John Allen (physician)

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John Allen (also called John Alleyn) (1660?–1741) was an English doctor and inventor, best known for his medical books. His exact birth date is unknown. He earned an M.D., though the university is not clear, and he became an extra-licentiate of the College of Physicians on 13 September 1692. He practiced medicine and apparently died in Bridgwater, Somerset, on 16 September 1741.

In 1719 he published Synopsis universæ Medicinæ practicæ; sive doctissimorum virorum de morbis eorumque causis ac remediis judicia. The work was very popular and was printed in many editions both in Latin and in translations. It was practical and did not claim originality; for each disease it gathered the opinions of various authors, with Allen adding his own notes in later editions.

Allen also published Specimina Ichnographica, a short account of several new inventions and experiments. The inventions described were: (1) a method to save coal in the fire-turned steam engine used to raise water by fire by placing the fire inside the boiler; (2) a proposal to place such an engine on a ship and propel the vessel by expelling water from the stern, potentially an early steamship; and (3) a new method for drying malt. These ideas were patented in 1729. He is also said to have built a new model of a chariot on steel springs.

In 1730 Allen was elected a fellow of the Royal Society; in 1716 he had sent them a paper describing a “Perpetual Log” for ships. He died on 16 September 1741. His son Benjamin Allen later served as Member of Parliament for Bridgwater.