Dr William Lauder Lindsay

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

FLS LRCS (19 December 1829 – 24 November 1880) was a Scottish physician and botanist. As a physician he largely worked in the field of mental health. As a botanist he specialised in lichens.

Life

He was born on 19 December 1829 at 20 Gardners Crescent in western

Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...

as the son of Helen Baird Lauder (1804–1883) and her husband James Lindsay of Register House/HM Sasine Office (1804–1874). He was educated at the

High School A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

in Edinburgh (being dux of 1844) then studied medicine at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

receiving his doctorate (MD) in 1852 with the thesis 'The lichens'. In 1853 he began working as an assistant physician at the Crichton Royal Asylum in

Dumfries Dumfries ( ; ; from ) is a market town and former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, near the mouth of the River Nith on the Solway Firth, from the Anglo-Scottish border. Dumfries is the county town of the Counties of Scotland, ...

. In 1854 he moved to be a physician at the Murray Royal Asylum in

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

and held this role until 1879. In 1858 he was elected a Fellow of the

Linnean Society The Linnean Society of London is a learned society dedicated to the study and dissemination of information concerning natural history, evolution, and taxonomy. It possesses several important biological specimen, manuscript and literature collec ...

(FLS) and in 1861 a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. His proposer for the latter was John Hutton Balfour. The Society gave him the Neill Prize of 1859 for his work on

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

s. In 1861 and 1862 he took an extended trip to New Zealand later winning a silver medal in the New Zealand Exhibition of 1865 for services to Botany. He also made several trips to northern Europe. He died of exhaustion and malnutrition brought on by extreme

dyspepsia Indigestion, also known as dyspepsia or upset stomach, is a condition of impaired digestion. Symptoms may include upper abdominal fullness, heartburn, nausea, belching, or upper abdominal pain. People may also experience feeling full earlier ...

on 24 November 1880 at his home at 3 Hartington Gardens in

. He was aged 50. He is buried with his parents in

Dean Cemetery The Dean Cemetery is a historically important Victorian cemetery north of the Dean Village, west of Edinburgh city centre, in Scotland. It lies between Queensferry Road and the Water of Leith, bounded on its east side by Dean Path and o ...

in western Edinburgh. The grave lies on a short curved path in the south-west of the cemetery. In 1989, botanists John Charles David and David Leslie Hawksworth published '' Lauderlindsaya'', which is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

fungi A fungus (: fungi , , , or ; or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and mold (fungus), molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as one ...

in the family Verrucariaceae and named in Lindsay's honour.

Publications

Lindsay was a regular contributor to the

British Medical Journal ''The BMJ'' is a fortnightly peer-reviewed medical journal, published by BMJ Publishing Group Ltd, which in turn is wholly-owned by the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world ...

, other works include:
''A Popular History of British Lichens''
(1856)
''Memoir on the Spermogones and Pycnides of Filamentous, Fruticulose and Foliaceous Lichens''
(1861, vol. 22, ''Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh'') (See wiktionary:spermogonium and

pycnidium A pycnidium (plural pycnidia) is an asexual fruiting body produced by mitosporic fungi, for instance in the order Sphaeropsidales ( Deuteromycota, Coelomycetes) or order Pleosporales (Ascomycota, Dothideomycetes). It is often spherical or ...

.)
''On the Geology of the Goldfields of Otago, New Zealand''
(1862, ''Reports of the British Association for the Advancement of Science''] *''On the Geology of the New Zealand Gold-fields'' (1865)
''Observations on New Lichens and Fungi Collected in Otago, New Zealand''
(1866)
''Observations on New-Zealand Lichens''
(1866, vol. 25, ''Transactions of the Linnean Society of London'')

(1868)
''Observations on the Lichens collected by Dr. Robert Brown, M.A., F.R.G.S., in West Greenland in 1867''
(1871, vol. 27, ''Transactions of the Linnean Society of London'') *''Memoir on the Spermogones and Pycnides of Crustaceous Lichens'' (1870)
1872 edition
*''Memoirs on the Spermogones and Pycnides of Lichens'' (1872)
1874 edition
*''The Superannuation of Officers in British Hospitals for the Insane'' (1875)
''Mind in the Lower Animals in Health and Disease''
(1879)

Family

In 1859 he married Elizabeth Reid, daughter of William Paterson Reid WS of Demarara. She died in 1863. They had one daughter, Marion Jane Lindsay, who married Dr Francis Haultain of Edinburgh. His elder brother Wallace Lindsay (1827–1857) was also a physician, serving in the army. His younger brother David Patrick Lindsay (1831–1871) worked at General Register House.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lindsay, William Lauder 1829 births 1880 deaths Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 19th-century Scottish medical doctors Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Medical doctors from Edinburgh British lichenologists Mental health professionals Heads of psychiatric hospitals Scientists from Edinburgh