[2] His father was a rigid dissenter who, because of his religious beliefs, would not allow his son to attend Oxford or Cambridge.
[citation needed] He, however, received a good classical education and, having been apprenticed to his father, became a member of the Society of Apothecaries.
He studied under Dr. Pitcairn and Mr. Pott at St Bartholomew’s, Dr. Saunders at Guy's, and Mr. John Hunter at St. George's hospitals.
A general report authored under Adams' inspection and circulated by the committee of the hospital, helped remove alarm and inspire confidence.
He contended that the character of the disease might change depending on the pustule used as a vaccine source, and that inoculations from cases of what he called pearl smallpox caused mild affections difficult to distinguish from those cowpox.
He is buried in Bunhill Fields, with the simple motto, "Vir Justus et bonus," inscribed on his tomb.
Anthropologist Kenneth M. Weiss has written: Darwin and Wallace were, to the best of my knowledge, wholly unaware of Adams, though in many ways he was ahead of them in time.
He had a clearer understanding of the nature of the hereditary mechanisms underpinning evolution, even if, as a physician, he did not discuss the transmutation of species.