William Rutherford FRSE FRS FRCPE[1] (20 April 1839, Ancrum Craig, Roxburghshire - 21 February 1899, 14 Douglas Crescent, Edinburgh) was a Scottish physician and physiologist who was Professor of Physiology at Edinburgh University for 25 years, and contributed to the development of experimental physiology. He was Fullerian Professor of Chemistry from 1872-75.
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William Rutherford was born at Ancrum in Roxburghshire. After studying in Berlin, Vienna, and Paris, he became assistant to John Hughes Bennett, Professor of Physiology at Edinburgh. After the Edinburgh anatomist John Goodsir told Rutherford about the new experimental physiology in Germany, William Rutherford and the opthalmologist Argyll Robertson at Edinburgh became the first in the United Kingdom to introduce the new experimental apparatus of Hermann von Helmholtz, Emil du Bois-Reymond and Carl Ludwig.[2]
In 1869 Rutherford became Professor of Physiology at King’s College, London. In 1871 he was appointed Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution In 1874 he returned to Edinburgh University to succeed Bennett as Professor of Physiology there.[2]
He died 21 February 1899 at 14 Douglas Crescent, Edinburgh.