXIV. No. 1667. 
His parents having been Quakers, he by his own desire was 
interred in the Friends’ burial-ground in Bunhill-fields, after 
a very appropriate address at the grave by Mrs. Pryor. 
WOODVILLE, a hamlet of England, in Kent, adjoining 
to Dover. 
WOODVILLE, a post village of the United States, in 
Warren county, Tennessee.—2. A post village of Hanover 
county, Virginia.—3. A post township of Culpeper county, 
Virginia.—4. A post town and capital of Wilkinson county, 
Mississippi. The surrounding country is fertile; 37 miles 
south of Natchez. Lat. 31. 6. N. 
WOODWALTON, a parish of England, in Huntingdon¬ 
shire, near Peterborough. 
WOO'D WARD, s. A forester; an overlooker of woods. 
—A chase or park hath only keepersand woodwards. Howell. 
WOODWARD (John), was born in Derbyshire, in 1664, 
and, being intended for trade, was apprenticed in London ; 
but in a little while abandoned the shop for the sake of sci¬ 
entific pursuits. In 1687 Dr. Barwick took him into his fa¬ 
mily, and for the space of four years gave him instruction in 
medicine and anatomy. He then recommended him to the 
medical professorship in Gresham college, to which he was 
elected in 1692. Having directed his particular attention to 
fossils, with a view to which he had travelled through many 
districts of England, he published in 1695 “ An Essay to¬ 
wards a Natural History of the Earth and terrestrial Bodies, 
especially Minerals; as also of the Sea, Rivers, and Springs; 
with an Account of the Universal Deluge, and of the Effects 
that it had upon the Earth,” 8vo. His preparatory know¬ 
ledge for a work of this kind was very slight, and therefore 
the execution of it was attacked by Dr. Martin Lister, and 
others. However, in the imperfect state of geology at that 
time, his performance engaged notice, and he was chosen in 
1693 a fellow of the Royal Society. At this time he was in 
possession of an ancient iron shield, in the concavity of 
which was a sculpture representing the story of Camillus and 
the Gauls at Rome: and -as it was a great curiosity among 
the learned, Dodwell gave an account of it in a Latin trea¬ 
tise, entitled “ De Parma equestri Woodwardiana Disser- 
tatio.” By this circumstance Woodward was led to increase 
his acquaintance with a certain class of literati, though he did 
not escape the ridicule of the wits. In 1695 he was created 
M. D. by archbishop Tenison, and in 1696 he obtained the 
same degree from Cambridge; and thus honoured, he was 
prepared for an admission into the College of Physicians as 
a fellow in 1702. But pursuing his inquiries into natural 
history and antiquities, he published some pieces in these 
departments : viz. “ Some Thoughts and Experiments con¬ 
cerning Vegetation,” communicated to the Royal Society, 
and printed in the Philosophical Transactions for 1669 ; 
“ Naturalis Historia Telluris illustrata et aucta ; accedit Me- 
thodica Fossilium in Classes Distributio,” 1714, intended as 
a grand reply to those who objected to his Natural History 
of the Earth, which had been translated into Latin by 
Scheuchzer at Zurich ; and “ An Account of some Roman 
Urns, and other Antiquities, lately digged up near Bishops- 
gate; with brief Reflections upon the ancient and present 
State of London : in a Letter to sir Christopher Wren.” In 
his medical capacity, he published in 1718“ The State of 
Physic and of Diseases, &c.” 8vo., in which he advanced the 
notion, that the bile and its salts, re-absorbed into the blood, 
were the true cause of life and animal motion, and that the 
same fermenting in the stomach were the cause of diseases; 
whence he was led to conclude that emetics to evacuate the 
morbid bile and oily and unguinous medicines to correct it, 
were universal remedies. This publication produced a con¬ 
troversy with Dr. Friend, in which Woodward was answered 
both ludicrously and seriously, so that he gained little credit 
by his medical theory or practice. His chagrin, however, 
was diverted by the study of fossils, and the augmentation of 
his cabinet of specimens. He soon after fell into a decline, 
which terminated his life in his apartments at Gresham col¬ 
lege in 1727, at the age of 63. He bequeathed his personal 
property to the university of Cambridge for the endowment of 
an annual lectureship, on a subject taken from his own wri- 
7 S tings 
