Daniel Noble (physician)
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Daniel Noble (14 January 1810 – 9 February 1885) was an English physician. A friend of surgeon James Braid, he is known for his contributions to the study of
mental illness A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness, a mental health condition, or a psychiatric disability, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. A mental disorder is ...
and epidemic diseases.


Biography

He was a
Roman Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
, born 14 January 1810, the son of Mary Dewhurst and Edward Noble of
Preston, Lancashire Preston () is a city on the north bank of the River Ribble in Lancashire, England. The city is the administrative centre of the county of Lancashire and the wider City of Preston, Lancashire, City of Preston local government district. Preston ...
, a descendant of a Yorkshire Catholic family. Apprenticed to a Preston surgeon named Thomas Moore, Noble was in time admitted a member of the
Royal College of Surgeons of England The Royal College of Surgeons of England (RCS England) is an independent professional body and registered charity that promotes and advances standards of surgery, surgical care for patients, and regulates surgery and dentistry in England and Wa ...
and a licentiate of Apothecaries Hall. In 1834, he began to practise in
Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
, becoming a specialist in mental illness. Noble was President of the Manchester Phrenological Society from 1835 to 1838 but had turned away from the subject by the early 1840s, a time that coincided with his rise in social and professional status and also the general realisation that phrenology was unlikely ever to be accepted by the
British Association for the Advancement of Science The British Science Association (BSA) is a Charitable organization, charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Scienc ...
. In 1842, he wrote the anonymous article titled "True and False Phrenology" in the aftermath of an address of seismic proportions, given by William Collins Engledue in 1842, that significantly split the Phrenological Association and led to Noble's own resignation from it. Noble dropped phrenological ideas completely in 1846 after criticism from
William Benjamin Carpenter William Benjamin Carpenter CB FRS (29 October 1813 – 19 November 1885) was an English physician, invertebrate zoologist, and physiologist. He was instrumental in the early stages of the unified University of London. Life Carpenter was bor ...
, who favoured the theory of brain physiology. That criticism came in a review of Noble's ''Brain and Its Psychology'' and his renunciation was formally recorded in his ''Elements of Psychological Medicine'', published in 1853. Noble's views on mental illness influenced the terminology introduced by Henry Monro. On 9 February 1847, Noble assisted his friend, Manchester surgeon James Braid, to (successfully) conduct a mastectomy, using inhalation ether as an anaesthetic agent. Braid was, perhaps, one of the first thirty surgeons in the U.K. ever to use inhalation ether as an anaesthetic. Noble died at Manchester on 12 January 1885, aged 75.


Works

* ''An Essay of the Means, physical and moral, of estimating Human Character'' 1835 * ''Facts and Observations relative to the influence of manufactures upon health and life'' 1843 * ''Mesmerism true, mesmerism false: A critical examination of the facts, claims, and pretensions of animal magnetism'' 1846 * ''The Brain and its Physiology, a critical disquisition of the methods of determining relations subsisting between the structure and functions of the encephalon'' 1846 * ''Elements of Psychological Medicine: an Introduction to the practical study of Insanity'' 1853-1855 * ''Three Lectures on the Correlation of Psychology and Physiology'' 1854 * ''The Human Mind in its relations with the Brain and Nervous System'' 1858 * ''On certain popular fallacies concerning the production of epidemic diseases'' 1859 * ''On the fluctuations in the death-rate'' 1863 * ''Evanescent Protestantism and Nascent Atheism, the modern religious problem'' 1877 * ''On causes reducing the effects of sanitary reform'' 1878.


Family

In 1840 Noble married Frances Mary Louisa Ward, of Dublin. They had eight children, one of them Frances Noble the novelist, author of ''Gertrude Mannering'' (1875).Margaret M. Maison, ''The Victorian Vision'' (1961), p. 179
Archive.org


References

;Attribution


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Noble, Daniel Alumni of the University of St Andrews 19th-century English medical doctors English Roman Catholics Phrenologists 1810 births 1885 deaths