Edwin Lankester
Edwin Lankester (* April 23, 1814 in Melton, Suffolk, † October 30, 1874 in Margate ) was a British physician, natural scientist and reformer of health care. His son is the zoologist Ray Lankester.
Life and work
Edwin Lankester was a son of the architect William Lankester (1791-1818) and his wife Susan, née Taylor. As Lankester was four years old his father died. Up to the age of twelve he received a rudimentary education. 1826 was his mother, landlady of the Royal Oak Inn in Woodbridge. There Lanke Marketers began an apprenticeship at the doctor Samuel Gissing, which lasted until 1832. In 1833 he became assistant to Thomas Spurgeon in Saffron Walden, the very looked after the education of Lankester. With the financial support of some pleasure he studied from 1834 at the University College London Medical. There he heard, among other things Botany at John Lindley and Comparative Anatomy at Robert Edmond Grant. In 1837 he passed the exams at the Royal College of Surgeons and was awarded a license by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. By Lindley mediation Lankester got a job as a personal physician and teacher in the family of Charles Wood of Campsall Hall, in Doncaster. There he wrote his 1842 published book about the mineral springs of Askern. 1839 Lankester held for six months in Heidelberg. There he learned the German language and issued its final Medicinae Baccalaureus as from. After his return he settled in London in, lectured and wrote for the Daily News, here mainly to support products to the medical reforms of Thomas Wakley, and the Athenaeum. He met Charles Dickens, Douglas William Jerrold, and the botanist Arthur Henfrey (1820-1859) know and one of the founding members of the company founded by Edward Forbes 1839 Red Lion Club. From 1839 to 1864 was Lankester secretary in charge of Botany and Zoology Section D of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1840 he became a member of the Linnean Society of London. From 1842 to at least 1856 Lankester was a lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine St George's. In 1844 he became secretary of the newly formed Ray Society. For this he gave The Memorials of John Ray (1845 ) out. On December 18, 1845 Lankester was finally admitted as a member of the Royal Society.
On July 3, 1845, he married Phebe Pope ( 1825-1900 ), the eldest daughter of Samuel Pope from Highbury. With her Lankester had eleven children. My oldest son is the zoologist Ray Lankester.
1850 Lankester was appointed professor of natural sciences at the newly founded New College, London. He held until 1872 this position. He wrote for numerous encyclopedias, including the Penny Cyclopaedia and the English Cyclopaedia and wrote popular scientific treatises, such as the 1845 published The Natural History of Plants Yielding food. Matthias Jacob Schleiden Lankester translated Broad Scientific Botany (1849 ) and Friedrich KÜCHENMEISTER The in and on the body of the living man occurring parasites ( 1855) into English. From 1852 to 1871 he was associate editor of the Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science. 1859 and 1860 he served as president of the Microscopical Society of London, and in 1865 as President of the Quekett Microscopical Club. 1859 Lankester published the first edition of his book Half Hours with the Microscope, which became popular quickly. In the same year he was appointed inspector of Botany for newly established by the Science and Art Department of the British government teacher training. The year before Lankester as the successor of Lyon Playfair Superintendent of food collection at the South Kensington Museum was. He held this position until 1862. He was on the jury of international exhibitions of 1851 and 1862.
During the London cholera outbreak of 1854 Lankester enabled the physician John Snow carry out an epidemiological study. In addition, he examined himself the microscope water samples. From 1856 he was Medical Officer of Health of St James's. As a member of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, he played an important role in their conversion to the British Medical Association and in the preparation of the Medical Act of 1858. On July 9, 1862 Lankester was appointed Coroner for Central Middlesex. His annual reports, he published in 1865 he founded and until his death, published the Journal of Social Science.
Lankester died from diabetes and was buried in Hampstead.
Ehrentaxon
John Lindley named in his honor in 1845, the plant genus Lanke Steria from the family Acanthaceae.
Writings (selection )
- An account of Askern and its mineral springs; together with a sketch of the natural history, and a letter topography, of the immediate neighborhood. J. Churchill, London 1842, ( online)
- The Natural History of Plants Yielding food. 1845
- The aquavivarium, fresh and marine; being an account of the principles and objects Involved in the domestic culture of water plants and animals. Robert Hardwicke, London 1856 ( online).
- A guide to the food collection in the South Kensington Museum. 1st edition, [ George E. Eyre and William Spottiswoode ], London, 1859.
- Half- hours with the microscope; being a popular guide to the use of the microscope as a Means of amusement and instruction. 1st Edition, Robert Hardwicke, London (online).
- Cholera: what is it? and how to preventDefault it. G. Routledge & Sons, 1866 ( online).
- Good food. What it is, and how to get it. G. Routledge, London / New York 1867.
- A school manual of health. Being an introduction to the elementary principles of physiology. Groombridge & Sons, London 1868.
- Vegetable physiology. In a series of easy lessons. Cassell, Petter, Galpin &, London.
- Memorials of John Ray, Consisting of his life. Ray Society, London 1846 (online).
- The correspondence of John Ray, Consisting of selections from the philosophical letters published by Dr. Derham and original letters of John Ray in the collection of the British Museum. Ray Society, London, 1848 (online).
- William McGillivray: The Natural History of Dee Side and Braemar. London 1855 (online).
- Haydn 's dictionary of popular medicine and hygiene; Comprising all possible self -aids in accidents and disease: being a companion for the traveler, emigrant, and clergyman, as well as for the heads of all families and institutions. 1st edition, Moxon, London, 1874.
- Matthias Jacob Schleiden: Principles of scientific botany, or, Botany as to inductive science. Longman, Brown, Green, & Longmans, London 1849 (online).
- Friedrich chef: On animal and vegetable parasites of the human body, a manual of Their natural history, diagnosis, and treatment. Sydenham Society, London, 1857 (online).