The Physiological Society has unveiled a blue plaque in Oxford to celebrate the legacy of outstanding physiologist Sir John Scott Burdon Sanderson (1828 – 1905).
Professor Denis Noble, University of Oxford UK unveiled plaque, which is positioned at the Burdon Sanderson Cardiac Science Centre at The University of Oxford, UK. Work at the centre is dedicated to the science of normal and abnormal cardiac function.
Sir John Scott Burdon Sanderson was born on 21 December 1828 near Newcastle-upon-Tyne to a well-known Northumbrian family. He completed his medical education at The University of Edinburgh UK and in Paris, before becoming the Medical Officer of Health for Paddington, London, UK in 1856 and later physician to the Middlesex Hospital and the Brompton Consumption hospitals.
In 1871 Sanderson reported that Penicillium inhibited the growth of bacteria, an observation that placed him amongst the forerunners of Alexander Fleming.
In 1882 he was appointed as the first Waynflete Professor of Physiology at The University of Oxford. Sanderson’s appointment was initially controversial, partly because the university spent a large amount of money on his resources and partly because his position entailed experimentation on animals. However, in the same year he was awarded a Royal Medal by the Royal Society in recognition of his research into the electrical phenomena exhibited by plants, the relations of minute organisms to disease, and of his services to pathology and physiology. A year later, under Sanderson’s direction, the Department of Physiology was established at The University of Oxford.
In 1895, Sanderson was appointed Regius Professor of Medicine at The University of Oxford and in 1899 he was appointed a Baronet of Banbury Road in the Parish of Saint Giles, Oxford. A year after resigning his university post, Sanderson died in Oxford on 23 November 1905.
