Richard Morton (physician)

Richard Morton (1637–1698) was an English physician who was the first to state that tubercles were always present in the tuberculosis disease of the lungs.

He was born in Worcestershire, England and, having trained at Oxford's Magdalen Hall, elected to enter the Church, becoming Vicar of Kinver in Staffordshire.

His landmark paper Phthisiologia, seu exercitationes de phthisi, tribus libris comprehensæ.

Totumque opus variis historiis illustratum was published in Latin in 1689, with an English translation appearing in 1694.

Medicine of that time was deferential to the ideas of Galen and so Morton understandably mistook tubercles for being caused by glandular degenerations; mycobacterium tuberculosis not being identified until 1882 by Robert Koch.