Thomas Keate (1745–1821) was an English surgeon.[1] He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1794.[2]
He was the son of William Keate of Wells, Somerset, and Oxford graduate, and younger brother of the Rev. William Keate (1739–1795), father of John Keate of Eton and Robert Keate.[1] [3] A number of sources identify his father as an apothecary in Wells, who became its Mayor.Keate became a pupil at St George's Hospital, London, and later was assistant to John Gunning, surgeon to the hospital.[4] He was appointed regimental surgeon to the 1st Foot Guards in 1778.[1]
Keate was surgeon to George, Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV, from 1783 to 1800; he joined the Prince's household set up on his majority, and was a favourite introduced to others of the royal family.[5] [6] The low point in the Prince's health came, in his judgement, in 1787, when he was "exceedingly ill".[7] Keate was surgeon to Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz from 1791 to 1803.[5] His 1793 nomination certificate for the Royal Society begins with his royal service.[8]
In 1790 Robert Adair died: he had been surgeon to Chelsea Hospital. Keate was appointed, with a salary. The post at the time was described as close to a sinecure.[9] [10] On a vacancy arising in the surgeoncy at St George's Hospital, in succession to Charles Hawkins, there was a sharp contest in 1792 between Keate and Everard Home, whom John Hunter favoured: Keate was elected.[4]
Keate was an examiner at the College of Surgeons from 1800, and master in 1802, 1809, 1818.[4] Representing the College, he witnessed an 1803 electric demonstration with a corpse by Giovanni Aldini in London, accompanied by Joseph Constantine Carpue.[11] As a surgeon, he was the first to tie the subclavian artery for aneurysm.[4]
Hunter died in 1793, to be succeeded as Surgeon-General to the Army by Gunning, and as Inspector of Regimental Infirmaries by Keate.[4] [12] Keate inspected the Savoy Hospital in October of that year, finding six beds in a noisy situation because of prisoners.[13] After Gunning's death in 1798, Keate reunited the posts, becoming also Surgeon-General.[1]
With Lucas Pepys, Keate was blamed for a lack of medical resources and attention in the Walcheren Campaign of 1809.[14] Keate had attended some of the boatloads of wounded soldiers brought up the River Thames.[15] As part of incremental changes in the direction of reform, the existing Army Medical Board of Keate, Pepys and Francis Knight (Inspector-General of Army Hospitals from 1801)[16] was replaced in 1810 by one headed by John Weir, with Theodore Gordon and Charles Ker.[17]
Unpunctual and slovenly in his hospital duties, in 1813 Keate resigned his appointment at St George's.[4]
Keate opposed the claims made by the surgeon Sir William Adams to have an effective cure for a type of ophthalmia. Adams in 1817 set up a specialised treatment facility within Chelsea Hospital for what is now recognised as a form of trachoma, afflicting soldiers who had served in the Egyptian campaign.[18] With Benjamin Moseley of the Hospital and William North, Keate in 1818 produced outcomes research casting doubt on Adams's treatment.[19] Adams that year moved on started treating gratis for ophthalmia in a new Ophthalmia Hospital built by John Nash on Albany Street, with backing from the Prince Regent. He continued there to 1822.[18] [20]
Keate died at Chelsea Hospital on 5 July 1821, aged 76.[4]
On surgery, Keate wrote Cases of Hydrocele and Hernia, London, 1788. In controversy he produced Observations on the Fifth Report of the Commissioners of Medical Enquiry, London, 1808; the report had censured points in Keate's administration.[4]
Keate married in 1784 Emma Browne, daughter of Lyde Browne.[21]
Attribution