John Bunnell Davis

John Bunnell Davis (1780–1824) was an English physician, now regarded as a pioneer of paediatrics in the United Kingdom.

[1] He published early work on child mortality, and was a founder of the dispensary that became the Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women (in operation to 1976).

[2] Soon after receiving his diploma he went as medical attendant to a family travelling in France during the Peace of Amiens.

In confinement at Verdun, he published Observations on Precipitate Burial and the Diagnosis of Death.

[2] Davis played a large part in establishing the funding of the dispensary—Universal in that it took as patients children under 12 from anywhere, in cases of suffering not requiring a recommendation—by assiduous letter-writing.

Successors included Thomas Copeland, Robert Bentley Todd, and Charles West who went on to found Great Ormond Street Hospital.

The character of the institution changed in 1856, with annual donations from the Hayles Estate charity (see Walcot Foundation): it admitted inpatients for the first time, and its title increased its scope to "Children and Women".