Walter Harris, MD, was born in the city of Gloucester in 1647, and educated at Winchester school, whence he was elected to New college, Oxford, of which society he was subsequently a fellow. He proceeded bachelor of arts 10th October, 1670. Having embraced the doctrines of the church of Rome, he, in 1673, resigned his fellowship at New college, devoted himself to medicine, went over to the Continent, and on the 20th July, 1675, proceeded doctor of medicine at Bourges in France. In the following year Dr Harris settled in London, and commenced practice chiefly among the members of his adopted church. When, in consequence of Oates’s plot, in 1678, all Catholics were ordered to leave the metropolis, he seceded from the church of Rome, and published a pamphlet entitled A Farewell to Popery. 4to. Lond. 1679.
Dr Harris was incorporated on his doctor’s degree at Cambridge in 1679; was admitted a Candidate of the College of Physicians 5th April, 1680; and a Fellow 30th September, 1682. He was Censor in 1688, 1698, 1700, 1704, 1714; Elect, 28th June, 1705, in place of Dr Lawson; Harveian orator in 1699, again in 1707, 1713, and for the fourth time in 1726; Treasurer, 1714, 1715, 1716, 1717: and Consiliarius from 1711 uninterruptedly to his death, which occurred in Red Lion-square, 1st August, 1732.
Dr Harris was appointed Lumleian lecturer 23rd October, 1710, and held that office as long as he lived. Most of the works, to be presently mentioned, consisted of the substance of the lectures he had delivered at the College. At the Revolution he was, on the recommendation of archbishop Tillotson, appointed physician to king William III. Dr Harris’s published works were as follow:-
Pharmacologia Anti-empirica; or, a Rational Discourse of Remedies, both Chemical and Galenical. 8vo. Lond. 1683.
De Morbis Acutis Infantum. 8vo. Amstel. 1698.
De Morbis aliquot Gravioribus Observationes. 8vo. Lond. 1720.
De Peste Dissertatio, cui accessit Descriptio Inoculationis Variolarum. Lond. 1721.
Dissertationes Medicæ et Chirurgicæ. 8vo. Lond. 1725.
William Munk