William Henry Corfield (hygienist)

William Henry Corfield (14 December 1843 – 26 August 1903) was an English hygienist. Appointed Professor of Hygiene and Public Health at University College London in 1869.[1] Corfield revolutionised hygiene and household sanitation in Victorian England.

Not to be confused with William Henry Corfield (politician).

Life

William Henry Corfield went to Cheltenham Grammar School. He was a precocious scholar and obtained a Demyship in Natural Science at Magdalen College, Oxford in March 1861 and matriculated on 12 October 1861 at the age of 17.[2][3] In 1863 he took a first class in Mathematics at Moderations.[3] In the same year he was chosen to accompany Professor Daubeny on an examination of the volcanoes in Montbrison in France. In 1864 he obtained a first class degree in Mathematics for the degree of Bachelor of Arts.[3] In the following year he took up the Sheppard Medical Fellowship at Pembroke College, Oxford. He also won the Radcliffe Travelling Fellowship which enabled him to visit academic institutions in Europe where he became interested in hygiene and sanitary sciences.

In Paris, he studied under Behier, See, Hardy and other eminent men of the times, as well as attending Bourchardat's lectures on hygiene. He then went to Lyon to work on clinical medicine, surgery and also made a special study of the remains of the aqueducts of ancient Lugdunum (Lyon), also visiting medical schools in Italy and Sicily.

In London, he studied at University College Hospital and in 1868 was appointed examiner for Honours Science at Oxford University. The following year he was appointed Professor of Hygiene and Public Health at University College, London, a position he held until his death. In 1869 he was elected onto a committee appointed by the British Association for the Advancement of Science to report on the treatment and utilisation of sewage. For six years he was reporter to the committee which was to greatly influence subsequent progress in sanitary science.

At the request of the committee, Corfield prepared "A Digest of Facts relating to the Treatment and Utilisation of Sewage", which was published in 1870. This embodied a vast amount of original research and was in no sense a committee report.

In November 1871, Edward, Prince of Wales, who was later to become King Edward VII, contracted typhoid fever while he was staying at Londesborough Lodge, Scarborough; George Stanhope, 7th Earl of Chesterfield, a fellow guest dying of the disease.

This brought to public attention the subject of house sanitation and Corfield, at the request of Lord Londesborough, examined the house describing it in a letter to the Times newspaper, 22 January 1872. Later Corfield said, in a discussion on preventing enteric fever at the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society: "On going through my original notes I have been forced to the conclusion that it was not a case in which the disease was conveyed by sewer air, because the persons who were most in the house did not get it."

He established the first hygiene laboratory in London in 1875,[4] and following the death of his colleague, Edmund Parkes, he was a member of the executive that established a museum of practical hygiene in London in 1876.[5]

As a result of his success in diagnosing the causes of the illnesses Corfield enjoyed a large consulting practice for private and public buildings.

At his death Corfield was President of the Epidemiological Society, Past President of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, and Vice-President of the Sanitary Institute. He was Honorary Corresponding Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Belgium, the Imperial Society of Medicine in Constantinople, and the Italian Royal Society of Hygiene. He was an Honorary Member of the French Society of Hygiene and the Hungarian Society of Public Health and a Fellow of the Medical Society of Sweden.

He was a collector of rare books and a keen fisherman.

He died in Sweden whilst on a fishing holiday, although he had been suffering for some time from dyspepsia and diarrhoea.[2]

Works
  • A Résumé of the History of Hygiene, 1870
  • A Digest of Facts Relating to the Treatment and Utilization of Sewage, 1870 (1st edition)
  • Dwelling Houses: their Sanitary Construction and Arrangements, 1898 (4th edition)
  • Health, 1880
  • The Laws of Health, 1896, 9th edition
  • Diseases and Defective House Sanitation, 1896
  • The Etiology of Typhoid Fever and its Prevention, 1902)
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References
  1. William Corfield at www.probertencyclopaedia.com
  2. The Corfields: A history of the Corfields from 1180 to the present day ISBN 0-646-14333-6
  3. Leyland, John (1887). William Henry Corfield : a biography...ed. by John Leyland. <a href='https://archive.org/details/bibliothequeinteruniversitairedesante' data-x-rel='nofollow'>Bibliothèque interuniversitaire de santé (Paris)</a>. Leicester, Provincial medical journal.
  4. Harte, Negley (Negley Boyd), 1943- (21 May 2018). The world of UCL. North, John, 1938-, Brewis, Georgina (Revised and updated ed.). London. ISBN 978-1-78735-294-0. OCLC 1043402682.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. "International Medical and Sanitary Exhibition, 1881, South Kensington, Saturday, July 16th, to Saturday, August 13th". Wellcome Library. Retrieved 2020-06-01.
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