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JOHN KIDD (1775-1851)
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KIDD, JOHN (1775-1851), English physician, chemist and geologist, born at Westminster on the loth of September 1775, was the son of a naval officer, Captain, John Kidd. He was educated at Bury St Edmunds and Westminster, and after-wards at Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated B.A. in 1797 (M.D. in 1804). He also studied at Guy's Hospital, London (1797-1801), where he was a pupil of Sir Astley Cooper. He became reader in chemistry at Oxford in 18o1, and in 1803 was elected the first Aldrichian professor of chemistry. He then voluntarily gave courses of lectures on mineralogy and geology: these were delivered in the dark chambers under the Ashmelean Museum, and there J. J. and W. D. Conybeare, W. Buckland, C. G. B. Daubeny and others gained their first lessons in geology. Kidd was a popular and instructive lecturer, and through his efforts the geological chair, first held by Buckland, was established. In 1818 he became a F. R. C. P.; in 1822 regius professor of medicine in succession to Sir Christopher Pegge; and in 1834 he was appointed keeper of the Radcliffe Library. He delivered the Harveian oration before the Royal College of Physicians in 1834. He died at Oxford on the 7th of September 1851.