Edward Headlam Greenhow

Edward Headlam Greenhow FRS, FRCP (1814 – 22 April 1888) was an English physician, epidemiologist, sanitarian, statistician, clinician and lecturer.

Greenhow was born at North Shields in 1814, and after receiving his medical education at Edinburgh and Montpellier, he joined his father in practice in that town. His grandfather, father and uncle (Thomas Michael Greenhow) were all physicians. Here he practiced for eighteen years, and did much work on sanitation, becoming a member of the Town Council of Tynemouth and chairman of the Board of Health.

In 1852 Greenhow graduated as M.D. at King's College, University of Aberdeen, and in 1853 established himself in London as a consulting physician. For some years he was largely engaged in work connected with public health, being appointed lecturer on this subject at St. Thomas's Hospital (the first appointment of the kind in the country). Across the road was Guy's Hospital. There Greenhow became acquainted with Thomas Addison, and saw the patients mentioned in Addison's book before they died. He also met William Withey Gull, who with William Baly ran the Cholera Committee.

An inquiry Greenhow undertook into mortality from diseases in certain districts in England, for his lectures, was published as a parliamentary paper by John Simon, medical officer of the Board of Health. The facts gathered in this inquiry were made the basis of future work arising out of the Public Health Act 1858, when Simon was medical officer to the Privy Council. Greenhow was engaged for inquiries into diphtheria (1859) and pulmonary disease among operatives (miners, grinders, flax-dressers, etc.), with a report on this latter subject (1860–1861) being of wide interest. Simon resigned in 1876 as Chief Medical Officer to the Privy Council, and the post was abolished: Greenhow had lost an ally. Simon and Greenhow were persuaded that cleanliness led to health, and that pollution, such as in Liverpool, was the cause of the plagues of typhoid and Asiatic cholera in Britain. The government used William Henry Duncan to undermine the conclusions of Greenhow.

...
Wikipedia