Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bland, Robert (1730-1816)

by no contributor recorded

BLAND, ROBERT (1730–1816), the elder, physician, was the son of an attorney at King's Lynn, and was educated at the London hospitals. He received the degree of M.D. from the university of St. Andrews in 1778, and was admitted licentiate of the College of Physicians on 30 Sept. 1786. He obtained an extensive practice as an accoucheur in London, and in this department acquired so high a reputation that he was engaged to write all the articles on midwifery for Rees' 'Cyclopædia.' To the 'Philosophical Transactions' he contributed in 1781 a paper on 'Some Calculations of the number of Accidents or Deaths which happen from Parturation; Proportion of Male and Female Children born; of Twins, Monstrosities, &c.;' and in the same year a 'Table of the Chances of Life from Infancy to Twenty-six years of age.' He published in 1794 'Observations on Human and Comparative Parturition,' and he was also the author of 'Proverbs chiefly taken from the Adagia of Erasmus, with Explanations ; and illustrated by Examples from the Spanish, Italian, French, and English Languages,' 2 vols., 1814. He died at Leicester Square on 29 June 1816.

Gent. Mag. lxxxvi. part ii. 186; Munk's Roll. Coll. of Phys. (1878), 11. 365; Watt's Bibl. Brit. i. 120.]