Edmund Alexander Parkes

Edmund Alexander Parkes (29 December 1819 – 15 March 1876) was an English physician, known as a hygienist, particularly in the military context.

Early life Parkes was born at Bloxham in Oxfordshire, the son of William Parkes, of the Marble-yard, Warwick, and Frances, daughter of Thomas Byerley. Parkes was educated at Christ's Hospital, London, and received his professional training at University College London and Hospital. In 1841 he graduated M.B. at the University of London; in 1840 he had become a member of the Royal College of Surgeons. At an early age he worked in the laboratory of his uncle, Anthony Todd Thomson, and for Thomson he later lectured on materia medica and medical jurisprudence.

In April 1842 Thomson was gazetted assistant-surgeon to the 84th (York and Lancaster) Regiment, and at age 22 embarked with it for India, serving in Madras and Moulmein. During this period he obtained clinical experience of tropical diseases, particularly of dysentery, hepatitis, and cholera. In September 1845 he retired from the army, and, returning home, practised in Upper Seymour Street, and then Harley Street; but he never gained a large practice. In 1846 he graduated M.D. at the University of London. In 1849 he was elected special professor of clinical medicine at University College, and physician to University College Hospital. At the opening of one of the sessions of the college he delivered an introductory lecture on Self-training by the Medical Student. and set up by William Eassie Jnr, whose father's Gloucester Docks-based firm had constructed it. The hospital was outside the orbit of Florence Nightingale, and had a nursing staff selected by Parkes and Sir James Clark, including as a volunteer Parkes's sister.

Later life In 1860 an Army Medical School was established at Fort Pitt, Chatham, and Parkes, who had been consulted on the scheme by Sidney Herbert as Secretary of State for War, accepted the chair of hygiene. University College appointed him emeritus professor, and a marble bust of Parkes was placed in the museum.

At Netley, a portrait of Parkes, by Messrs. Barraud & Jerrard, was in the anteroom of the army medical staff mess; a triennial prize of seventy-five guineas, and a large gold medal bearing Parkes's portrait, was established for the best essay on a subject connected with hygiene, the prize to be open to the medical officers of the army, navy, and Indian service of executive rank, on full pay; and a bronze medal, also bearing the portrait of Parkes, was instituted, to be awarded at the close of each session to the best student in hygiene. In 1896 it was revised by James Lane Notter (1843–1923) and R. H. Firth, in a version that was a standard, through six editions, for military hygiene until 1905.

Other works Parkes took as the subject of his thesis for M.D. the connection between dysentery and Indian hepatitis. The Remarks on the Dysentery and Hepatitis of India, contained advanced views on the pathology of the diseases. In 1847 he published On Asiatic and Algide Cholera, written mainly in India, where he had seen two epidemics; and in the following year a paper on Intestinal Discharges in Cholera, and another on the Early Cases of Cholera in London. In 1849 he wrote on Diseases of the Heart in the Medical Times, to which he became frequent contributor.