Cruikshank, Wm
NAME: Cruikshank, William Cumberland
ACHIEVEMENT(S): Reproduction and lymphatic system.
NICKNAME/ALIAS: None
DATE/PLACE OF BIRTH: 1745, at Edinburgh, Scotland
DATE/PLACE/AGE AT DEATH: 27 June 1800, in London, England. Aged 55
DISCIPLINE: Anatomist
FIELD: Medicine
LANGUAGE: English
PARENTS: George Cruikshank and ?
SIBLINGS: One elder brother
SPOUSE: Married 1773
CHILDREN: Four daughters, eldest of which married Honoratus Leigh Thomas
(president of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1829 and 1838)
EDUCATION: University of Glasgow, 1762-67
MAJOR WORK: 'The Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels of the Human Body', 1786
LIFE AND TIMES:
On receiving his M.A. from Glasgow in 1767, Cruikshank was appointed as
tutor in several leading Scottish households, including that of Archibald Cochrane*, Earl of Dundonald.
In April 1771, William Hunter* and William Hewson* dissolved their partnership in the Windmill Street School of Anatomy and Cruikshank was appointed as caretaker of Hunter's library and museum.
Hunter soon recognized Cruikshank as a gifted anatomist, and in May 1773 he enrolled as a surgical pupil at St. George's Hospital, possibly under John Hunter*, and began lecturing in anatomy.
In 1773 he married and settled in Leicester Square, next door to the painter Sir Joshua Reynolds*, who became his patient. Later, he was offered a partnership with William Hunter, taking Hewson's place at the Windmill Street School, where he continued lecturing after Hunter's death in 1783.
Cruikshank proved himself an able and engaging teacher, able to enliven his lectures
with elegant classical quotations. He was also a talented researcher, often supervised during the 1770s by William Hunter, and his successful injection of the lymphatic vessels in the lungs with quicksilver (1774), and his description of the presence of loose cartilages in joints and of a proposed method of cure by John Hunter (1776) were all reported in the 'Medical and Philosophical Commentaries'. His paper: "Experiments on Nerves, Particularly on Their Reproduction; and on the Spinal Marrow of Living Animals", was read to the Royal Society by John Hunter in June 1776, but was not published until 1795.
In 1778 Cruikshank carried out a series of experiments to confirm the theories on regeneration in the rabbit, developed by the 17th-century physiologist De Graaf's* who in 1672 had been the first to observe a rabbit ovum. Cruikshank performed 29 experiments on female rabbits, during which he observed 28 ova, from which he was able to state that the ovum is formed in, and comes out of, the ovarium after conception, and that it then passes in four days down the fallopian tube. He also discovered that it is sometimes retained in the fallopian tube and prevented from entering the uterus (so developing into an extrauterine pregnancy).
By means of these experiments, Cruikshank was then able to make suggestions about human reproduction, particularly on the causes of extrauterine pregnancies, and his observations were eventually reported to the Royal Society in March 1797.
In 1779 Cruikshank published reports of three more investigations: a new method of introducing mercury into the circulation; the absorption of calomel from the internal surface of the mouth; and the insensible perspiration of the human body (proving by experimentation that carbonic acid is given off by the skin as well as the lungs).
His most successful piece of research, however, was his 'The Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels of the Human Body' (1786), in which he gave the first description of the lymphatic system (in which lymph, a pale fluid that bathes the tissues of an organism, and enters the blood system by way of lymphatic channels and ducts)
He argued (like the Hunters, but against general medical opinion) that the red veins do not possess any absorbent power and that "the lacteals and lymphatics of the human body are not a trifling appendage of the red veins, but form of themselves a grand system for absorption and, so far as we have yet discovered them, are not only equal in number to the arteries and veins, but actually surpass them." The work was translated into French in 1787, and into German in 1794.
Throughout these investigations, Cruikshank continued to give much time to
his general practice, in which he gave treatment free of charge to the poor. While his surgical skills were greatly impaired by a nervous condition, his valuable contributions to medical knowledge were recognized first in 1783, when he received the M.D. from the
University of Glasgow, and then in 1784, when he was called to the bedside of Dr. Johnson* in his last illness.
During the late 1780s he was also invited to become an honorary member of the Lyceum Medicum Londinense, the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh, and the Imperial Academy of Vienna. In June 1797 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society for his work with Rollo on the chemical analysis of residues obtained from diabetic patients,
during which it was discovered that chemical tests could provide diagnostic
evidence of the diabetic condition, and give information on the patient's
response to therapy. (This paved the way for the work of Bright* and Andral*’s use of chemical tests in medical diagnosis).
In September 1797 Cruikshank attended probably his most distinguished patient, Nelson*, whose arm had been amputated two months previously.
Three years later Cruikshank died suddenly of apoplexy, at the age of 55, and, in order to increase the security of his family, his medical museum was purchased by the tsar of Russia and was placed in the Medico-Chirurgical Academy in St. Petersburg in 1805.
ASSESSMENT: He made key discoveries regarding human pregnancy, and the lymphatic system.
EXTRA CONNECTIONS: He knew Benjamin Richardson*
ONELINER: William Cruikshamk, major 18th century anatomist
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
DSB, DNB