Edwin Lankester
Encyclopedia
Edwin Lankester MRCS
, FRS (23 April 1814 – 30 October 1874) was an English
surgeon and naturalist who made a major contribution to the control of cholera
in London: he was the first public analyst in England.
in Suffolk
, to 'poor but clever parents' according to his son E. Ray Lankester (Lester 1995). His father was a builder.
Edwin married Phebe Pope in 1845, daughter of a former mill-owner. She was 19 at the time of marriage, became a botanist and microscopist, published books for children and wrote natural history articles. They had a total of eleven children of which eight survived, four boys and four girls. Thomas Henry Huxley became a close friend of the family, and visited often. John Stevens Henslow
, Darwin's tutor, was also a family friend. A born teacher, he introduced Edwin's son Ray to the delights of fossil collecting. Through his association with East Suffolk and his friendship with Henslow, Lankester became an early and active Honorary Member of the Ipswich Museum
, of which his son Ray Lankester was afterwards President (1901-1929).
E. B. Ford, the ecological geneticist, said of Edwin:
"Lankester was a close personal friend of Darwin
's and was so deeply impressed by him that he was determined that one of his sons should become a great biologist, He named all three of his sons suitably: Forbes, Ray
and Owen!" (p.338 in Mayr and Provine).
But, alas for this excellent story, Edwin had another son, his second, whom he named Rushton. Rushton emigrated to Java
, married, and raised a family, the only one of Edwin's offspring to do so. The lack of productivity in this otherwise capable family was distinctly unusual at that time.
. Spurgin raised £300 to enable Edwin to study medicine and science from 1834-7 at the new University College London
. He attended lectures by John Lindley
(botany) and Robert Edmund Grant (zoology) — to whose post Edwin's eldest son E. Ray Lankester succeeded in 1875. Grant had been one of Darwin's tutors at Edinburgh. Edwin's friends at UCL included William Jenner
and William Benjamin Carpenter
.
Edwin could not afford a complete degree course, so qualified as MRCS
and Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries. In 1837 he moved to Doncaster
to become resident medical attendant and science tutor to the Woods family of Campsall Hall, recommended by Lindley. The Woods family were "indifferent to religion and fervent Owenites" as he mentioned in a letter home. Robert Owen
actually visited Campsall Hall, and Lankester described the event in his diary.
In 1839 Lankester left the Woods and travelled to Heidelberg
to take his M.D., which he got in six months. Back in London, he befriended Edward Forbes
and Arthur Henfrey, the botanist. He practised medicine and wrote articles on botany, medicine and surgery for the Penny Cyclopaedia
. He contributed to the Biographical Dictionary, and wrote for other journals. As time went by, he became ever more fully absorbed in natural history.
In 1841 his study of sulphur bacteria
(then the 'glairine of sulphurous waters') was noteworthy, as was his microscopic examination of drinking water
. His book the Aquavivarium (1856) had a great vogue. He co-founded the important Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science
(QJMS) in 1853, and co-edited it with George Busk
, and later with his son Ray. Half-hours with the microscope (1857) was a best-seller, reprinted until 1918.
Edwin Lankester was President of the British Association for 25 years, and the founder of the Biological Section of the BA. He was present at the infamous Wilberforce-Huxley encounter in 1860. He was the first Secretary of the Ray Society
, with his wife as Assistant Secretary. In 1845 he was President of the Royal Microscopical Society, and that same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Twenty years later he became the first President of the Quekett Microscopical Club.
outbreaks had been identified by John Sutherland
(1808–1891) and Dr John Snow
(1813-1858; author of the famous map of water pumps near Broad Street
) the matter was not decided until Lankester established a committee to look into the latest outbreak. The Committee's report (1854) had sections written by Snow and the Reverend Henry Whitehead, a local curate
. They reached the conclusion that the outbreak was attributable to the use of impure water from the well in Broad Street.
In 1866, twelve years after the event, Dr. Lankester wrote "The Board of Guardians met to consult what ought to be done. Of that meeting, the late Dr. Snow demanded an audience. He was admitted and gave it as his opinion that the pump in Broad Street, and that pump alone, was the cause of all the pestilence. He was not believed: not a member of his own profession, not an individual in the parish believed that Snow was right. But the pump was closed nevertheless and the plague was stayed."
Lankester later became the first Medical Officer of Health for the St. James's district, the area where the outbreak occurred. It still took years before the public authorities acted to ensure the purity of water supply; Snow had been dead for over 30 years when the Chief Medical Office of Health at last acknowledged that his work on the transmission of cholera was one of the most significant medical discoveries of the 19th century.
Lankester's interest in this (beyond simple humanity) came through his microscopical examination of water, which is even today one of the standard tests of drinking water quality.
Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons
MRCS is a professional qualification for surgeons in the UK and IrelandIt means Member of the Royal College of Surgeons. In the United Kingdom, doctors who gain this qualification traditionally no longer use the title 'Dr' but start to use the title 'Mr', 'Mrs', 'Miss' or 'Ms'.There are 4 surgical...
, FRS (23 April 1814 – 30 October 1874) was an English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
surgeon and naturalist who made a major contribution to the control of cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
in London: he was the first public analyst in England.
Life
Edwin Lankester was born in 1814 in Melton, near WoodbridgeWoodbridge, Suffolk
Woodbridge is a town in Suffolk, East Anglia, England. It is in the East of England, not far from the coast. It lies along the River Deben, with a population of about 7,480. The town is served by Woodbridge railway station on the Ipswich-Lowestoft East Suffolk Line. Woodbridge is twinned with...
in Suffolk
Suffolk
Suffolk is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in East Anglia, England. It has borders with Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south. The North Sea lies to the east...
, to 'poor but clever parents' according to his son E. Ray Lankester (Lester 1995). His father was a builder.
Edwin married Phebe Pope in 1845, daughter of a former mill-owner. She was 19 at the time of marriage, became a botanist and microscopist, published books for children and wrote natural history articles. They had a total of eleven children of which eight survived, four boys and four girls. Thomas Henry Huxley became a close friend of the family, and visited often. John Stevens Henslow
John Stevens Henslow
John Stevens Henslow was an English clergyman, botanist and geologist. He is best remembered as friend and mentor to his pupil Charles Darwin.- Early life :...
, Darwin's tutor, was also a family friend. A born teacher, he introduced Edwin's son Ray to the delights of fossil collecting. Through his association with East Suffolk and his friendship with Henslow, Lankester became an early and active Honorary Member of the Ipswich Museum
Ipswich Museum
Ipswich Museum is a registered museum of culture, history and natural heritage located on High Street in Ipswich, the County Town of the English county of Suffolk...
, of which his son Ray Lankester was afterwards President (1901-1929).
E. B. Ford, the ecological geneticist, said of Edwin:
"Lankester was a close personal friend of Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
's and was so deeply impressed by him that he was determined that one of his sons should become a great biologist, He named all three of his sons suitably: Forbes, Ray
Ray Lankester
Sir E. Ray Lankester KCB, FRS was a British zoologist, born in London.An invertebrate zoologist and evolutionary biologist, he held chairs at University College London and Oxford University. He was the third Director of the Natural History Museum, and was awarded the Copley Medal of the Royal...
and Owen!" (p.338 in Mayr and Provine).
But, alas for this excellent story, Edwin had another son, his second, whom he named Rushton. Rushton emigrated to Java
Java
Java is an island of Indonesia. With a population of 135 million , it is the world's most populous island, and one of the most densely populated regions in the world. It is home to 60% of Indonesia's population. The Indonesian capital city, Jakarta, is in west Java...
, married, and raised a family, the only one of Edwin's offspring to do so. The lack of productivity in this otherwise capable family was distinctly unusual at that time.
Career
Apprenticed at first to a Mr. Ginney, a surgeon of Woodbridge, in 1832 he became Assistant to Thomas Spurgin of Saffron WaldenSaffron Walden
Saffron Walden is a medium-sized market town in the Uttlesford district of Essex, England. It is located north of Bishop's Stortford, south of Cambridge and approx north of London...
. Spurgin raised £300 to enable Edwin to study medicine and science from 1834-7 at the new University College London
University College London
University College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and the oldest and largest constituent college of the federal University of London...
. He attended lectures by John Lindley
John Lindley
John Lindley FRS was an English botanist, gardener and orchidologist.-Early years:Born in Catton, near Norwich, England, John Lindley was one of four children of George and Mary Lindley. George Lindley was a nurseryman and pomologist and ran a commercial nursery garden...
(botany) and Robert Edmund Grant (zoology) — to whose post Edwin's eldest son E. Ray Lankester succeeded in 1875. Grant had been one of Darwin's tutors at Edinburgh. Edwin's friends at UCL included William Jenner
William Jenner
William Jenner may refer to* William Jenner, 1st Baronet, English physician who discovered the distinction between typhus and typhoid* William E. Jenner, U.S. Senator from Indiana...
and William Benjamin Carpenter
William Benjamin Carpenter
William Benjamin Carpenter MD CB FRS was an English physician, invertebrate zoologist and physiologist. He was instrumental in the early stages of the unified University of London.-Life:...
.
Edwin could not afford a complete degree course, so qualified as MRCS
Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons
MRCS is a professional qualification for surgeons in the UK and IrelandIt means Member of the Royal College of Surgeons. In the United Kingdom, doctors who gain this qualification traditionally no longer use the title 'Dr' but start to use the title 'Mr', 'Mrs', 'Miss' or 'Ms'.There are 4 surgical...
and Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries. In 1837 he moved to Doncaster
Doncaster
Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...
to become resident medical attendant and science tutor to the Woods family of Campsall Hall, recommended by Lindley. The Woods family were "indifferent to religion and fervent Owenites" as he mentioned in a letter home. Robert Owen
Robert Owen
Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
actually visited Campsall Hall, and Lankester described the event in his diary.
In 1839 Lankester left the Woods and travelled to Heidelberg
Heidelberg
-Early history:Between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago, "Heidelberg Man" died at nearby Mauer. His jaw bone was discovered in 1907; with scientific dating, his remains were determined to be the earliest evidence of human life in Europe. In the 5th century BC, a Celtic fortress of refuge and place of...
to take his M.D., which he got in six months. Back in London, he befriended Edward Forbes
Edward Forbes
Professor Edward Forbes FRS, FGS was a Manx naturalist.-Early years:Forbes was born at Douglas, in the Isle of Man. While still a child, when not engaged in reading, or in the writing of verses and drawing of caricatures, he occupied himself with the collecting of insects, shells, minerals,...
and Arthur Henfrey, the botanist. He practised medicine and wrote articles on botany, medicine and surgery for the Penny Cyclopaedia
Penny Cyclopaedia
The Penny Cyclopædia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge was a multi-volume encyclopedia edited by George Long and published by Charles Knight alongside the Penny Magazine. The volumes were published from 1833 to 1843.-External links:...
. He contributed to the Biographical Dictionary, and wrote for other journals. As time went by, he became ever more fully absorbed in natural history.
In 1841 his study of sulphur bacteria
Bacteria
Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...
(then the 'glairine of sulphurous waters') was noteworthy, as was his microscopic examination of drinking water
Drinking water
Drinking water or potable water is water pure enough to be consumed or used with low risk of immediate or long term harm. In most developed countries, the water supplied to households, commerce and industry is all of drinking water standard, even though only a very small proportion is actually...
. His book the Aquavivarium (1856) had a great vogue. He co-founded the important Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science
Journal of Cell Science
The Journal of Cell Science is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in the field of cell biology. The journal is published by the The Company of Biologists with 24 annual issues....
(QJMS) in 1853, and co-edited it with George Busk
George Busk
George Busk RN FRS was a British Naval surgeon, zoologist and palaeontologist.-Biography:Busk was born in St Petersburg, the son of the merchant Robert Busk and grandson of Sir Wadsworth Busk...
, and later with his son Ray. Half-hours with the microscope (1857) was a best-seller, reprinted until 1918.
Edwin Lankester was President of the British Association for 25 years, and the founder of the Biological Section of the BA. He was present at the infamous Wilberforce-Huxley encounter in 1860. He was the first Secretary of the Ray Society
Ray Society
The Ray Society was instituted in 1844 and named after John Ray, the 17th century naturalist, as a scientific publishing organization whose activities are devoted mainly to the British flora and fauna. So far the Ray Society has published 169 volumes...
, with his wife as Assistant Secretary. In 1845 he was President of the Royal Microscopical Society, and that same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. Twenty years later he became the first President of the Quekett Microscopical Club.
Cholera
The cause of London's choleraCholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
outbreaks had been identified by John Sutherland
John Sutherland
John Andrew Sutherland is an English academic, emeritus professor, newspaper columnist and author.John Sutherland is now Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London. After graduating from the University of Leicester in 1964, he began his academic...
(1808–1891) and Dr John Snow
John Snow (physician)
John Snow was an English physician and a leader in the adoption of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. He is considered to be one of the fathers of epidemiology, because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, England, in 1854.-Early life and education:Snow was born 15 March...
(1813-1858; author of the famous map of water pumps near Broad Street
Broad Street
Broad Street may refer to:In the United Kingdom:*Broad Street , in London*Broad Street, Birmingham*Broad Street, Bristol*Broad Street, Oxford*Broad Street, Reading*Broad Street, Suffolk, hamlet near Groton...
) the matter was not decided until Lankester established a committee to look into the latest outbreak. The Committee's report (1854) had sections written by Snow and the Reverend Henry Whitehead, a local curate
Curate
A curate is a person who is invested with the care or cure of souls of a parish. In this sense "curate" correctly means a parish priest but in English-speaking countries a curate is an assistant to the parish priest...
. They reached the conclusion that the outbreak was attributable to the use of impure water from the well in Broad Street.
In 1866, twelve years after the event, Dr. Lankester wrote "The Board of Guardians met to consult what ought to be done. Of that meeting, the late Dr. Snow demanded an audience. He was admitted and gave it as his opinion that the pump in Broad Street, and that pump alone, was the cause of all the pestilence. He was not believed: not a member of his own profession, not an individual in the parish believed that Snow was right. But the pump was closed nevertheless and the plague was stayed."
Lankester later became the first Medical Officer of Health for the St. James's district, the area where the outbreak occurred. It still took years before the public authorities acted to ensure the purity of water supply; Snow had been dead for over 30 years when the Chief Medical Office of Health at last acknowledged that his work on the transmission of cholera was one of the most significant medical discoveries of the 19th century.
Lankester's interest in this (beyond simple humanity) came through his microscopical examination of water, which is even today one of the standard tests of drinking water quality.
Sources
- English, Mary P. Victorian Values: The Life and Times of Dr Edwin Lankester M.D., F.R.S. Biopress, Bristol 1990. ISBN 0-948737-14-X
- Lankester, Edwin. The Aquavivarium. 1856.
- Lankester, Edwin. Half-hours with the microscope. 1857.
- Lester, Joe E. Ray Lankester: the making of modern British biology (edited, with additions, by Peter J. Bowler). BSHS Monograph #9. 1995.
- Mayr, Ernst and Provine, William B. (eds) The evolutionary synthesis. Harvard 1980; 2nd ed 1998.
- Snow, John. On the mode of communication of Cholera. Churchill, London 1855.
- Vinten-Johansen, Peter et al. Cholera, chloroform, and the science of medicine: A Life of John Snow. Oxford 2003.