Frederick William Pavy

Frederick William Pavy (29 May 1829 – 19 September 1911) was a British physician and physiologist and the discoverer of Pavy's disease, a cyclic or recurrent physiologic albuminuria.

Frederick William Pavy
Born	29 May 1829 Wroughton
Died	19 September 1911 London
Occupation	Physician, physiologist

Life

Pavy was born in Wroughton and educated at Merchant Taylors' School. He entered Guy's Hospital in 1847.[1] There he worked with Richard Bright in the study of Bright's disease or kidney failure. He graduated as M.B. after five years from the University of London and M.D. the following year. He became Lecturer of Anatomy at Guy's in 1854 and of Physiology in 1856. In 1859 he was appointed Assistant Physician at Guy's and full Physician in 1871.

He was a leading expert in diabetes, and spent almost 20 years trying to disprove Claude Bernard's theory of the glycogen-glucose metabolic cycle. His 1862 paper "Researches on the Nature and Treatment of Diabetes" was, for many years, the definitive guide to the condition.[2]

He was made President of the Pathological Society of London[3] in 1893 and President of the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London in 1900. He delivered the Goulstonian Lectures in 1862 and the Croonian Lecture in 1878 and 1894 to the Royal College of Physicians. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1863.[4]

He had married Julia Oliver[5] in London in 1855. They had two daughter Florence Julia (1856–1902) and Maud (born 1862, predeceased her mother). Florence Pavy married Rev. Sir Borradaile Savory in 1881.[6][7]

Selected publications

• A Treatise on the Function of Digestion (1869)
• A Treatise on Food and Dietetics (1874)

References

1. Bywaters, H. W. (1916). "Frederick William Pavy" (PDF). Biochemical Journal. 10: 1–4. doi:10.1042/bj0100001.
2. Algeo M, Pedestrianism: When Watching People Walk was America's Favorite Sport, Chicago Review Press, 2014
3. "Transactions of the Pathological Society". Retrieved 27 October 2012.
4. "Obituary. Frederick William Pavy". Boston Medical and Surgical Journal. 165 (2): 623–624. 19 October 1911.
5. Julia Pavy, née Oliver, National Portrait Gallery Julia Pavy, née Oliver, was born in 1834 and died in 1884.
6. "Pavy, Frederick William" . Dictionary of National Biography (2nd supplement). London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1912.
7. "Obituary. Frederick William Pavy, M.D., LL.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S." British Medical Journal: 777–778‘‘. 30 September 1911.

Further reading

• Adlersberg D. (1956). "Frederick William Pavy". Diabetes. 5 (6): 491–2. doi:10.2337/diab.5.6.491. PMID 13375450.
• Tattersall R. (1997). "Frederick Pavy (1829–1911) and his opposition to the glycogenic theory of Claude Bernard". Ann Sci. 54 (4): 361–74. doi:10.1080/00033799700200281. PMID 11619384.