John Gray McKendrick FRS

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". This soci ...

FRCPE The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh (RCPE) is a medical royal college in Scotland. It is one of three organisations that sets the specialty training standards for physicians in the United Kingdom. It was established by Royal charter ...

LLD (12 August 1841 – 2 January 1926) was a distinguished Scottish

physiologist Physiology (; ) is the scientific study of functions and mechanisms in a living system. As a sub-discipline of biology, physiology focuses on how organisms, organ systems, individual organs, cells, and biomolecules carry out the chemica ...

. He was born and studied in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), a ...

, Scotland, and served as Regius Professor of Physiology at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

from 1876 to 1906. He was co-founder of the Physiological Society.

Early life

John Gray McKendrick was born in Old Machar, Aberdeen in 1841 the son of James McKendrick, an Aberdeen merchant. He was initially apprenticed as a lawyer (1855–1861) but left law to study medicine at the

University of Aberdeen , mottoeng = The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom , established = , type = Public research universityAncient university , endowment = £58.4 million (2021) , budget ...

and the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 1 ...

before graduating in 1864 as an

MB ChB Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery ( la, Medicinae Baccalaureus, Baccalaureus Chirurgiae; abbreviated most commonly MBBS), is the primary medical degree awarded by medical schools in countries that follow the tradition of the United King ...

. He worked in Chester General Infirmary, Eastern Dispensary at

Whitechapel Whitechapel is a district in East London and the future administrative centre of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is a part of the East End of London, east of Charing Cross. Part of the historic county of Middlesex, the area formed ...

then the

Belford Hospital Belford Hospital, locally known as The Belford, is a rural general hospital in Fort William, Lochaber, Scotland. It is managed by NHS Highland. History The original hospital, which was financed by a legacy from Andrew Belford and designed ...

in Fort William. In 1869, he became the assistant to the Professor of Physiology at the University of Edinburgh,

John Hughes Bennett John Hughes Bennett PRCPE FRSE (31 August 1812 – 25 September 1875) was an English physician, physiologist and pathologist. His main contribution to medicine has been the first description of leukemia as a blood disorder (1845). The first pers ...

, pursuing his own research into the nervous system and special senses. McKendrick went on to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1873, having been proposed by Sir William Turner, serving as a councillor and eventually the Vice-President from 1894 until 1900. He won the Society's Makdougall-Brisbane Prize for the period 1894–96.

Glasgow

He took up a post at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

in 1873, first as an extramural lecturer (one of his students was the physician

Sophia Jex-Blake Sophia Louisa Jex-Blake (21 January 1840 – 7 January 1912) was an English physician, teacher and feminist. She led the campaign to secure women access to a University education when she and six other women, collectively known as the E ...

) and then as Regius Professor of Physiology in 1876. John McKenrick was a popular lecturer, raising significant funds for modernising his department and leading it into concentrating on the study and teaching of physiology. McKendrik sought to reflect his modernising efforts in the renaming his position, from Chair of "Theory of Physic or Institutes of Medicine" to Chair of Physiology in 1893. McKendrick was a founder member of the

Physiological Society The Physiological Society, founded in 1876, is a learned society for physiologists in the United Kingdom. History The Physiological Society was founded in 1876 as a dining society "for mutual benefit and protection" by a group of 19 physiologis ...

and Fullerian Professor of Physiology and Comparative Anatomy at the

Royal Institution The Royal Institution of Great Britain (often the Royal Institution, Ri or RI) is an organisation for scientific education and research, based in the City of Westminster. It was founded in 1799 by the leading British scientists of the age, inc ...

from 1881 to 1884; he resigned the Fullerian Professor on 5 March 1884 due to ill health. He was elected a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...

in 1884. In 1891 and 1895 was invited to deliver the Royal Institution Christmas Lecture on ''Life in Motion; or the Animal Machine'' and ''Sound, Hearing and Speech'' respectively. He retired from his university chair in 1906.

Later life

He became Provost of

Stonehaven Stonehaven ( , ) is a town in Scotland. It lies on Scotland's northeast coast and had a population of 11,602 at the 2011 Census. After the demise of the town of Kincardine, which was gradually abandoned after the destruction of its royal cast ...

upon his retirement in 1910. He returned to Glasgow around 1925 and died at his home in Rosslyn Terrace on 2 January 1926, aged 84.

Family

He married Mary Souttar in 1867 and two of their children, John Souttar McKendrick and Anderson Gray M'Kendrick, would go on to become fellows of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was established i ...

Partial bibliography

''Life of Helmholtz''
(1899) * ''A Text Book of Physiology'', 2 volumes (1888, 1889).

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:McKendrick, John Gray 1926 deaths 1841 births Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Academics of the University of Edinburgh Scottish physiologists Fullerian Professors of Physiology Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society Journal of Anatomy editors