Edward Waymouth Reid, 1862-1948

Abstract

E. Waymouth Reid, who retired from the Chair of Physiology at University College, Dundee, University of St Andrews, in 1935, after forty-six years’ service, died on 10 March 1948 at the age of eighty-five. He was born 11 October 1862 in Canterbury, the fourth son of a surgeon there, James Reid, F.R.C.S. He was educated at Sutton Vallance Grammar School, gaining eventually a Classical Scholarship to Cambridge. He matriculated at Cambridge University in 1879. In 1882 he gained a first class in Part I of the Natural Science Tripos and in 1883 a first class in Part II. During the period 1882-1883 he also acted as one of the demonstrators in the Department of Anatomy. He then decided to qualify in medicine and in 1883 he joined St Bartholomew’s Hospital, graduating in medicine in 1885. He early showed his interest in electrical reactions,, being appointed assistant ‘electrician’ at St Bartholomew’s in 1885. The same year he was elected to a Demonstratorship in Physiology at St Mary’s Hospital under A. D. Waller and in 1887 was promoted to the post of Assistant Lecturer in Physiology. Reid, during the period he was at St Mary’s, carried out in conjunction with Waller a most interesting investigation on the electrical activity of the excised mammalian heart. This investigation must have been one of the earliest pieces of research in electrocardiography in this country. His interest in physico-chemical reactions was also manifested early as in 1887 he devised a useful recording osmometer. In 1889 Reid was elected, at the early age of twenty-seven, as the first holder of the newly created Chair of Physiology at University College, Dundee, where he joined a stimulating and enthusiastic band of colleagues including Geddes, D’Arcy Thompson and Ewing. Reid was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1898 and in 1904 gained the Sc.D. of his old University. The University of St Andrews conferred on him the degree of LL.D. when he retired from his Chair.