Robert Bentley Todd

Robert Bentley Todd ( born April 9, 1809 in Dublin, † January 30, 1860 in London) was an Irish physiologist and pathologist. According to him the Toddsche palsy is named.

Life

Todd was the second of 16 children of the distinguished Irish surgeon Charles Hawkes Todd, who was a professor of anatomy and surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. He received his early education first at Trinity College, Dublin, before moving to London in 1831. His studies he continued in Oxford at Pembroke College. Todd then traveled to France, Belgium and the Netherlands. In 1833 he received the approbation of the College of Physicians and 1836 he was with only 27 years professor of physiology and pathology at King's College London. From this position he acted as a resolute supporter of reform of the medical and particularly the nursing training. He himself was one of the three largest clinical teachers in Europe in his time. He played a key role in the foundation of King's College Hospital, which opened in 1840 and where he held clinical lectures until shortly before his death. In 1842 he became dean and transformed the medical faculty of King's College by one of the worst schools in London with only 42 students in 1836 to one of the most highly regarded with 169 students in 1853. Moreover, he contributed to the founding of the first London sister school of St. John 's House, in the year 1848. Robert Bentley Todd died in 1860 at the age of 50 years of gastrointestinal bleeding.

Work

Todd left significant works in which he was the first described example, the hypertrophic cirrhosis correctly recognized the sensory functions of the posterior columns, clear distinction between pure motor Plegien and ataxia and described the symptoms of lead poisoning. His own views on the genesis of epilepsy must be regarded as modern and groundbreaking. He undertook in this regard also own experiments, in which he caused, for example, epileptic seizures in rabbits with electricity. A close exchange with John Frederic Daniell was, Charles Wheatstone, and probably also with Michael Faraday.

Between 1835 and 1859 he published the Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, in which he afferently the Termini ( hinführend ) and efferent ( leading away ) introduced.