William James West

William James West (1793–1848), was an English surgeon and apothecary, who among other things took a prominent role in the local movement of reform of medical practice. He published in 1837 the first article referred to an ovariectomy performed in England and first described the picture of a kind of infantile spasm (present in his own son, James Edwin West) in an article published by The Lancet in 1841.

In late January 1841 William wrote to The Lancet describing the case of his son James, who began to suffer a seizure disorder at four months of age. West's letter was published by The Lancet on 13 February 1841, James' first birthday.

The truth is that most of the legacy of William and James West would have been lost forever if Mary West had not donated, some six months after the death of her husband, her private journal to William Newnham, a physician from Farnham. Newnham had found a similar case described by West two years before the publication of the case of James in The Lancet, so Mary's journal apparently aroused great interest in Newnham. A couple of years later Newnham wrote a monograph describing four cases, one of which was that of James West; Newnham's monograph quoted directly from Mary West's journal, and it is thanks to this work and the William West's letter to The Lancet, that some scant information has been retained about the private life and history of William and James West.