Head Sir Henry 1861

Head was born in 1861, and attended Charterhouse school in Godalming. He spent 1880 in Halle, Germany, learning German and attending lectures at the University on physiology and histology. After graduating from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1884, he worked on the physiology of respiration with Ewald Hering at the German University in Prague from 1884 to 1886.

In 1896 Head met Ruth Mayhew, an assistant mistress at Oxford High School who became headmistress of Brighton High School for Girls in 1899. They were soon writing to each other at least once every week, and married on 28th April 1904. Their home was a meeting place of talents, artistic as well as scientific, and their friends included Thomas Hardy, Siegfried Sassoon and Stephen Tennant. Head wrote poetry, and in their correspondence, he and Lady Head discuss his ideas and their expression.

The work for which Head became widely known to the general public was his study with W H R Rivers in 1905 of the effects of severing the nerves in his own arm.

Head suffered for the last twenty years of his life from Parkinson's disease, which gradually disabled him. Although his mind remained active, even to the extent of recording the effects of the disease on his own body, he was forced to give up most of his activities. He published his seminal work on aphasia in 1926, but had already retired from his active work as Editor of Brain and as consulting physician at the London Hospital. Thereafter, he and Lady Head lived first at Dorchester and then, after the death of Thomas Hardy, at Hartley Court, near Reading. Lady Head died in September 1939, and Sir Henry in October 1940.

Further biographical details can be found in the Dictionary of National Biography , in Sir Russell Brain's Doctors past and present (Pitman Medical, 1964), and in obituaries in the British Medical Journal , the Lancet and Brain . R A Henson's biographical work was edited after his death by W I Macdonald and was published in the Journal of Medical Biography , 1998; 6: 15-20.

Career summary: Born 4 August 1861; 1875-1880 Charterhouse School, Godalming; Mar-Aug 1880 Halle, Germany; 1880-1884 Trinity College, Cambridge: BA 1884; Sep 1884-1886 The German University, Prague; Completed courses in anatomy and physiology at Cambridge: MA 1886; Clinical study at University College Hospital: qualified MB 1890; MD 1892; MRCS, LRCP 1890; House physician, University College Hospital; House physician, Victoria Park Hospital for Diseases of the Chest; 1894 Clinical Assistant, County Asylum, Rainhill, Prescot, Lancashire; 1896 Registrar, then Assistant Physician, London Hospital, Whitechapel; 1913 Physician; 1919 Consulting Physician; 1894 MRCP; 1900 FRCP; 1899 FRS; 1908 Awarded the Royal Medal; 1910-1925 Editor of Brain ; 1927 Knighted; Died 8 Oct 1940

From the guide to the Papers of: Head, Sir Henry (1861-1940), 1860-1977, (Wellcome Library)