Herbert Lindesay Watson Wemyss

Herbert Lindesay Watson Wemyss FRCPE (18553February 1933) was a Scottish physician. Contrary to conventional understanding, where splenomegaly was understood to occur as a late finding of polycythemia vera, he reported cases of the disease in which splenomegaly preceded the onset of polycythaemia. He authored a notable paper that outlined the distinction between transient and permanent polycythaemia, extensively documented the microscopic and macroscopic characteristics of bone marrow extracted from living individuals with the disease, and in addition wrote on renal osteodystrophy.

Early life and education Herbert Lindesay Watson Wemyss was born in Broughty Ferry, Dundee, in 1855. His father was a general practitioner and his grandfather a surgeon of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He was educated at Marlborough College. He was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1914. In 1917, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and was posted to Imtarfa Hospital in Malta, where he oversaw the Officers’ Section in a facility treating mainly enteric fever, dysentery, and malaria. His contributions there were considered significant enough to keep him at Imtarfa until his demobilisation in 1919. In addition he extensively documented the microscopic and macroscopic characteristics of bone marrow extracted from living individuals with the disease. He also wrote on renal osteodystrophy, then termed renal infantilism.

Death Wemyss died on 3 February 1933, from pneumonia as a complication of influenza.

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