Joshua Brookes

Joshua Brookes
FRS FLS FZS
Portrait by Thomas Phillips, 1815
Born(1761-11-24)24 November 1761
London
Died10 January 1833(1833-01-10) (aged 71)
Great Portland Street, London
Resting place
St James's Church, Piccadilly
OccupationsAnatomist, surgeon, naturalist
Known forBrookesian Museum; comparative anatomy; zoological nomenclature

Joshua Brookes (24 November 1761 – 10 January 1833) was an English anatomist, surgeon and naturalist. He was a teacher of anatomy in London and the founder of the Brookesian Museum, a large collection of anatomical and zoological specimens regarded as second only to that of John Hunter. He was particularly known for his work in comparative osteology and zoological nomenclature, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1819.[1][2][3][4]

Early life

Brookes was born on 24 November 1761[a], to Joshua Brookes (c. 1734–1803), a London dealer in birds and exotic animals who operated several menageries, and his first wife, Frances Paul (1737/8–1787). He was their second son and one of twelve children.[1][5]

Several of Brookes's brothers were involved in the family's animal-dealing business. His brother John Brookes (baptised 1762), known as "Wild Beast Brookes", jointly managed their father's menagerie and later kept a menagerie at the Exeter Exchange. He also supplied Joshua with many of the animal subjects used in his anatomical work.[6][1] Another younger brother, Paul Brookes (baptised 1766), was a collector of birds and animals who later established a menagerie on the New Road in St Pancras. He died in St Petersburg in 1827.[1][7]

Education and training

He received a classical education and began his professional studies at the age of sixteen under Magnus Falconer. He subsequently attended lectures on anatomy and surgery in London delivered by Andrew Marshal, William Hewson, John Sheldon and William Hunter. Surviving school exercises dated about 1783 and 1786 identify Brookes as a student at Mr Trubey's Academy in Red Lion Court, Bermondsey Street, London.[8][9]

Brookes was also a pupil of John Hunter and assisted him in the dissection of an immature female northern bottlenose whale caught in the River Thames in 1783.[10][11]

After attending the practice of surgeons at London's principal hospitals and public institutions, Brookes received his diploma as a surgeon from the Company of Surgeons.[12]

He then went to Paris to improve his knowledge of practical anatomy and surgery, where he attended the practice of Antoine Portal and other surgeons at the Hôtel-Dieu de Paris.[12]

Career

Anatomical teaching

Brookes became a teacher of anatomy in London and established a private anatomical school at his home in Blenheim Street, Great Marlborough Street, in the mid-1780s. From there, he taught anatomy to approximately 7,000 students over a teaching career of about forty years.[1] His school housed his growing anatomical and zoological collection, later known as the Brookesian Museum, and included a Theatre of Anatomy.[1][10][4][12]

Brookes's private school of anatomy, known as the Great Marlborough Street School

Brookes's teaching combined lectures with practical dissection. His school offered instruction in anatomy, physiology and surgery, and provided facilities for students to dissect and prepare specimens. Contemporary advertisements also promoted weekly "Anatomical Converzationes", at which the subjects taught were discussed with students.[13] He became known as an accurate anatomist and excellent dissector.[3]

Brookes also developed a method of preserving anatomical subjects for lectures and dissection by injecting an antiseptic fluid into the blood vessels. Containing nitrate of potash (potassium nitrate), among other substances, the fluid helped preserve the natural colour of the tissues and arrest decomposition, allowing practical instruction to continue during the summer. His interest in preservation also led to a paper, Of the antiseptic power of alum, dated 1784, which survives in the archives of the Royal Society.[14][3][2]

Brookes's pupils and students included the zoologists Thomas Bell and Edward Turner Bennett, the veterinary surgeon William Youatt, the botanist and physician John Joseph Bennett, and the physiologist William Sharpey.[15][16][17]

Brookes's school declined during the 1820s as the Royal College of Surgeons of England increasingly restricted the certificates it would recognise for candidates seeking its diploma. The College's regulations disadvantaged private anatomy schools, including Brookes's, and contributed to the decline of independent anatomical teaching in London. By the end of the decade, Brookes's school had lost much of its former position, marking the decline of his career as an independent anatomical teacher.[15][18]

Brookesian Museum

Brookes devoted much of his career to forming the Brookesian Museum, a major private collection of anatomical and zoological specimens closely integrated with his teaching. It served as both a teaching collection and a centre for comparative anatomical study. In his 1828 auction catalogue, Brookes stated that the collection had taken about thirty years to form and had cost £30,000 to establish. The catalogue listed more than 6,000 preparations and recorded their provenance and methods of preparation, particularly for specimens illustrating pathological and comparative anatomy.[1][19]

The museum occupied the upper two floors of Brookes's house in Blenheim Street. It contained more than 3,000 human specimens, representing both healthy and diseased states and preserved in spirits in jars, including heads, limbs and organs.[1] Brookes prepared many of the specimens himself.[3][19] The museum was open to his students as well as to scientific visitors and private gentlemen. It was also opened to the general public at least one Saturday each month.[12][10]

The garden adjoining Brookes's school contained a vivarium constructed principally from large masses of the Rock of Gibraltar, where he kept exotic animals. The premises had previously been associated with the Cavendish family. Henry Cavendish leased the property to Brookes in 1788; before Brookes's tenancy, the garden had been used by Henry and his father Lord Charles Cavendish for scientific measurements. In 1830, George Johann Scharf produced a lithograph depicting the vivarium, which was published by Brookes.[20][21]

Brookes attempted to sell the museum as a complete collection, but the proposed sale failed. A major auction began at his Theatre of Anatomy on 14 July 1828, dispersing part of the collection. The Royal College of Surgeons of England acquired specimens from the sale, while other portions went to medical and university collections. University College London acquired part of the collection in 1828, and the University of Cambridge purchased a considerable part in 1830; Cambridge's osteological specimens were subsequently identified as the "Brookes collection".[19][22][18][23]

The remainder of the museum was offered for sale in 1830. Brookes's Museum Brookesianum, published that year, described this portion as comprising nearly half of the original collection and announced its sale at the Theatre of Anatomy in Blenheim Street, beginning on 1 March 1830 and continuing for 22 evenings, with Saturdays and Sundays excepted. The remaining specimens were dispersed by auction.[24]

Scientific work

Brookes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society on 18 November 1819. His election certificate described him as distinguished in the osteological branch of comparative anatomy.[2] He was also a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London and was active in the Society's Zoological Club, delivering its anniversary address in 1828.[1][25] Furthermore, he was a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London[24] and a member of the Leopoldina and the Moscow Society of Naturalists, affiliations that he listed alongside his F.R.S., F.L.S. and F.Z.S. fellowships in his museum publications.[26]

Brookes's zoological work included the description and naming of animals, particularly in his museum catalogues. In his 1828 catalogue, Brookes introduced the generic names Acinonyx for the cheetah and Mammuthus for the mammoth.[19][27]

He also used the names Megalocerus for the giant deer and Didermocerus for the Sumatran rhinoceros. The ICZN subsequently corrected the spelling of Megalocerus Brookes, 1828 to Megaloceros and suppressed Didermocerus; Dicerorhinus therefore is the valid name for the latter genus.[19][28][29]

In 1828, Brookes introduced the generic name Lagostomus for the animal previously described by Nicolas Desmarest as Dipus maximus, proposing the new specific name Lagostomus trichodactylus. He first presented the name in a paper read to the Zoological Club of the Linnean Society of London on 27 May 1828. A brief synopsis was published later that year in the Zoological Journal. A fuller account appeared in the Transactions of the Linnean Society of London in 1829.[30][31]

Personal life

Brookes married Mary Wood at Stepney on 29 May 1791; they had no children and later separated. He subsequently had a son, Joshua Brookes (1806–1841), with Elizabeth Sheen. The younger Joshua later became a surgeon in the Royal Navy.[1]

Later life

A mezzotint of Brookes by W. Ward after B. E. Dupp, 1833

Brookes was remembered as an exceptionally dedicated teacher, but also for his unconventional personal habits. John Flint South later described him as “without exception the dirtiest professional person” he had encountered, attributing his appearance partly to his continual use of snuff. South nevertheless noted that when Brookes made an effort to dress properly he could appear as a pleasant and gentlemanly person, with good manners and considerable knowledge.[14] His unconventional appearance did not diminish his professional reputation: South regarded him as one of the best teachers of practical anatomy in London.[14] The naturalist John James Audubon, who visited Brookes in 1828 to see his collection of skeletons, recorded that Brookes received him and his companion with “extreme kindness”.[32]

Brookes continued teaching until 1826, when, according to the Dictionary of National Biography, ill health, arising largely from his constant exposure to the atmosphere of the dissecting room, forced him to retire. His pupils and friends subsequently held a dinner in his honour, and his pupils subscribed to a marble bust of him by Robert William Sievier, a former pupil who had studied anatomy under Brookes. The bust was presented to him by the Duke of Sussex.[12][3]

After retiring from regular anatomical teaching, Brookes continued to lecture on natural history and anatomy to members of the Zoological Society. In 1827, he delivered a course on the anatomy of the ostrich at the Society's rooms.[3]

In 1828, Brookes gave evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Anatomy, describing difficulties surrounding the acquisition and use of bodies for anatomical teaching. A separate incident involving the body of Edward Lee, an executed highwayman, brought Brookes's dissecting rooms into the controversy over the supply of bodies to private anatomy schools. In 1822, Lee's body was traced to Brookes's dissecting rooms in Blenheim Street after the undertaker George Cundick, who had been employed to bury Lee, instead sold the body for dissection. Brookes was not called as a witness at Cundick's trial, and the court did not establish that he had illegally trafficked in the body. Cundick was convicted of selling the body for dissection and sentenced to six months' imprisonment.[33][34]

Death

Brookes died suddenly on 10 January 1833 at Great Portland Street, London. He was buried at St James's Church, Piccadilly.[12]

Later accounts described Brookes as having died in poverty. The historian Norman Moore stated that Brookes died without a shilling, having spent his resources on his osteological collection. Moore also stated that a subscription was raised to meet the expenses of his funeral.[35]

Legacy

The genus Brookesia was named in honour of Brookes by the zoologist John Edward Gray in 1864.[36][37][b]

Brookes's school and museum formed part of the tradition of private anatomical teaching in Georgian and early 19th-century London. His museum catalogues provide evidence of the specimens used in the teaching and study of human and comparative anatomy in the period.[10]

Selected writings

  • Lectures on the Anatomy of the Ostrich (1827);[3]
  • Brookesian Museum (1827);[26]
  • A Prodromus of a Synopsis Animalium (1828);[38]
  • Catalogue of the Anatomical and Zoological Museum (1828);[19]
  • Address to the Zoological Club (1828);
  • On a New Genus of the Order Rodentia (1829);[30]
  • Museum Brookesianum (1830);[24]
  • Thoughts on Lessening the Progress of Cholera (1831).

See also

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Notes

  1. ↑ Kell's ODNB entry gives Brookes's birth date as 24 November 1760 and states that he was baptised at Holborn on 19 December 1760.
  2. ↑ Gray's paper appeared in the volume for 1864, although the volume was published in parts extending into 1865; some taxonomic sources consequently give the authority as Brookesia Gray, 1865.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Brookes, Joshua (1761–1833), anatomist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3559. (Subscription, Wikipedia Library access or UK public library membership required.)
  2. 1 2 3 "Brookes; Joshua (1761–1833)". Royal Society. Retrieved 25 August 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1886). "Brookes, Joshua (1761-1833)" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 6. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  4. 1 2 "Joshua Brookes". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 25 August 2026.
  5. ↑ "Joshua Brookes". British Museum. Retrieved 26 August 2026.
  6. ↑ Dobson, Jessie (1962). "John Hunter's Animals". Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences. 17 (4): 479–486. doi:10.1093/jhmas/XVII.4.479.
  7. ↑ Plumb, Christopher (2010). Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century Britain (PhD thesis). University of Manchester.
  8. ↑ "Joshua Brookes". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 30 August 2026.
  9. ↑ "Joshua Brookes". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 30 August 2026.
  10. 1 2 3 4 Mitchell, Piers D. (2011). "The study of anatomy in England from 1700 to the early 20th century". Journal of Anatomy. 219 (2): 91–99. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7580.2011.01381.x.
  11. ↑ "Hyperoodon ampullatus: intestines". SurgiCat. Royal College of Surgeons of England. Retrieved 29 August 2026.
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jerdan, William (1834). "Joshua Brookes Esq.". National Portrait Gallery of Illustrious and Eminent Personages of the Nineteenth Century. Vol. 5. London: Fisher, Son & Jackson. p. 8.
  13. ↑ Cooper, Maxwell John; Carl Fernandes; Benjamin Whiston (2023). "'Disciples of Aesclepius': Glimpses into lives of the 'Gentlemen of the Faculty' of medicine in Brighton, England 1800–1809". Medical Humanities. doi:10.1177/09677720221131946.
  14. 1 2 3 South, John Flint (1886). Power, D'Arcy (ed.). Memorials of the Craft of Surgery in England. London: Cassell & Company. pp. 103–106.
  15. 1 2 Desmond, Adrian (1989). The Politics of Evolution: Morphology, Medicine, and Reform in Radical London. University of Chicago Press.
  16. ↑ Carruthers, William (1876). "John Joseph Bennett". Journal of Botany, British and Foreign. 14: 97–105.
  17. ↑ Lee, Sidney, ed. (1897). "Sharpey, William" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 50. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  18. 1 2 Alberti, Samuel J. M. M. (2008). ""Indecent and Demoralising Representations": Public Anatomy Museums in mid-Victorian England". Medical History. 52 (1): 1–22. doi:10.1017/S0025727300000155.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Joshua Brookes (1828). A Catalogue of the Anatomical and Zoological Museum of Joshua Brookes, Esq. ... which will be sold by auction ... London: Richard Taylor.
  20. ↑ Jungnickel, Christa; Russell McCormmach (1999). Cavendish: The Experimental Life. Bucknell University Press.
  21. ↑ "A View of the Vivarium, Constructed principally with large Masses of the Rock of Gibraltar, in the Garden of Joshua Brookes Esqr., Blenheim Street, Great Marlborough Street, London". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Retrieved 29 August 2026.
  22. ↑ Catalogue of the Specimens Illustrating the Osteology and Dentition of Vertebrated Animals, Recent and Extinct, Contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. London: Royal College of Surgeons of England.
  23. ↑ Catalogue of the Osteological Portion of Specimens Contained in the Anatomical Museum of the University of Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  24. 1 2 3 Joshua Brookes (1830). Museum Brookesianum: A Descriptive and Historical Catalogue of the Remainder of the Anatomical & Zootomical Museum of Joshua Brookes, Esq. F.R.S. F.L.S. F.Z.S. &c. London: Richard Taylor.
  25. ↑ Joshua Brookes (1828). An Address Delivered at the Anniversary Meeting of the Zoological Club of the Linnean Society, Held at the Society's House in Soho-Square, November 29, 1828. London: Richard Taylor.
  26. 1 2 Joshua Brookes (1827). Brookesian Museum: The Museum of Joshua Brookes, Esq. ... consists of a collection of anatomical and zoological preparations. London: Gold and Walton.
  27. ↑ "Opinion 1661. Mammuthus Brookes, 1828 (Mammalia, Proboscidea): conserved, and Elephas primigenius Blumenbach, 1799 designated as the type species". The Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 48 (3): 279–280. 1991.
  28. ↑ "Opinion 1566. Megaloceros Brookes, 1828 (Mammalia, Artiodactyla): original spelling emended". The Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 46: 219–220. 1989.
  29. ↑ Melville, R. V. (1977). "Opinion 1080: Didermocerus Brookes, 1828 (Mammalia) suppressed under the plenary powers". The Bulletin of Zoological Nomenclature. 34 (1): 21–24.
  30. 1 2 Brookes, Joshua (1829). "On a New Genus of the Order Rodentia". Transactions of the Linnean Society of London. 16 (1): 95–104. doi:10.1111/j.1095-8339.1829.tb00257.x.
  31. ↑ Patton, James L.; Pardiñas, Ulyses F. J.; D'Elía, Guillermo (2015). Mammals of South America, Volume 2: Rodents. University of Chicago Press. p. 780.
  32. ↑ Audubon, John James (1897). Audubon and His Journals. Vol. 1. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
  33. ↑ Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Select Committee on Anatomy (1828). Report from the Select Committee on Anatomy. London.
  34. ↑ Bailey, James Blake (1896). The Diary of a Resurrectionist, 1811–1812: To Which Are Added an Account of the Resurrection Men in London and a Short History of the Passing of the Anatomy Act. London: George Bell and Sons. pp. 93–94.
  35. ↑ Moore, Norman (1895). Medical Institutions of London. London: John Bale, Sons & Danielsson.
  36. ↑ Gray, John Edward (1865). "Revision of the genera and species of Chamaeleonidae, with the description of some new species". Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. 1864: 465–479. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.1864.tb00409.x.
  37. ↑ Beolens, Bo; Michael Watkins; Michael Grayson (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 40.
  38. ↑ Joshua Brookes (1828). A Prodromus of a Synopsis Animalium, comprising a Catalogue Raisonné of the Zootomical Collection of Joshua Brookes. London: Gold and Walton.
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