Benjamin Marten

Benjamin Marten (c.1690–1752) was an English physician from "Theobald's Row" near Red Lyon Square, Holborn, and one of several sons of a tailor.

In 1720 he conjectured in "A New Theory of Consumptions - More Especially a Phthisis or Consumption of the Lungs", that tuberculosis may be caused by "wonderfully minute living creatures" that could lead to the lesions symptomatic of the disease, thereby expressing the theory of contagium vivum or 'living contagion'.

At that time degrees did not require formal courses or examinations and were routinely conferred after recommendation and on application, and on payment of a prescribed fee.

Thus a notice appeared in "Officers and Graduates of University and King's College, Aberdeen" on 9 December 1717 stating that a Benjamin Marten had paid the requisite fee and had been issued with a diploma.

[4] Benjamin married Hannah Fisher, a spinster of St Botolph Aldersgate, on 17 November 1716.