Dr Thomas Beddoes conducted pioneering work in a new branch of science, ‘pneumatic chemistry’, here between, 1793 and 1797. Beddoes is probably most well-known for an unusual method of treatment: he had noticed that some occupations were less prone to tuberculosis than others. Butchers, it seemed, seldom got it, and when he questioned them they credited their immunity to the vapours of the slaughterhouse. Inspired by this, he concluded that it would be beneficial ‘to imitate the exhalation of a cow-house’ in the sickroom, so he placed consumptive patients in a building adjoining a cattle stall, where the cows could poke their heads through a curtain and breathe on them. He was soon able to report that the experiment had shown ‘promise of success’ in three out of six cases, and that ‘for mere temperature, living with cows is the most delicious thing imaginable’. Not everyone agreed. One patient objected to the ‘cow dung, etc’ that was an inevitable by-product of the therapy, and satirists mischievously put it about that Beddoes had upset Bristol’s lodging-house keepers by taking cows into invalids’ bedrooms. However, he wasn’t as far from the truth as these cynics suggest. At the same period, Edward Jenner – a Gloucestershire man – was working on his ground-breaking smallpox vaccination, also inspired by human’s interaction with cows.
Beddoes worked here at Hope Square with the chemist William Clayfield, who lectured locally, and identified the new mineral strontium sulphate, or celestine. This was an important discovery: it led to the establishment of the mining of strontium for sugar and the prosthetic industries in the Bristol district right up until the twentieth century