John Elliotson (1791–1868), physician and mesmerist, was the eldest son of a respectable and wealthy druggist in the High Street of Southwark. He was admitted a Licentiate of the College of Physicians in 1810 and later fellow in 1822. Elliotson was elected assistant physician to St Thomas’s hospital in 1817. In 1832 he was appointed professor of medicine at University college and, on the opening of the hospital there in 1834, as senior physician. As a clinical teacher he was in his time unrivalled. He was gifted with singular powers of observation and was most laborious in his investigation of disease. He was one of the first in England to recognise and teach the value of the stethoscope, in the use of which he became a great proficient.