METHUSELAH ARCHIVE PEOPLE / DAVID HARTLEY
David Hartley

David Hartley

David Hartley (1705-1757)
1705–1757
role:Physician-philosopher and public promoter of Joanna Stephens's medicine
connection:A stone sufferer himself who became the medicine's leading public advocate: he published pamphlets defending it, compiled 155 case reports of its use (his own case counted as the 123rd), and helped persuade Parliament to pay Stephens's reward. He is better known today as the physician-philosopher whose 1749 Observations on Man founded associationist psychology.
confirmed:yes
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NOTES

David Hartley suffered from bladder or kidney stone himself and, believing Joanna Stephens’s medicine had helped him, became its most visible public defender. Starting in 1738 he published pamphlets and case reports — eventually 155 of them, with his own case entered as the 123rd — arguing for the medicine’s efficacy, and his advocacy was part of the case that helped move Parliament to pay Stephens’s 1739 reward. He is independently notable as a physician-philosopher: his 1749 book Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His Expectations is credited as a founding text of associationist psychology.