Ralph Fletcher (surgeon)

Ralph Fletcher (1780 – 8 February 1851) was an English surgeon and animal welfare writer. He authored the first casebook of psychosomatic medicine.

Biography
Fletcher was born in Gloucester. Fletcher was educated at St Bartholomew's Hospital and studied medicine at the Gloucester County Hospital under Charles Brandon Trye. He obtained his M.D. from the University of Edinburgh. He established his own medical practice in Barton Street, Gloucester. Fletcher operated one of the finest consulting practices in England and his consultations extended beyond his county to the whole of South Wales. In 1811, he became surgeon to the Gloucester Infirmary and to the Gloucester Lunatic Asylum. He was promoted to consultant surgeon at the infirmary in 1833. He was mayor of Gloucester during 1818–1819 and 1828–1829.

Fletcher was able to recognise how emotional factors influence symptoms and the recovery from illness. In 1833, he published the first casebook of psychosomatic medicine. He described patients whose symptoms were psychosomatic and were cured without recourse to drugs or surgery.

Animal welfare
Fletcher took interest in animal welfare and was President of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Gloucester. In 1846, he authored an early work on animal welfare, A Few Notes on Cruelty to Animals. The book was positively reviewed in the London Medical Gazette, The Athenaeum and The Veterinary Record. The book exposed animal cruelties in the Gloucester area such as badger-baiting, cat mutilation, calves beaten, overloaded dog and donkey carts, horses beaten and over-worked, deer hunting and pig starvation. Fletcher recommended general hospitals for animals similar to human hospitals.

Fletcher commented that we should show respect for "the interest and feelings of every sentient being that holds life." Upon walking the streets of London, Fletcher would stop and look at poor jaded cab-horses and give a shilling to the cabman who was most attentive to his horses as a way of encouragement. He bequeathed £15 per annum to support the cats he had fed when he was alive.

Publications

 * Medico-Chirurgical Notes and Illustrations (1831)
 * Sketches from the Case Book: To Illustrate the Influence of the Mind on the Body (1833)
 * A Few Notes on Cruelty to Animals (1846)

Quotes
"There is a moral as well as a physical character to all animal life, however humble it may be, enveloped indeed in obscurity, and with a mysterious solemnity, which must ever belong to the secrets of the Eternal. Let us then approach with caution the unknown character of the brute, as being an emanation from Himself; and treat with tenderness and respect the helpless creatures derived from such a source."