Murchison

MURCHISON Charles (Charles Murchison, 1830–1879), a noted English physician and one of the first hygienists in Europe. He studied at universities in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Dublin, and Paris. In 1853 he entered military service in India, where he was appointed professor of chemistry at the Medical College in Calcutta. In 1855 he published his classic work on the climate and diseases of Burma, where he first developed ideas on the prevention of tropical diseases. In the same year Murchison returned to London and began working in London hospitals; in 1871 he received the chair of internal medicine. M.'s main works relate to the field of acute infectious diseases, in particular to relapsing and typhus fever and to prolonged forms of febrile states. He established various forms of typhoid diseases depending on the degree of intoxication of the organism and proposed the prevention of these diseases. In this respect he was one of the first to recognize the epidemiological role of blood-sucking insects and to correctly appreciate the views of Minch. His work on febrile diseases (1862) is still not entirely obsolete. M. published about 300 scientific works in all fields of medicine, in particular on the pathology of tumors (a classification was proposed), on diseases of the liver, and on tropical diseases. M.'s pen is also responsible for a number of articles on geology (do not confuse with his brother, the famous English geologist Roderick Murchison). M.'s most important works are the following: "Climates and diseases of Burmah" (L., 1855); "Clinical lectures on diseases of the liver, jaundice and abdominal dropsy" (L., 1868); "Treatise on the continued fevers of Great-Britain" (L., 1862); "On functional derangements of the liver" (L., 1874).