George Motherby M.D. (baptised 1731 – 1793) was an English physician and medical writer.[1] He is noted for the early definition of the medical term placebo in the 1785 edition of his medical dictionary.[2]
He was born in Yorkshire, the son of George Motherby and his wife Anne Hotham; Robert Motherby was a younger brother, and his elder sister Anne married the London bookseller George Robinson (1736–1801). He gained an MD degree at King's College, Aberdeen in 1767.[1]
Motherby then practised as a physician at Königsberg, in the Kingdom of Prussia.[1] Through Robert, he came to be on good terms there with Johann Georg Hamann;[3] and vaccinated one of his sons.[4]
Motherby was later at Highgate, Middlesex. He died at Beverley, Yorkshire, in July 1793.[1]
Motherby compiled A new Medical Dictionary, London, 1775 (2nd edit. 1785). Other editions, revised by George Wallis, M.D., appeared in 1791, 1795, and 1801; the two final editions were in two volumes.[1] [5] The articles included citations. A study of the first edition concluded that the most cited authorities were William Lewis (when his translation from Caspar Neumann is included), John Ray, and Herman Boerhaave; followed by Hippocrates and Galen.[6]
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