Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Glass, Thomas
GLASS, THOMAS, M.D. (d. 1786), physician, a native of Tiverton, Devonshire, was entered as a medical student at Leyden on 29 Oct. 1728 (Leyden Students, Index Soc. p. 41), and graduated M.D. in July 1731 (‘Dissertatio Medica Inauguralis, De Atrophia in genere,’ 4to, Leyden, 1731). He practised with great success at Exeter. To his brother Samuel Glass, a surgeon at Oxford, he imparted a process of preparing magnesia alba. Samuel perfected the preparation, published in 1764 an ‘Essay’ on its use and salutary effects as a medicine, and derived a handsome profit from its sale. He ultimately sold the secret to a firm of chemists. Meanwhile, in the summer of 1771, Thomas Henry [q. v.] a Manchester apothecary, communicated to the College of Physicians what he maintained to be an ‘improved’ method of preparing magnesia alba, and his paper was printed in vol. ii. of the college ‘Transactions.’ After Samuel Glass's death on 25 Feb. 1773 (Gent. Mag. xliii. 155), Henry published in the following May ‘Strictures’ on the magnesia sold ‘under the name of the late Mr. Glass,’ proving by a searching analysis that it was not properly made, and advertising his own preparation as ‘genuine.’ Thomas Glass replied in ‘An Examination of Mr. Henry's “Strictures” on Glass's Magnesia,’ 8vo, London, 1774, but was effectively answered by Henry during the same year. To ‘Medical Observations and Inquiries’ (vi. 364) Glass contributed an ‘Account of the Influenza, as it appeared at Exeter in 1775.’ He wrote also: 1. ‘Commentarii duodecim de febribus ad Hippocratis disciplinam accommodati,’ 8vo, London, 1742 (‘Editio nova, curante Ern. Godofr. Baldinger,’ 8vo, Jena and Leipzig, 1771). 2. ‘An Account of the antient baths, and their use in physic,’ 8vo, London, 1752. 3. ‘A letter … to Dr. Baker on the means of procuring a distinct and favourable kind of small-pox,’ &c., 8vo, London, 1767. 4. ‘A second letter … to Dr. Baker on certain methods of treating the small-pox during the eruptive state,’ 8vo, London, 1767. 5. ‘An Essay on Revealed Religion,’ 1772. Glass was considered the greatest English authority after Sir William Watson on inoculation for the small-pox. A German translation of their papers was published at Halle in 1769.
Glass died at Exeter on 5 Feb. 1786 and was buried in St. David's churchyard. His will, dated 8 Nov. 1783, was proved at London on 27 Feb. 1786 (registered in P. C. C. 90, Norfolk). He bequeathed to the dean and chapter of Exeter all his ‘medical printed books,’ to be placed in their library for the use of any physician of the city. By a codicil dated 15 Dec. 1784 he made provision for the education of poor children in Exeter. By his wife Mary, daughter of Sir Nathaniel Hodges, who died before him, he had four daughters, Mary (Mrs. Parminter), who predeceased her father, Elizabeth, Ann (Mrs. Lowder), and Melina or Melony (Mrs. Daniell). His portrait, by Opie, in the board-room of the Devon and Exeter Hospital, was engraved by Ezekiel (Evans, Cat. of Engraved Portraits, i. 139).
[Notes and Queries, 8th ser. viii. 462; will of Samuel Glass, proved 31 March 1773 (P. C. C. 110, Stevens).]