Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Radcliffe, John Netten
RADCLIFFE, JOHN NETTEN (1826–1884), epidemiologist, son of Charles Radcliffe, and younger brother of Dr. Charles Bland Radcliffe [q. v.], was born in Yorkshire on 20 April 1826, and received his early medical training at the Leeds school of medicine. Shortly after obtaining his diploma he went to the Crimea as a surgeon attached to the headquarters of Omar Pasha, and remained there till the close of the war. He received for his services the order of the Medjidie as well as the Turkish and English medals, with a clasp for Sebastopol. On returning home he became medical superintendent of the Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic in Queen Square, London.
In 1865 he was selected to prepare a special report on the appearance of cholera abroad, and in 1866 he was busily engaged in investigating the outbreak in East London, which he traced to the infected supply of the East London Water Company. This report appeared as a blue-book in 1867, and gained Radcliffe a wide reputation. He was elected a member of the Epidemiological Society in 1850, was its honorary secretary 1862–71, and president 1875–7. In November 1869 he was appointed to the second of the two public health inspectorships then created by the privy council, and, on the formation of the local government board in 1871, he was made assistant medical officer. Owing to ill-health he resigned this post in 1883, and died on 11 Sept. 1884.
Not only an expert in the question of the distribution of oriental diseases, Radcliffe was an authority on all questions pertaining to public health. Of remarkably simple and straightforward nature, he was a most cautious worker, but where rapidity was essential he showed himself equal to the situation. Prior to his official appointment he wrote: 1. ‘The Pestilence in England,’ 8vo, London, 1852. 2. ‘Fiends, Ghosts, and Sprites, &c.’, 8vo, London, 1854. 3. ‘The Hygiene of the Turkish Army,’ 8vo, London, 1858; reprinted with additions from the ‘Sanitary Review.’ In his official capacity he prepared a long series of reports dealing with the spread of epidemics and the question of quarantine (see list in index, Cat. Libr. of the Surgeon-General of the U.S. Army). Among these the more important, in addition to those already mentioned, are: 1. ‘On the Means for preventing Excrement Nuisances in Towns and Villages,’ 1869 and 1873. 2. ‘On an Outbreak of Enteric Fever in Marylebone,’ 1873. 3. ‘On the Diffusion of Cholera in Europe during the ten years 1865–74.’ 4. ‘On the Progress of Levantine Plague, 1875–77.’
[Brit. Med. Journ. 1884, ii. p. 588; Lancet, 1884, ii. 502, 524, 562; Trans. Epidemiol. Soc. Lond., new ser. iv. 121; information kindly supplied by Dr. R. Thorne Thorne, C.B.; Index Cat. Libr. Surg.-Gen. U.S. Army.]