Theophilus Lobb


Theophilus Lobb was an English physician, known as a medical and as a religious writer.

Life

Born in London on 17 August 1678, he was the son of Stephen Lobb, by the daughter of Theophilus Polwhele, nonconformist minister at Tiverton in Devon. He was educated for the ministry under Thomas Goodwin the younger at Pinner, Middlesex. In 1702 he settled as a nonconformist minister at Guildford, Surrey, and there came to know a physician, from whom he received medical instruction.
About 1706 Lobb moved to Shaftesbury in Dorset, where he began to practise as a physician. In 1713 he settled at Yeovil, Somerset, and practised with success, while still continuing his ministry. Dissensions in his Yeovil congregation caused him in 1722 to move to Witham, Essex. On 20 June of that year he was created M.D. by the University of Glasgow, and he was admitted a Fellow of the Royal Society on 13 March 1729.
In 1732 Lobb received a call from the congregation at Haberdashers' Hall, London, but after his ministry had failed to prove acceptable he concentrated to physic from about 1736. On 30 Sept. 1740 he was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, and practised thenceforth in London. On 21 May 1762 a patent was granted to him "for a tincture to preserve the blood from diziness, and a saline scorbutic acrimony".
Lobb died in the parish of Christ Church, London, on 19 May 1763, and was buried in Bunhill Fields.

Works

Lobb's religious writings included:
His medical works were:
In 1767 Lobb's brother-in-law, the Rev. John Greene of Chelmsford, Essex, published The Power of Faith and Godliness exemplified in some Memoirs of Theophilus Lobb. It consisted mainly of extracts from Lobb's diary.

Family

Lobb married, first, Frances, daughter of James Cooke, physician, of Shepton Mallet, Somerset; and secondly, in 1723, a lady who died on 2 February 1760. He left no issue, and willed the profits from his tincture to his niece, Elizabeth Buckland.