Charles James Blasius Williams

Charles James Blasius Williams (3 February 1805 – 24 March 1889) was an English physician. He was an early adopter of new techniques of physical examination, and became known as a specialist in diseases of the chest.

He was the eighth child of the Rev. David Williams (1751–1836), born in the Hungerford almshouse in Wiltshire; his father, an uncle of John Williams (1792–1858) the archdeacon of Cardigan, was warden of the almshouse and curate of Heytesbury. His mother, whose maiden name was also Williams, was daughter of a surgeon in Chepstow, Monmouthshire. His father was a successful private tutor, and educated him at home; he entered the University of Edinburgh in 1820. He was there a resident pupil of Dr. John Thomson (1765–1846), and was influenced in his reading by Dr. Robert Herbert Brabant of Devizes, then living in Edinburgh. His inaugural dissertation for the degree of M.D., which he took in 1824, was On the Blood and its Changes by Respiration and Secretion.

Williams went to London, but in 1825 travelled to Paris, where he worked at drawing as well as at medicine. He attended René Laennec's clinic at the Hôpital de la Charité, and acquired the new methods of physical examination of the chest. While he was not the first British physician to use the stethoscope, which was used earlier by Thomas Davies, Williams became an important pioneer in auscultation, and was led to research heart and lung sounds, going further than Laennec. In 1827 he came back to London; he travelled with Gilbert Elliot, 2nd Earl of Minto, to Switzerland, and on his return married, in 1830, Harriet Williams Jenkins, daughter of James Jenkins of Chepstow.

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