Arthur Hill Hassall

Who was Arthur Hill Hassall?

Arthur Hill Hassall was a British physician, chemist and microscopist who is primarily known for his work in public health and food safety.

Hassall was born in Middlesex as the youngest son of five children in a house of a surgeon. His father was Thomas Hassall and his mother, née Ann Sherrock.He spent his school years in Richmond. He entered medicine through apprenticeship in 1834 to his uncle Sir James Murray, spending his early career in Dublin, where he also studied botany and the seashore.In 1846 he published a two-volume study, The Microscopic Anatomy of the Human Body in Health and Disease, the first English textbook on the subject.

After further studying botany at Kew and publishing on botanical topics, particularly freshwater algae, he came to public attention with his 1850 book A microscopical examination of the water supplied to the inhabitants of London and the suburban districts, which became an influential work in promoting the cause of water reform. In the early 1850s he also studied food adulteration; his reports were published in The Lancet by reformer Thomas Wakley and led directly to the 1860 Food Adulteration Act and subsequent further legislation against the practice.