Richard Russell (doctor)

Richard Russell (26 November 1687[1] – 1759)[2][a]was an 18th-century British physician who encouraged his patients to use a form of water therapy that involved the submersion or bathing in, and drinking of, seawater.

[2][5] In 1750, he published a Latin dissertation De Tabe Glandulari, in which he recommended the use of seawater for the cure of enlarged lymphatic glands.

This was translated into English in 1752[2][5] as Glandular Diseases, or a Dissertation on the Use of Sea Water in the Affections of the Glands by W. Owen in London,[8][9] and in 1769 it reached a sixth edition.

[8][5] It was the first book to make a connection between drinking and bathing in seawater and improvements in health.

[15][16] The red-brick, gabled structure was Brighton's largest house to date, and accommodated both patients and Russell himself.

[19] After Russell's death in 1759, his house was rented to seasonal visitors, including the brother of George III the Duke of Cumberland in 1779.

A condition of the inheritance was that he had to change his name to Kempe, that of his maternal grandfather, 'if he was to enjoy the estate settled on his mother'.