Robert Bentley Todd

Robert Bentley Todd
Robert Bentley Todd
Born	9 April 1809 Dublin, Ireland
Died	30 January 1860(1860-01-30) (aged 50) London, England
Fields	medicine
Alma mater	Trinity College, Dublin BA, Pembroke College, Oxford MS, BM, DM
Known for	Todd's palsy

Robert Bentley Todd (9 April 1809 – 30 January 1860) was an Irish-born physician who is best known for describing the condition postictal paralysis in his Lumleian Lectures in 1849 now known as Todd's palsy. He was the younger brother of noted writer and minister James Henthorn Todd.

The son of physician Charles Hawkes Todd (1784 - 1826) and Eliza Bentley (1783 - ), Robert was born in Dublin, Ireland, 9 April 1809. He attended day school and was tutored by the Rev. William Higgin (1793 - 1867), who was afterwards the bishop of Derry & Raphoe. Todd entered Trinity College in 1825, intending to study for the bar. When his father died the next year, he switched to medicine and became a resident pupil at a hospital in Dublin. He was a student of Robert Graves, and graduated B.A. at Trinity in 1829. He became licensed at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland two years later.

He then moved to London, where he practised medicine and lectured. He received a M.S. at Pembroke College, Oxford in 1832, a B.M. the following year, and a D.M. in 1836. He travelled widely in Europe, lecturing and becoming acquainted with a number of eminent men in his field. He took the license of the Royal College of Physicians in 1833, became a Fellow in 1837, and a Censor in 1839–40. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society and served on the council in 1838-9. In 1836-7 he served on a sub-committee of the British Association to inquire into the motions of the heart, and in 1839–40 was Examiner for the University of London. In 1844 he was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons.

Todd's abiding interests were in physiological medicine (a field then in its infancy) and in the improvement of hospital nursing, and always held to a high standard of general and religious knowledge. He became a Professor at King's College London in 1836 and was prominent in the opening of King's College Hospital in 1840, and in the founding of its new building in 1851. It was largely through his advocacy that the Sisters of St. John's commenced nursing at King's College Hospital.