Thomas Wharton

Thomas Wharton (1614–1673) was an English physician and anatomist best known for his descriptions of the submandibular duct (one of the salivary ducts) and Wharton's jelly of the umbilical cord. Life He was the only son of John Wharton (d. 10 June 1629) by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Roger Hodson (d. 10 March 1646) of Fountains Abbey, and was born at Winston-on-Tees, county Durham, on 31 August 1614. He was admitted at Pembroke College, Cambridge, on 4 July 1638, and matriculated two days later. He afterwards migrated to Trinity College, Oxford, where he acted for some time as tutor to John Scrope, natural son of Emanuel Scrope, 1st Earl of Sunderland. In 1642 he went to Bolton, where he remained three years studying; and then, having decided upon his future profession, removed to London and studied medicine under John Bathurst In 1646 he returned to Oxford, and was created M.D. on 7 May 1647. He was entered as a candidate of the College of Physicians on 25 January 1648, chosen fellow on 23 December 1650, incorporated at Cambridge on his doctor's degree in 1652, and held the post of censor of the Royal College of Physicians in 1658, 1661, 1666, 1667, 1668, and 1673.