Life

He was born in 1789 at Coventry

Coventry

Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...

 in England, where his father George Burder

George Burder

George Burder was an English Nonconformist divine.-Biography:Burder was born in London on the 5 June 1752. In his early twenties he was an engraver, but in 1776 he began preaching, and was minister of the Independent church at Lancaster from 1778 to 1783. Subsequently he held charges at Coventry ...

 was a Congregationalist minister. He originally wanted to become a chemist, but after a while he decided to pursue the medical profession. Burder went to the University of Edinburgh

University of Edinburgh

The University of Edinburgh, founded in 1583, is a public research university located in Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The university is deeply embedded in the fabric of the city, with many of the buildings in the historic Old Town belonging to the university...

 in 1812, and took the degree of M.D. in 1815. While in Edinburgh Burder was elected president of the Royal Medical Society

Royal Medical Society

The Royal Medical Society is the oldest medical society in the United Kingdom . Known originally as 'the Medical Society' when it was established in 1737, it was granted a Royal Charter in 1778...

.

He suffered from poor health. He settled in London as a physician, and was for a time attached to the Westminster General Dispensary; he had to take respites from medical work. He had married his cousin, Elizabeth Burder, in 1828, and his father George had passed the last four years of his life under their roof. After his death in 1832 Dr. Burder began to think seriously of leaving London, and this plan he carried out in 1834. He died at Tunbridge Wells in 1843 at the age of 54 He left no family, and his widow died in the following year.

Work

He was one of the writers in the Cyclopædia of Practical Medicine (1833–5), and the materials for one of his articles (‘Headache’) were drawn from his own experience.

Burder is noted for a series of letters, combined into a work entitled Burder's Letters from a Senior to a Junior Physician: on the Importance of Promoting the Religious Welfare of his Patients. After he had finally given up his profession a suggestion from James Hope induced him to address to him three letters, which appeared in the Evangelical Magazine for 1836.

They were popular reading material among 19th century medical students and physicians. Burder;s Letters are didactic, with the listener from the opening dedication addressed as an anonymous “dear friend.” They were composed at Tilford

Tilford

Tilford is a small village about two miles south of Farnham in Surrey, England. It lies within the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty- History :The name "Tilford" is probably derived from "Tila's ford" or "Tilla's ford"....

 in Surrey

Surrey

Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

.