University College London

John Eric Erichsen was born in Copenhagen in 1818. He was educated at the Mansion House School, Hammersmith, and studied medicine at University College London, and in Paris. On his return to London he served as House Surgeon at University College Hospital. He was elected Secretary of the Physiological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1844, and received the Fothergillian Gold Medal of the Royal Humane Society in 1845, for An Essay on Asphyxia. Erichsen was appointed Assistant Surgeon to University College Hospital in 1848 and became full Surgeon to the hospital at the age of 32. He was President of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society from 1879-1881, and also in 1881, the President of the Surgical Section at the meeting in London of the International Medical Congress. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1876. In 1877 he was appointed the first Inspector under the Vivisection Act, and in the same year he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to the Queen. He became President of the Council of University College in 1887, an office he held until his death. He was created a baronet in 1895, and died in 1896.