Sieveking , Sir , Edward Henry , 1816-1904 , Knight , physician

Sir Edward Henry Sieveking was born in Bishopsgate, London, on 24 August 1816, the eldest son of Edward Henry Sieveking, a merchant from Hamburg who had moved to London in 1809. His father had returned to Germany and served in the Hanseatic Legion during the War of Liberation, 1813-14. Sieveking's early education took place in England. From 1830 he was educated in Germany, in Ratzeburg and Berlin. In 1837 he entered the University of Berlin where he studied anatomy and physiology, the latter under the celebrated physiologist Johannes Peter Muller. In 1838 he undertook surgical work at Bonn. He then returned to England where he took up his medical studies at University College, London, for two years, and then at the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated MD in 1841.

Sieveking spent a further year abroad in 1842, visiting the hospitals of Paris, Vienna, Wurzburg, and Berlin. He then settled and began to practice in the English colony in Hamburg. Whilst there he was associated with founding a children's hospital, with his aunt Miss Emilia Sieveking, philanthropist and pioneer of nursing. During this time he published A Treatise on Ventilation (1846). In 1847 he returned to London and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians. He began to practice in London, first in Brook Street and then in Bentinck Street. He took an active part in advocating nursing the sick poor, and produced his first English publication, The Training Institutions for Nurses and the Workhouses (1849).

In 1851 Sieveking became assistant physician at St Mary's Hospital, and so one of its original staff. He lectured on materia medica at the Hospital's medical school for the next sixteen years. In 1852 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. Two years later he co-authored A Manual of Pathological Anatomy (1854; 2nd edition, 1875), with Charles Handfield Jones, his colleague at St Mary's. The publication was illustrated with reproductions of Sieveking's watercolours. In 1855 Sieveking assisted John Lumsden Propert in founding Epsom College, a school for the sons of medical men, and was its first honorary secretary. From 1855 until 1860 he edited the British and Foreign Medico-Chirurgical Review. He also contributed to many other medical periodicals, especially on the subjects of nervous diseases, climatology, and nursing. In 1857 he moved to Manchester Square, London, where he remained for the rest of his life.

In 1858 Sieveking invented an aesthesiometer, an instrument for testing the sensation on the skin. In the same year he published his most important work, On Epilepsy and Epileptiform Seizures, their Causes, Pathology, and Treatment (2nd edition, 1861). He was a supporter of the reforms of the Royal College of Physicians of that year, which gave powers, such as the election of the president, formerly enjoyed by the eight elect of the College, to the whole body of fellows. In 1861 he was elected president of the Harveian Society, a reflection of his status and reputation within the medical world.

In 1863 he was appointed physician in ordinary to the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. The following year he was appointed physician to the London Lock Hospital and the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic. It was also in 1864 that he founded, with the scientist Sir David Brewster and the physician Charles Murchison, the Edinburgh University Club in London. He was promoted to full physician of St Mary's in 1866, after sixteen years in the out-patient wards. In the same year he delivered the Croonian Lectures at the Royal College of Physicians. Sieveking held a number of prominent positions within the College including that of censor, several times between 1869 and 1881, and in 1877 was Harveian Orator.

In 1873 Sieveking became physician extraordinary to Queen Victoria. He was also a member of the council of the British Medical Association, representing for eight years the Metropolitan Counties Branch. In 1876 he delivered the Address in Medicine at the annual meeting in Sheffield. He was largely responsible for the creation of the Association's medal for distinguished merit, established in 1877. In 1884 he received an honorary degree from the University of Edinburgh, on its tercentenary. Two years later Sieveking was knighted. He retired from the active staff of St Mary's in 1887, and became consulting physician. The following year he was elected vice-president of the Royal College of Physicians, and president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. Also in 1888 Queen Victoria made him physician in ordinary. The following year he retired from the London Lock Hospital.

In 1895 Sieveking became president of the British Balneological and Climatological Society. He was made Knight of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem, in 1896. Edward VII, after his accession to the throne, made Sieveking his physician extraordinary in 1902.

He had married, in 1849, Jane daughter of John Ray, J.P. They had five sons and three daughters. Sieveking died at his house in Manchester Square on 24 February 1904, aged 87. He was buried in the family grave at Abney Park cemetery, Stoke Newington.

Publications:
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)
The Harveian Oration (London, 1877)