Edward Henry Sieveking

Who was Edward Henry Sieveking?

Sir Edward Henry Sieveking was an English physician born in Bishopsgate, London.

He studied medicine at the University of Berlin under eminent physiologist Johannes Peter Muller, and also at University College London and the University of Edinburgh, where he received his doctorate in 1841. For much of his medical career he was associated with St Mary's Hospital in London as a physician and lecturer.

Sieveking had many and varied interests in medicine. He was closely involved in the training of nurses and treatment of the poor, and had a keen interest concerning treatment of epilepsy and other neurological disorders. In 1858, he devised an aesthesiometer, a device for measuring tactile sensitivity of the skin.

He wrote several books, and was responsible for the translation of works by Carl Rokitansky and Moritz Heinrich Romberg from German into English. In 1886 Sir Edward Henry Sieveking was knighted by Queen Victoria, and in 1901 King Edward VII appointed him Physician Extraordinary to His Majesty.

He was buried in the family grave in Abney Park Cemetery, Stoke Newington.