DICTIONARY
OF
NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY
PEREIRA, JONATHAN (1804–1853), pharmacologist, was born at Shoreditch, London, on 22 May 1804. His father, an underwriter at Lloyd's, was in straitened circumstances, and Pereira was sent, when about ten years old, to a classical academy in Queen Street, Finsbury. Five years later he was articled to a naval surgeon and apothecary named Latham, then a general practitioner in the City Road. In 1821 he became a pupil at the Aldersgate Street general dispensary, where he studied chemistry, materia medica, and medicine under Dr. Henry Clutterbuck [q. v.], natural philosophy under Dr. George Birkbeck [q. v.], and botany under Dr. William Lambe (1765–1847) [q. v.] In 1822 he entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and, qualifying as licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries in March 1823, when under nineteen, was at once appointed apothecary to the dispensary. He then formed a students' class, for whose use he translated the ‘London Pharmacopœia’ of 1824, published ‘A Selection of Prescriptions’ in English and in Latin, and ‘A General Table of Atomic Numbers with an Introduction to the Atomic Theory,’ and drew up a ‘Manual for Medical Students,’ which was afterwards, with his consent, edited by Dr. John Steggall. Having qualified as a surgeon in 1825, he was, next year, appointed lecturer on chemistry at the dispensary, and soon after ceased for some years to publish, devoting much of his time to the collection of materials for his great work on materia medica. In 1828 he became a fellow of the Linnean Society. A powerful man, with an iron constitution, he rose at six in the morning, and for many years worked sixteen hours a day. He took lessons in French and German for the purposes of his work, and, though possessing a very retentive memory, made copious notes on all he read. In 1828 he began to lecture on materia medica at Aldersgate Street, and until about 1841, he delivered two or three lectures every day.
On his marriage, in September 1832, he resigned to his brother the post of apothecary to the dispensary, and began to practise as a surgeon in Aldersgate Street; but in the winter of the same year he was made professor of materia medica in the new medical school which took the place of the Aldersgate Street dispensary; and, in 1833, was chosen to succeed Dr. Gordon as lecturer on chemistry at the London Hospital. His lectures on materia medica were printed in the ‘Medical Gazette’ between 1835 and 1837, translated into German, and republished in India. In 1838 he was elected fellow of the Royal Society. The two parts of his magnum opus, ‘The Elements of Materia Medica,’ first appeared in 1839 and 1840, and in the former year he was made examiner in materia medica to the university of London. He was offered the chair of chemistry and materia medica at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, but declined it on being required to resign all other posts. At this time he was making 1,000l. a year by his lectures, and had so large a class at Aldersgate Street that he built a new theatre for them at a cost of 700l. Nevertheless, in 1840 he resolved to leave London for two years in order to graduate at a Scottish university, but changed his plans to become a candidate for a vacant assistant-physicianship at the London Hospital. Within a fortnight he prepared for and passed the examination for the licentiateship of the College of Physicians—a needful qualification. About the same time he obtained the diploma of M.D. from Erlangen, and was elected to the post he sought. On the foundation of the Pharmaceutical Society in 1842, he gave two lectures at their
