Born at Newcastle; after a grammar school education in Cumberland, became a pupil of Baird, Senior Surgeon to the Newcastle General Hospital, in which Beck resided for some time as an Assistant House Surgeon. Whilst acting in this capacity he was noted for his zeal in securing post-mortem examinations of the patients. In 1836 he entered University College Hospital, where he took prizes and qualified MRCS in 1839. During the following two years he studied in Paris, where he became Secretary of the Parisian Medical Society. He also visited hospitals in Switzerland and Germany before he settled in practice in the neighbourhood of University College, London. Beck became known from his controversy with Robert Lee (1793-1877), obstetric physician, over the nerves of the uterus. Lee had asserted that these nerves enlarge or multiply during pregnancy, and upon that statement made physiological speculations. Beck obtained from the Strand Union Workhouse the uterus of a woman who had died from haemorrhage early in labour. He proved by dissection that as to multiplication of nerves Lee had confused bands of cellular tissue with nerves. Also there was no evidence of an enlargement of nerves, unless of the fibrous sheaths of nerves, and even that was questionable. Neither controversialist was able to go beyond a naked-eye examination supplemented by a simple lens. Beck gave an improved description, distinguishing cerebrospinal nerves from sympathetic nerves and ganglia. The Royal Society granted him a Gold Medal in Physiology and elected him FRS in 1850. Beck served as Physician to the Farringdon General Dispensary and Lying-in Charity; he was Secretary to the London Medical Society of Observation; in 1852 he was elected on the Committee of the Graduates of the University of London; he was a member of the Pathological Society and a Fellow of the Obstetrical Society. He practised in later life at 7 Portland Place, where he died in 1877. Publications:– *On the Nerves of the Uterus*, 4to, 5 plates, London, 1846. A reprint of this paper communicated by Sir Benjamin Brodie, *Phil. Trans*., 1846, ii, 213. Todd and Bowman, *Cyclopoedia of Anatomy and Physiology*, V [Supplementary volume], 641. “Uterus Nerves”, also p.651, “Do the Nerves of the Uterus Enlarge or Multiply during Pregnancy?” with bibliographical note.