Abstract
THOMAS WILKINSON KING, who died of pulmonary tuberculosis on March 26, 1847, may without undue straining of the phrase be hailed as the 'father of endocrinology'. Such an appellation is justified by his paper “On the Structure and Function of the Thyroid Gland” (Guy's Hospital Reports, 1, 429 ; 1836), in which he described the colloid secretion of the thyroid and which is remarkable for this prophetic sentence : “We may one day be able to show that a particular material is slowly formed and partially kepi in reserve, and that this principle is also supplementary, when poured into the descending cava, to important functions in the course of the circulation”. This original article remained almost completely forgotten until it was rescued from obscurity by Sir Humphry Rolleston (Fitzpatrick Lectures, 1933). The son of a medical practitioner at Dover, at the age of sixteen King entered Guy's Hospital, on October 4, 1824. In 1837 he succeeded Thomas Hodgkin as curator of the museum and lecturer on morbid anatomy, assuming the additional lectureship on comparative anatomy and physiology three years later. As a lecturer he was not popular, for he was a poor speaker and inclined to be over the head of the average student. A tireless worker, he founded his many novel theories on clinical observations which he verified experimentally. On December 11, 1843, King became one of the original fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. He was then practising at 36 Bedford Square, London ; it is recorded that “Though young, he had an aged, worn look”, and a perpetual cough.
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Dr. T. W. King (1809–47). Nature 159, 365 (1947). https://doi.org/10.1038/159365a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/159365a0