George Harley (physician)

During his two years' residence in Paris he was preoccupied with physiological researches, and in 1853 he was elected annual president of the Parisian Medical Society.

[1] Harley then spent two years in Germany at the universities of Würzburg (under Rudolf Virchow), Giessen (under Justus Liebig), Berlin, Vienna, and Heidelberg.

When he was studying in Vienna, during the height of the Crimean War, he attempted to join the army of Omar Pasha as a civil surgeon, but passport issues meant he was arrested instead.

[1] In 1855 Harley was appointed lecturer on practical physiology and histology at University College London; and was also made curator of its anatomical museum.

[1] Harley made observations while in Paris, which were recorded in the Chimie Anatomique of Charles Philippe Robin and François Verdeil.

He read at the Leeds meeting of the British Association in 1858 a paper in which he showed that pancreatin was capable of digesting both starchy and albuminous substances.

[1] In 1864 Harley participated in the committee of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society appointed to study the subject of suspended animation by drowning, hanging, and other causes.

In toxicology, Harley made researches into the action of strychnine, and on Calabar bean; and in 1864 read a paper to the British Association poisoned arrows.

“Oleum jecoris aselli” submitted to the University of Edinburgh in 1850,[2] in 1863 he published Jaundice, its Pathology and Treatment; this he eventually replaced in 1883 by his book on Diseases of the Liver,; it was reprinted in Canada and in America, and was translated into German by Dr. J. Kraus of Carlsbad.

[1] During a long period of rest in dark rooms, after a breakdown of his eyesight, Harley dictated to an amanuensis The Urine and its Derangements (1872); this work was reprinted in America and translated into French and Italian.