Edward Henry Sieveking

Sir Edward Henry Sieveking
Edward Henry Sieveking
Born	24 August 1816 Bishopsgate, London
Died	24 February 1904 (1904-02-25) (aged 87) His house on Manchester Square
Nationality	British
Alma mater	University of Berlin
Known for	epilepsy
Scientific career
Fields	medicine
Doctoral advisor	Johannes Peter Muller

Sir Edward Henry Sieveking (24 August 1816 – 24 February 1904) was an English physician.

Life

Sieveking was born in Bishopsgate, London. He studied medicine at the University of Berlin under eminent physiologist Johannes Peter Muller, and also at University College London and the University of Edinburgh, where he received his doctorate in 1841. In 1847, he settled in London, England. In 1851, he was named a physician and lecturer at St Mary's Hospital in London, where he remained for most of his medical career. He was also a physician at London Lock Hospital and the National Hospital for the Paralyzed and Epileptic.

Sieveking had many and varied interests in medicine. He was closely involved in the training of nurses and treatment of the poor, and had a keen interest concerning treatment of epilepsy and other neurological disorders. In 1858, he devised an aesthesiometer, a device for measuring tactile sensitivity of the skin.

He wrote several books, and was responsible for the translation of works by Carl Rokitansky and Moritz Heinrich Romberg from German into English.

He was appointed physician in ordinary to when Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) in 1863, and then physician extraordinary in 1873, and physician in ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1888. In 1886 Sieveking was knighted by Queen Victoria, and in 1901 King Edward VII appointed him Physician Extraordinary to His Majesty. In 1888, he was censor and Vice-President of the Royal College of Physicians, as well as President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, and strongly supported the reforms of 1858.

He was buried in the family grave in Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington.

Writings

• A Treatise on Ventilation (1846)
• The Training Institutions for Nurses and the Workhouses (1849)
• A Manual of Pathological Anatomy, Carl Rokitansky (vol. ii, London, 1849) translated by Sieveking
• A Manual of the Nervous Diseases of Man, Moritz Heinrich Romberg (2 vols., London, 1853) translated by Sieveking
• British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review (editor, from 1855)
• On Epilepsy and Epileptiform Seizures, their Causes, Pathology, and Treatment (London, 1858; 2nd ed. 1861)
• A Manual of Pathological Anatomy, with Charles Handfield Jones (London, 1854; 2nd ed. 1875)
• The Medical Adviser in Life Assurance (London, 1874; 2nd ed. 1882)

References

• Bladin, Peter F (April 2008). "Edward Henry Sieveking and the demise of essential epilepsy". Journal of Clinical Neuroscience. 15 (4): 382–8. doi:10.1016/j.jocn.2007.06.023. PMID 18272368. S2CID 5777451.