Edwin Lankester

Edwin Lankester FRS, FRMS, MRCS (23 April 1814 – 30 October 1874) was an English surgeon and naturalist who made a major contribution to the control of cholera in London: he was the first public analyst in England.

She was 19 at the time of marriage, became a botanist and microscopist, published books for children and wrote natural history articles.

Spurgin raised £300 to enable Edwin to study medicine and science from 1834–7 at the new University College London.

He attended lectures by John Lindley (botany) and Robert Edmund Grant (zoology) – to whose post Edwin's eldest son E. Ray Lankester succeeded in 1875.

In 1837 he moved to Doncaster to become resident medical attendant and science tutor to the Woods family of Campsall Hall, recommended by Lindley.

He co-founded the important Quarterly Journal of Microscopical Science (QJMS) in 1853, and co-edited it with George Busk, and later with his son Ray.

named a genus of flowering plants from Tropical Africa, (belonging to the family Acanthaceae) as Lankesteria in his honour.

Edwin Lankester was President of the British Association for 25 years, and the founder of the Biological Section of the BA.

Dr. Lankester, like his predecessor, contributed greatly to our knowledge on the social problem of infanticide in nineteenth century Britain by producing a series of 'statistically detailed Annual Reports' on the phenomenon.

The Committee's report (1854) had sections written by Snow and the Reverend Henry Whitehead, a local curate.

It still took years before the public authorities acted to ensure the purity of water supply; Snow had been dead for over 30 years when the Chief Medical Office of Health at last acknowledged that his work on the transmission of cholera was one of the most significant medical discoveries of the 19th century.