William Heberden

William Heberden

William Heberden (1710 -1801) Famous English physician. William Heberden was one of the most prominent and respected physicians of his day. Samuel Johnson, the lexicographer, called him as "the last of our learned physicians." Along with William Cullen, he was the most admired physician of the mid-18th century. Heberden made many important contributions to medicine, particularly in the form of detailed clinical notes he kept throughout his career, which was later published as Commentaries on the History and Cure of Diseases in 1802. This book is considered the last of the great medical texts published in Latin. His son, William Heberden, the Younger, also a physician, translated it into English. He was the first to clearly state the distinction between chicken pox and small pox. He also provided a detailed description of angina pectoris. Heberden's nodes, bony outgrowths in the distal interphalangeal joints, a characteristic of osteoarthritis, are named after him.