First Title value, for Searching Sheppard, Edgar (1819 - 1897)

2024-05-07T20:18:27Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-01-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003300-E003399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375577375577
Occupation Psychologist
Details Educated at King's College, London, where he was afterwards Professor of Psychological Medicine. He was for many years Medical Superintendent of the Male Department of Colney Hatch Asylum, and, by the great and constant care with which he exercised his functions there, was well known and highly appreciated. He was a man of distinguished presence, was refined in taste and manners, and was one of the old school of courtly physicians. He was widely read in medical literature, both British and foreign, and caused some sensation as a medical author, particularly by a work on the psychology of Quakerism and by one on the Turkish bath, of the uses of which he had made a special study and which he advocated with perhaps excessive enthusiasm. The Home Office frequently called him in officially to give his opinion in criminal cases, so that he was a well-known figure in the Law Courts. After retiring from his post at Colney Hatch he lived for some time in London, where he frequented the meetings of the medical societies. In 1872 he received the Hon DCL of the Southern University, USA. After retiring he lived at Randolph Lodge, West Worthing, and died there October 29th, 1897. The Rev Canon Edgar Sheppard, who became Sub-Dean of the Chapels Royal in 1884, was his son, and H R L Sheppard, sometime Rector of St Martin's in-the-Fields, his grandson. A striking photograph is in the Fellows' Album. Publications: *A Fallen Faith; or the Psychology of Quakerism*. *Bathing: How to Do it, When to Do it, and Where to Do it*, 2nd ed, 8vo, London, 1866; 3rd ed, 1869. "On Some of the Modern Teachings of Insanity," 8vo, Lewes, 1872; reprinted from *Jour Ment Sci*, 1872, xvii, 499. *Lectures on Madness in its Medical, Legal and Social Aspects*, 8vo, London, 1873. "Cremation and Cholera," 8vo, London, 1884; reprinted from *Pall Mall Gaz*. Translation of Gilbert's *Special Diseases of the Skin* 12mo, London, 1845. Various contributions to *Brit and For Med-Chir Rev, Lancet,* etc.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003394
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Mercier, Charles Arthur (1852 - 1919)

2024-05-07T20:18:27Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-08-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002700-E002799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374890374890
Occupation Physician Psychologist
Details Born on June 21st, 1852, the son of the Rev Lewis P and Anne Mercier, of French Huguenot descent. On the death of his father, the Mercier family were left in such straitened circumstances that after a few months' education at the Merchant Taylors' School in 1862, Mercier went as a cabin-boy on a voyage to Mogador; he then worked in a city woollen warehouse as a clerk. Rescue came; he entered the London Hospital, distinguished himself as a student, and qualified MRCS at 22, only one year above the minimum age. Whilst acting as a Medical Officer at the Buckinghamshire County Asylum, near Aylesbury, at the City of London Asylum, and at Flower House Private Asylum, Catford, by hard study and with great ability he gradually attained the highest qualifications - in 1904 the FRCP London, and in 1905 the MD of the University of London with the Gold Medal in Mental Science, thus becoming a remarkable combination of psychologist, physician, and logician. In this achievement he was influenced in particular by two teachers - at the London Hospital by Dr Hughlings Jackson; and by the writings of Herbert Spencer founded on Darwin and Evolution. Attention was drawn to Mercier by a continued series of publications beginning with a "Classification of Feelings" in *Mind* (1884, ix, 325, 509) and by his *Text-book of Insanity* (8vo, London, 1902; 3rd ed, 1921). He was appointed Lecturer on Insanity, first at Westminster Hospital, then at Charing Cross Hospital, where he was Physician for Mental Diseases from 1905-1913, and lectured on the subject, 1906-1913. At the London University he served as Examiner; at the Oxford Meeting of the British Medical Association in 1904 he was President of the Section of Psychiatry. As a member of the Departmental Committee on the Treatment of Inebriety he contributed largely to the Report. He represented the Royal College of Physicians of London before the Royal Commission on the Care and Control of the Feeble-minded. For long a member, he also held the office of President of the Medico-Psychological Association of Great Britain and Ireland; he was also a most valuable member of the London Medico-legal Society. It was on the interrelations of insanity and crime that Mercier's genius found its particular expression. His work *Psychology, Normal and Morbid* (8vo, London, 1901) made his name widely known in philosophical circles. He entered upon the discussion of the foundations upon which Criminal Law rests, and was twice awarded the Swiney Prize - in 1909 for his work on *Criminal Responsibility* (8vo, Oxford, 1905), and in 1919 for his *Crime and Criminals* (8vo, London, 1918), his last work. As a dialectician, wit, controversialist, he was ready to argue at Oxford on the uselessness of logic as taught, and to abuse Aristotle as having done irreparable damage to the human mind. In spite of his sheer cleverness in controversy and a caustic pen, he had a warm generous heart. In later years he was the victim of osteitis deformans showing the classical symptoms and signs. He suffered very great pain, sank four inches in height, had an enlarged head bent forwards and bowed legs. It in no way impaired his mentality; indeed, the disease came to a standstill. His general health enabled him to recover after an operation for gangrenous appendicitis. All this came upon him after a great loss - the death of his wife. Never complaining, he worked to the end, as he promised, "with all flags flying like Barère's 'Vengeur'." He died at Moorcroft, Parkstone, Dorsetshire, on September 2nd, 1919. Publications:- *Lunatic Asylums: their Organisation and Management*, 1894. *A New Logic*, 8vo, London, 1914. *Astrology and Medicine: Fitzpatrick Lectures*, 1913, 8vo, London, 1914. *Leper Houses and Mediaeval Hospitals: Fitzpatrick Lectures*, 1914, 8vo, London, 1915. *On Causation, with a Chapter on Belief*, 8vo, London, 1916. *Spiritualism and Sir Oliver Lodge*, 12mo. London, 1917. *The Principles of Rational Education*, 8vo, London, 1917. *Human Temperaments. - Studies in Character*, 12mo, London, 1916; 2nd ed, 1917. Editor, with Preface, of Lépine's *Mental Disorders of War*, 1919.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002707
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

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First Title value, for Searching Sheppard, Edgar (1819 - 1897)

First Title value, for Searching Mercier, Charles Arthur (1852 - 1919)