Dover, Thomas (1664–1742)

British physician and sea captain. Dover is chiefly remembered for rescuing Alexander Selkirk, the model for Daniel Defoe's castaway Robinson Crusoe, from five years' solitude on Juan Fernandez island in the South Pacific in 1709.

Dover was also the originator of ‘Dover's powder’, a preparation of opium and ipecacuanha used to relieve pain and induce sweating.

Dover was born in Warwickshire, and qualified in medicine at Cambridge in 1687. After some years as a doctor in Bristol, he took command of a privateer sailing for the South Seas in 1708; during this voyage he found Selkirk. On his return in 1711, he resumed his medical practice in Bristol and later in London, where he died.