Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Henderson, William
HENDERSON, WILLIAM, M.D. (1810–1872), homœopathist, born at Thurso on 17 Jan. 1810, was the fourth son of William Henderson, sheriff-substitute of Caithness. After attending the high school of Edinburgh, he studied medicine at the university there. In 1831 he graduated M.D. at Edinburgh, and continued his studies for two years longer in Paris, Berlin, and Vienna. In 1832 he was appointed physician to the Fever Hospital in Edinburgh, and subsequently pathologist to the Royal Infirmary. His acuteness of observation very soon attracted attention. To the ‘Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal’ he contributed, between 1835 and 1837, a series of clinical studies on the heart and larger blood-vessels, in which occurs the first notice of the murmur of efflux in a case of sacculated aortic aneurism, while he was also the first to demonstrate as a diagnostic sign of aortic regurgitation that ‘the radial pulse followed that of the heart by a longer interval than usual.’ In 1838 he was elected fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, being already a member of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of that city. As early as 1841 he employed the microscope in the anatomy of the lung in pneumonia, in molluscum contagiosum, and other pathological studies. In 1842 he was appointed to the chair of general pathology in the university of Edinburgh, and in the following year, during the epidemic of typhus and relapsing fever, he was the first to show, on irrefutable grounds, that these two fevers, usually confounded, were in reality distinct, and due to different causes.
In 1845 he disappointed his friends, who anticipated for him a career as distinguished as Abercrombie's, by adopting homœopathy. He resigned his appointment at the Royal Infirmary, and lost most of his practice. His colleagues withdrew from association with him, and, led by Professor Syme, endeavoured to oust him from his chair of pathology, but failing in this, they next tried, also unsuccessfully, to exclude pathology from the obligatory curriculum of study. Henderson's first publication on homœopathy, entitled ‘An Inquiry into the Homœopathic Practice of Medicine,’ 8vo, London, Edinburgh (printed), 1845, drew from Dr. (afterwards Sir) John Forbes (1787–1861) [q. v.] a plain-spoken article in the ‘British and Foreign Medical Review’ for January 1846, called ‘Homœopathy, Allopathy, and Young Physic,’ which ultimately led to Forbes's resigning the editorship of that periodical. Henderson's ‘Letter’ to Forbes, which appeared in the ‘British Journal of Homœopathy’ for 1846, and also separately, raised him in public estimation, though it did not mitigate the opposition of his former colleagues. In 1851 the College of Physicians intimated to him that he was expected either to resign his fellowship or submit to expulsion, but the intimation was not followed up by any action. In December of the same year he was expelled from the Medico-Chirurgical Society, to the president of which he addressed a ‘Letter … on the recent speeches of Professors Syme and Simpson,’ published in the ‘Homœopathic Times,’ in a volume called ‘Homœopathy,’ 1851, and separately. He further replied to his antagonists in a ‘Letter to the Patrons of the University on the Late Resolutions of the Medical Faculty,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1851 (Brit. Journ. of Homœopathy, xxx. 450–9). In reply to Sir J. J. Simpson's attacks on homœopathy, Henderson wrote a ‘Reply to Dr. Simpson's pamphlet on Homœopathy, and Second Edition of the Letter to the President of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, with a Postscript,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1852, and ‘Homœopathy fairly represented, in reply to Dr. Simpson's “Homœopathy misrepresented,”’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1853 (2nd edit. same year). Throughout this lengthened controversy Henderson showed tact and temper, finally winning back the esteem of the more generous of his opponents. His pamphlets are models of acute reasoning, playful irony, and good-natured banter.
In 1869 symptoms of that disease in which he had made his first researches declared themselves, and Henderson resigned his chair, and all but a little consulting practice at his own house. He died of aneurism in Edinburgh on 1 April 1872 (Scotsman, 2 April 1872, p. 4). In private life his wit and accomplishments made him a delightful companion. He was also author of: 1. ‘Letter to the Lord Provost in reference to certain charges against Queen's College by Mr. Syme,’ 8vo (Edinburgh, 1840). 2. ‘A Dictionary and Concordance of the Names of Persons and Places, and of some of the more Remarkable Terms which occur in the … Old and New Testament,’ 8vo, Edinburgh, 1869.
[Brit. Journ. of Homœopathy, xxx. 617–23; Homœopathic World, vii. 116–18; Medical Directory, 1872 and 1873; Cat. of Printed Books in Advocates' Library, iii. 721.]