Charles West (physician)
| Charles West | |
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Charles West
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| Born |
8 August 1816 London, England |
| Died | 19 March 1898 (aged 81) Paris, France |
| Nationality | British |
| Fields | medicine, pediatrics, obstetrics |
| Known for | founder of Great Ormond Street Hospital |
"One of the men who have helped to make the reign of Queen Victoria a memorable period in the history of medical progress"
Charles West (1816-1898) was a British physician, specialized in pediatrics and obstetrics, especially known as the founder of the first children's hospital in Great Britain, the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street, London.
Charles West was born in London on 8 August 1816. His father was a Baptist lay preacher who in 1821 became a minister of a Baptist congregation in Buckinghamshire where he also run a school for young boys. Charles received his first education in his father's school. When he was fifteen, Charles West became an apprentice to a Mr. Gray, a general practitioner of Amersham who had also been an apothecary in a hospital. West
“has left it on record that the two things, which he learnt while with Mr. Gray were to compound medicines - a knowledge which he afterwards found of great service when prescribing for children - and a familiar acquaintance with Shakespeare, which doubtless fostered, if it did not create, the literary taste afterwards so conspicuous in his writings".
In 1833, he entered as a medical student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital where he remained two years with good results and some awards. When, in 1835, the theological opinions of his father prevented him to transfer to Oxford University he decided to complete his medical education in Continental Europe. So, he went to study in Bonn, then in Paris and finally in Berlin where he earned his Medical Degree in September 1837. Then, between 1838 and 1839, he spent almost a year in Dublin working at the Rotunda Hospital and at the Meath Hospital, highly renowned at the time for the clinical glamour of Robert Graves and William Stokes.
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Wikipedia