John Abernethy (3 April 1764 – 20 April 1831) was an English surgeon. He is popularly remembered for having given his name to the Abernethy biscuit, a coarse-meal baked good meant to aid digestion.
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Life
John Abernethy was the grandson of John Abernethy. He was born in Coleman Street in the City of London on 3 April 1764, where his father was a merchant. Educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School, he was apprenticed in 1779 to Sir Charles Blicke (1745–1815), a surgeon at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He attended the anatomical lectures of Sir William Blizard (1743–1835) at the London Hospital, and was employed to assist as demonstrator; he also attended Percivall Pott's surgical lectures at St Bartholomew's Hospital, as well as the lectures of John Hunter. On Pott's resignation of the office of surgeon of St Bartholomew's, Sir Charles Blicke, who was assistant-surgeon, succeeded him, and Abernethy was elected assistant-surgeon in 1787.
In this capacity Abernethy began to give lectures at his house in Bartholomew Close, which were so well attended that the governors of the hospital built a theatre (1790–1791), and Abernethy thus became the founder of the medical school of St Bartholomew's. He held the office of assistant-surgeon for twenty-eight years, until, in 1815, he was elected principal surgeon. He had before that time been appointed lecturer in anatomy to the Royal College of Surgeons (1814). Abernethy was not a great operator, though his name is associated with the treatment of aneurysm by ligature of the external iliac artery.