Addison, Thomas (1793-1863)

British physician who first recognized the condition known as Addison's disease in 1855. He was the first to correlate a collection of symptoms with pathological changes in an endocrine gland. He is also known for his discovery of what is now called pernicious (or Addison's) anaemia. Addison was born in Longbenton, Northumberland, and studied medicine at Edinburgh and at Guy's Hospital, London, where he remained for the rest of his life. He gave a preliminary account of Addison's disease in 1849, and more fully in On the Constitutional and Local Effects of Disease of the Suprarenal Capsules 1855, differentiating it from pernicious anaemia. Addison also described xanthoma (flat, soft spots that appear on the skin, usually on the eyelids) and wrote about other skin diseases, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and the anatomy of the lung. In collaboration with John Morgan (1797-1847), he wrote An Essay on the Operation of Poisonous Agents Upon the Living Body (1829), the first book on this subject to be published in English. And in 1839 appeared the first volume of Elements of the Practice of Medicine, written by Addison and Richard Bright, also at Guy's. In this volume Addison gave the first full description of appendicitis.