Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Tilt, John Edward

by D'Arcy Power

TILT, JOHN EDWARD (1815–1893), physician, was born at Brighton on 30 Jan. 1815, and received his medical education first at St. George's Hospital and then at Paris, where he graduated M.D. on 15 May 1839. He does not appear to have held any English qualification until he became a member of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1859. He acted as travelling physician in the family of Count Schuvaloff during 1848–50. He settled in London about 1850, devoting himself to midwifery and the diseases of women, and was then appointed physician-accoucheur to the Farringdon general dispensary and lying-in charity. He was one of the original fellows of the Obstetrical Society of London, where, after filling various subordinate offices, he was elected president for 1874–5. The title of cavaliere of the crown of Italy was conferred upon him in 1875, and he was at the time of his death a corresponding fellow of the academies of medicine of Turin, Athens, and New York. He died at Hastings on 17 Dec. 1893. It was the good fortune of Tilt that he learned from Dr. Récamier in Paris the use of the speculum as an aid to the diagnosis of many of the diseases of women; it was his merit that he made known in this country the use of this instrument at a time when the knowledge of its value was confined to very few persons.

Tilt's works comprise:

1. ‘On Diseases of Menstruation and Ovarian Inflammation,’ London, 1850, 12mo; 3rd edit. 1862.
2. ‘On the Elements of Health and Principles of Female Hygiene,’ London, 1852, 12mo; translated into German, Weimar, 1854.
3. ‘The Change of Life in Health and Disease,’ 2nd edit. 1857; 4th edit. New York, 1882.
4. ‘A Handbook of Uterine Therapeutics and of Diseases of Women,’ London, 1863, 8vo; 4th edit. New York, 1881; translated into German, Erlangen, 1864, and into Flemish, Leeuwarden, 1866.
5. ‘Health in India for British Women,’ London, 1875, 12mo.

[Obituary notices in the Obstetrical Society's Trans. 1894, xxxvi. 107, and in the Medico-Chirurg. Trans. 1894, lxxvii. 36.]

D’A. P.