Sir German Sims Woodhead, KBE FRSE PRMS LLD (29 April 1855 – 29 December 1921) was an English pathologist.

Life

He was born at Woodland Mount, a large country house near Huddersfield, on 29 April 1855 the son of Joseph Woodhead, a newspaper owner (and later politician), and his wife Catherine Woodhead.

German Sims Woodhead

He was educated at Huddersfield College. He then studied Medicine at Edinburgh University, graduating MB ChB in 1878.

German Sims Woodhead

From 1885 to 1890 he worked as a lab assistant in Edinburgh University, living then at 6 Marchhall Crescent. During his time in Edinburgh, in 1886, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir William Turner, Alexander Crum Brown, Robert Gray and Sir John Murray.

German Sims Woodhead

In 1890, aged only 35, he became Director of the Conjoint Laboratories of the Royal Colleges of Physicians and of Surgeons in London.

In 1899 he was made Professor of Pathology in Cambridge University. He was the first Editor of the Journal of Pathology.

In the First World War he was the Inspector of Government Laboratories serving all military hospitals. He was attached to the RAMC at the rank of Lt Colonel. Largely as a result of this service he was knighted (KBE) by King George V in 1919.

He died at Aisthorpe Hall in Lincolnshire on 29 December 1921 and is buried in Cambridge City Cemetery.

Family

In 1881, he married Harriet Elizabeth St Clair Erskine Yates.

Published work

Practical Pathology (1883) Pathological Mycology (1885), with A. W. Hare Bacteria and Their Products (1891) Report to the Royal Commission on Tuberculosis (1895)

References

External links

Sir German Sims Woodhead

Michael Worboys, 'Woodhead, Sir German Sims (1855–1921)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004

English pathologists

English medical writers

English tax resisters

1855 births

1921 deaths

People educated at Huddersfield New College

Medical doctors from Yorkshire

Knights Commander of the Order of the British Empire

Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Medical School

Fellows of the Royal Microscopical Society

Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh