William Guy

William Augustus Guy

William Augustus Guy (13 June 1810 – 10 September 1885) was a British physician and medical statistician.

He was educated at Christ's Hospital and Guy's Hospital; he then studied at the University of Heidelberg and the University of Paris before getting a Bachelor of Medicine degree from the University of Cambridge, 1837.^[1]

In 1842, he was appointed professor of forensic medicine at King's College London and assistant physician at King's College Hospital, 1842; he was dean of the faculty of medicine, 1846–58. He also served as Medical Superintendent at Millbank Prison from 1859 to 1869, acting as a semi-official government advisor on prison health, diet and hygiene.

He edited the Journal of the Statistical Society of London (now the Royal Statistical Society), 1852–6 and was its president, 1873-5. The Society still presents the Guy Medals (in gold, silver and bronze) in his memory.

He was vice-president of the Royal Society, 1876–7, and Croonian (1861), Lumleian (1868), and Harveian (1875) lecturer at the Royal College of Physicians.

He was a founder of the Health of Towns Association and a member of the Commission on Penal Servitude and Criminal Lunacy. He published two books — "Principles of Forensic Medicine" (1844) and "Public Health" (1870–4) — and many statistical papers.

References

• Dictionary of National Biography
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Obituaries

• Journal of the Statistical Society of London, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Dec., 1885), pp. 650-651
• The Lancet (19 Sept 1885)

External links

• Royal Society citation