Parry and Parry’s Disease

Abstract

THE MAN

In 1778 the Charter of Incorporation was granted by George Ill to the presidents and associates of the Medical Society of Edinburgh, confirming Robert Freer, James Melliar, Andrew Wardrop and Caleb Parry in their office as Presidents. Caleb Parry, whose name appears here, became a highly esteemed practitioner at Bath and like Heberden acquired a lifelong habit of taking notes. He described the first recorded case of facial hemiatrophy in 1814, of congenital idiopathic dilatation of the colon in 1825, and in 1786 he left an account of exophthalmic goitre so complete and original that it more justly entitles him to the honour of its discovery than either Flajani in 1800, Graves in 1835, or von Basedow in 1840.

Caleb Hillier Parry was born on October 21st 1755, at Cirencester, near Gloucester, where his father Joshua was a non-conformist minister. His early education was at the grammar school in Cirencester, where he met Edward Jenner: and the latter dedicated his epochal Inquiry in the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae" to "C. H. Parry, M.D., at Bath, My Dear Friend." At the age of 18, Parry became a student of medicine at Edinburgh, in the days when William Cullen dominated the scene. Parry spent two of his undergraduate years in London, but when he returned in 1777, he was elected a president of the Medical Society of Edinburgh. And it was during his term of office that the Royal Charter was achieved, an honour which remains unique for an undergraduate society.