Jonathan Wathen (surgeon)

Jonathan Wathen (c.1728-1808) was an English surgeon, who specialized in diseases of the eye and practiced in London during the Georgian era. He was teacher and mentor to the ophthalmologist James Ware, and Sir Jonathan Wathen Waller, the oculist to George III.

Jonathan Wathen was born in 1727 or 1728, most likely in Stroud, Gloucestershire, to Jonathan Wathen, a wealthy clothier of Stroud, and his wife Sarah Watkins. He apprenticed about 1745 under his older brother, Samuel Wathen, M.D., a well-known London physician whose patients included the Rev. John Wesley and Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III. Their association lasted ten years or more, and it is likely that at some point Jonathan graduated from apprentice to partner. Samuel's practice in 1751 was located at Devonshire Square in London, and Jonathan is listed in 1755 at the same address as well. The two also practiced side by side for many years at the City of London Lying-in Hospital, and later they practiced together at the Magdalen Hospital as well.

Jonathan presented a paper in 1755 to the Royal Society on a method of restoring hearing by using a catheter to clear a blocked eustachian tube (i.e., the canal that runs from the nose to the ear). Although he made this presentation to the Society, he was never admitted there as a Fellow. However, he was elected a Fellow to the Society of Antiquaries of London. Eventually, Jonathan and his brother established separate practices, with Jonathan ending up at Bond-court, in Walbrook, London, and Samuel at Great Cumberland Street in St. Marylebone. In addition, Jonathan became a surgeon in 1770 at the London Magdalen Hospital, which was an institution to rehabilitate prostitutes, and this may have been an extension of his earlier work at the Lying-in Hospital. Presumably he carried on his duties at these institutions in conjunction with his private practice.

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