Louis Robinson
{{Short description|English physician, paediatrician and author}}
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{{Use British English|date=September 2016}}
Louis Robinson (1857–1928) was a 19th-century English physician, paediatrician and author. An ardent evolutionist, he helped pioneer modern child medicine during the later Victorian era, writing prolifically in journals on the emerging science of paediatrics.See The Nineteenth Century, Journal of Anatomy and British Medical Journal amongst others Active in scientific debate, Robinson was critiqued in some parts of the press for his outspoken evolutionary views in the wider debate between scientific theories of human origin and the religious view.
Early life
Born 8 August 1857 to a Quaker family in Saddlescombe near Brighton, Sussex, Robinson was educated at Quaker schools in Ackworth and York. His younger sister was the English novelist Maude Robinson. He went on to study medicine in London (at St Bartholomew's Hospital) and Newcastle upon Tyne, before graduating top of his class in 1889. He was married the previous year to Edith Aline Craddock, with whom he went on to have four children.
Medical career
Drawing on his extensive research, Robinson's interest in evolution was expressed in a series of articles,Examples include: "Darwinism in the Nursery" (1891), "The Meaning of a Baby's Footprint" (1892), "Darwinism and Swimming: a theory" (1893), "Evolution and the Amateur Naturalist" (1897), "Eye Language: the natural history of Ocular Expression" (1898) which led to an appearance before the British Association at Edinburgh to present his paper "The Prehensile Power of Infants".[https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E05E6DF1538E233A25751C2A9639C94639ED7CF A Baby's Footprint], The New York Times, 22 May 1892 A keen practitioner as well as theorist, Robinson was one of the first doctors of his era to conduct experiments with young babies, testing over sixty subjects immediately after birth on their power of grip.An account of this is provided in Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical (2004), by Cantor, Dawson and Gooday: https://books.google.com/books?id=q50m1PCOcZ8C This echoed the approach of the pioneering German physician Adolph Kussmaul.
Later years
Following a series of lectures at Oxford on vestigial reflexes, he was sought after to teach in both British and American universities, and increasingly noticed by prominent scientists like Huxley, Burdon-Sanderson and Flower. However, Robinson opted to focus on his work as a doctor in Streatham. Nonetheless, he continued his research, employing several assistants, and leading to his publication of a volume on evolution that focused on animal behaviour.Robinson, L (1897) Wild Traits in Tame Animals: William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh
He died as a result of an accidental gunshot wound in Folkestone, Kent on 5 February 1928 aged 70.British Medical Journal 11 February 1928-page240
See also
References
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Category:19th-century English medical doctors