William Cumberland Cruikshank

Not to be confused with William Cruickshank (chemist).

William Cumberland Cruikshank (1745, Edinburgh — 27 June 1800) was a British chemist and anatomist. He was the author of The Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels of the Human Body, which was first published in 1786.[1] [2]

He went to London in 1771 and became assistant to William Hunter in his anatomical work.[1] In 1797 he was the first to demonstrate that a particular crystallizable substance exists in the urine and is precipitated from it by nitric acid.[3] He identified carbon monoxide as a compound containing carbon and oxygen in 1800.[4] In 1800 he also used chlorine to purify water.[5]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in June 1797. [6]

He is often confused with William Cruickshank (? - 1810 or 1811), professor of chemistry at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, who improved the volta battery in 1802.

Notes and references

  1. ^ a b Pilcher, Lewis Stephen (1918). A List of Books by Some of the Old Masters of Medicine and Surgery, p. 132. Brooklyn, New York.
  2. ^ Quain, Jones (1892). Quain's Elements of Anatomy, Vol. II, Part II, p. 546. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
  3. ^ Coulson, William (1857). On the diseases of the bladder and prostate gland , p. 15. Churchill.
  4. ^ Roscoe, Henry E. and Schorlemmer, Carl (1920). A Treatise on Chemistry (5th ed.), p. 797. London: Macmillan and Co., Limited.
  5. ^ Rideal, Samuel (1895). Disinfection and Disinfectants, p. 59. J.B. Lippincott Co.
  6. ^ "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27cruikshank%27%29. Retrieved 26 December 2010.