Thomas Bellot

Thomas Bellot (1806 to 1857) was an English naval surgeon and philologist. Born in Manchester, the son of a surgeon of the same name, he was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1828 and entered active naval service in 1831. His postings took him from the straits of Malacca to the African slave trade patrols, the West Indies, the coast of China and the Black Sea, and in 1849 he had medical charge of a convict ship carrying 365 prisoners to Sydney, where he kept cholera in check. He was elected a fellow of the college by honorary vote in 1844. Alongside his medical career he studied languages, translated the Aphorisms of Hippocrates and of Galen on the Hand, and published a work on Sanskrit derivations of English words in 1856. He died in June 1857.