James Cowles Prichard

James Cowles Prichard (1786-1848) studied medicine at Bristol in 1802 and later at St. Thomas’s Hospital and Edinburgh University, where he took an M.D. in 1808. He began his medical practice in Bristol in 1810, focusing on ethnology and insanity. His research led to his first publication, Researches into the Physical History of Man (1813). He was originally a Quaker, but became an Anglican later in life. He may have been a Unitarian at some point, for in 1811 he married Anne Maria Estlin, daughter of John Prior Estlin, who ministered at the Unitarian chapel at Lewin’s Mead in Bristol from 1771 to 1817. Among Prichard’s other publications are An  Analysis of the Egyptian Mythology (1819); Treatise on Diseases of the Nervous System (1822); Treatise on Insanity and Other Disorders Affecting the Mind (1835); and Natural History of Man (1843).