William Henry Flower

Sir William Henry Flower

Sir William Henry Flower (born November 30, 1831 in Stratford-upon-Avon , † July 1, 1899 in London ) was an English doctor .

Live and act

William Henry Flower was the second son of the brewery owner Edward Fordham Flower (1805-1883) and his wife Celina Greaves (1804-1884). His brother was Charles Edward Flower (1830-1892). In 1849 Flower was enrolled at University College London to study zoology, where he studied physiology with William Sharpey . In the same year he began his medical training at Middlesex Hospital . In 1851 he passed the University College exams for the Baccalaureus Artium . March 27, 1854 Flower became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons . A month later, on April 28, 1854, he joined the medical department of the British Army and was assistant surgeon with the 63rd Foot Regiment during the Crimean War . Due to health problems, however, he left the service on May 1, 1855 and returned to England. In May 1857 Flower passed the exams for admission as a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England .

In 1858 Flower married the youngest daughter of the astronomer and hydrographer William Henry Smyth . From 1858 to 1861 he worked as an assistant surgeon at Middlesex Hospital and was curator of the Middlesex Hospital Museum . After the death of John Thomas Quekett (1815–1861) he became curator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (Hunter Museum) in September 1861, a position he held until March 13, 1884. As the successor to Thomas Henry Huxley Flower was from 1870 to 1884 Hunter Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology. After Richard Owen resigned from the post of director of the Natural History Museum , he acted as the museum's new director from June 1884 to July 1889. At the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in Newcastle from September 11 to 18, 1889 , Flower held the position of president.

William Henry Flower was a member of numerous scientific societies. He was a member of the Council of the Zoological Society of London from 1962 to 1869, from 1876 to 1899 and from February 5, 1879 until his death its president. On March 20, 1862 he was elected a Fellow of the London Linnaeus Society . On June 2, 1864 he became a Fellow of the Royal Society , for which he served as a member of the council from 1868 to 1870, 1876 to 1878 and 1884 to 1886. The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland elected him their President for a term from 1883 to 1885. Since 1895 he was a corresponding member of the Académie des sciences in Paris and since 1897 honorary member ( Honorary Fellow ) of the Royal Society of Edinburgh .

Honors

Flower received the Royal Medal in 1882 "for his valuable contributions to the morphology and classification of mammals and to anthropology" . On June 21, 1887 he was accepted as a Companion (CB) in the Bath Order and knighted as Knight Commander (KCB) of the same order on August 20, 1892 . From 1898 he was a holder of the Prussian order Pour le Mérite for science and the arts .

Works (selection)

Books

• Diagrams of the nerves of the human body exhibiting their origin, divisions and connections, with their distribution to the various regions of the cutaneous surface and to all the muscles . Churchill, London 1861.
• An Introduction to the Osteology of the Mammalia . London 1870, 1885 edition
• Fashion in Deformity: As illustrated in the customs of barbarous and civilized races . 1882, online .
• The Horse: a Study in Natural History . 1890. online
• Introduction to the Study of Mammals, Living and Extinct . London 1891. - with Richard Lydekker , online
• Essays on Museums and Other Subjects . London 1898, online

Magazine articles

• On the Posterior Lobes of the Cerebrum of the Quadrumana . In: Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London . Volume 152, 1862, pp. 185-201. On-line
• On the Brain of the Javan Loris (Stenops javenicus) . In: Proceedings of the Zoological Society London . London 1862, pp. 103-105.
• On the Brain of the Siamang . In: Natural History Review Volume 3, London 1863, pp. 279-287.
• On the brain of the red Howling Monkey (Alouatta seniculus) . In: Proceedings of the Zoological Society London . London 1864, pp. 335-338.

proof

• Frederic Boase: Modern English Biography: Containing Many Thousand Concise Memoirs of Persons who Have Died Since the Year 1850, with an Index of the most Interesting Matter . Netherton & Worth, Truro: 1892–1921, 6 volumes.
• Obituary: Sir William Henry Flower, KCB, FRS, FRCS . In: British medical journal . Volume 2, 1899, pp. 123-124, doi : 10.1136 / bmj.2.2010.123 .

further reading

• Charles J. Cornish: Sir William Henry Flower KCB: A Personal Memoir . Macmillan: London 1904, online .
• Richard Lydekker: Sir William Flower . Dent, London & Dutton, NY 1906, online .
• Royal Society: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London: Containing Obituaries of Deceased Fellows, Chiefly for the Period 1898-1904. With a General Index to Previous Obituary Notices . Volume 75, Harrison, London 1905, pp. 72-89.
• John Leyland (Ed.): Contemporary Medical Men and Their Professional Work: Biographies of Leading Physicians and Surgeons . Provincial Medical Journal, Leicester 1888, 2 volumes. (with detailed bibliography)

Web links

• Entry to flower; Sir; William Henry (1831-1899) in the Archives of the Royal Society , London

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