Dr. Martin Lister, FRCP Naturalist

From Wikipedia:

Martin Lister FRS (12 April 1639 – 2 February, 1712) was an English naturalist and physician.

Contents [hide] 1 Life 2 Memorial inscription 3 Scientific work 4 Publications 5 See also 6 References 7 Bibliography

Life[edit] Lister's mother, Susan (or Susanna) Temple, later Lady Lister (1620), by Cornelius Johnson.Lister was born at Radcliffe, near Buckingham, the son of Sir Martin Lister MP for Brackley in the Long Parliament and his wife Susan Temple daughter of Sir Alexander Temple. Lister was connected to a number of well known individuals. He was the nephew of both James Temple, the regicide and also of Sir Matthew Lister, physician to Anne, queen of James I, and to Charles I. He was also the uncle of Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough who corresponded with him throughout her life.[1]

Lister was educated at Melton, Leicestershire under Mr Barwick and matriculated at St John's College, Cambridge in 1658. He graduated in 1658/9, and was elected a fellow in 1660.[2] In 1668 he travelled to France to study as a physician and settled at York in 1670 to practice medicine.[3] He became Fellow of the Royal Society on 2 November 1671. He practised medicine at York until 1683, when he moved to London. In 1684 he received the degree of M.D. at Oxford on the recommendation of the Chancellor.[3] In 1687 became F.R.C.P..

Lister bought Carlton Hall in Craven in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He attended the Earl of Portland when he was ambassador to France in 1698.

He was physician to Queen Anne from 1709 until his death.[3] He died at Epsom at the age of 72 and was buried at Clapham Church.[2]

Lister was a prolific corespondent. More than 2,000 letters written by and to him survive in the Bodleian Library, Oxford and other repositories. They are to and from a variety of people including family, friends and other scientists. Abstracts of these letters have been published on line.[4]

Memorial inscription[edit]The memorial inscription in Clapham church is now lost. It read:

Near this place is buried the body of

MARTIN LISTER,

Doctor of Physick, a Member of the

Royal Society, and one of

Queen Ann’s Physicians,

who departed this life,

the second day of

February, 1711-12.[5]

Scientific work[edit]Lister contributed numerous articles on natural history, medicine and antiquities to the Philosophical Transactions. His principal works were Historiae animalium Angliae tres tractatus (1678) which was the first organized, systematic publication on shells;[6] Historiae Conchyliorum (1685 1692), and Conchyliorum Bivalvium (1696). As a conchologist he was held in high esteem, but while he recognized the similarity of fossil mollusca to living forms, he regarded them as inorganic imitations produced in the rocks.

In 1683 he communicated to the Royal Society (Phil. Trans., 1684), an ingenious proposal for a new sort of maps of countries; together with tables of sands and clays, such as are chiefly found in the north parts of England. In this essay he suggested the preparation of a soil or mineral map of the country, and thereby is justly credited with being the first to realize the importance of a geological survey.

Charles Lyell speaks of Lister in his Principles of Geology as follows:

Dr. Plot, in his 'Natural History of Oxfordshire.' (1677) attributed to a 'plastic virtue latent in the earth' the origin of fossil shells and fishes; and Lister, to his accurate account of British shells, in 1678, added the fossil species, under the appellation of turbinated and bivalve stones. 'Either,' said he, 'these were terriginous, or if otherwise, the animals they so exactly represent have become extinct. This writer appears to have been the first who was aware of the continuity over large districts of the principal groups of strata in the British series, and who proposed the construction of regular geological maps.[7]

He was a benefactor of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.[3] The ridge Dorsa Lister on the Moon was named after him.

Publications[edit] Plate from Historiae Conchyliorum (1691).Histories Animalium Angliae tres tractatus, &ct,, l678. Goedartii Historia Insectorum cum notis,,, 1682. De Fontibus medicinalibus Angliae,,, l682. Historiae Conchyliorum, 1685 Exercitatio Anatomica, in qua de Cochlcis agitur,,, 1694. Cochlearum ct Linacum exercitatio Anatomica,,, 1695. Conchyliorum bivalvium utriusque aquae exercitatio Anatomica tertia,,, 1696. Exercitationes Medicinales, &tc,,. 1697. Journey to Paris, c 1699 See also[edit]Historiae animalium, by Conrad Gesner

References[edit]1.^ Roos, Anna Marie (2011). Web of Nature: Martin Lister (1639-1712), the First Arachnologist. Brill Academic Publishers. p. 49. 2.^ a b Venn, J.; Venn, J. A., eds. (1922–1958). "Lister, Martin". Alumni Cantabrigienses (10 vols) (online ed.). Cambridge University Press. 3.^ a b c d Royal Society (Great Britain), Charles Hutton The Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London, Volume 1 4.^ Early Modern Letters Online 5.^ Royal College of Physicians 6.^ Historiae Conchyliorum, Vol. 1 and 2 (1685) - digital facsimile, Linda Hall Library] 7.^ Charles Lyell, Principles of Geology, 1832, p.35

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Lister, Martin. 

Bibliography[edit]Dr. Martin Lister: A bibliography by Geoffrey Keynes. (Includes illustrations by Lister's wife and daughter). Published by St Paul's Bibliographies (UK) with an ISBN 0-906795-04-4

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University