Thomas Willis—the man and doctor

Thomas Willis (1621–75) the man (fig 1) is often overshadowed by his medical discoveries. He was born on a Wiltshire farm and took his MA from Christchurch College, Oxford in 1642. He was an ardent Royalist and enlisted “as a Souldier in the University Legion”—an auxiliary regiment—serving two years in the civil war. When Oxford surrendered in June 1646, all the Royalist soldiers were ordered to leave the city. But Willis returned by the beginning of the next academic term, graduating and being licensed to practice on 8 December 1646. Because of the wartime conditions, his medical training was probably less than six months. In this he was fortunate as it allowed him to read more widely and be aware of new ideas.1

 Willis slowly established what was to become a lucrative medical practice enhanced by the spectacular “resurrection” of Anne Green, who had been hanged in 1650 for infanticide.2 He was one of a small scientific group with Royalist sympathies including Boyle, Wren, and Hooke. After the Restoration, this group moved to London and formed the Royal Society. Willis employed Robert Hooke who subsequently developed the microscope and the first artificial ventilator, and suggested to Newton the inverse square law of gravitation. His Cerebri Anatome (1664)—a classical account of the nervous system—was illustrated by Christopher Wren.

In 1660 Willis was appointed Sedleian Professor of Natural Philosophy at Oxford. There he lived in Beam Hall, Merton Street, opposite Merton College Lodge. He had four sons and four daughters, and all but the eldest son predeceased him. He was devastated by the death of his wife Mary in 1666. Later that year he was invited to London by the Archbishop of Canterbury where …