Sir William Withey Gull

December 31^st Born 31 Dec 1816; died 29 Jan 1890 at age 73. A British doctor (1st Baronet) who played a leading role in his field and was a senior clinical teacher at Guy’s Hospital in London for most of his life. After a successful treatment of typhoid fever in Prince of Wales, he became a baronet (1872). Queen Victoria  was one of his patients. He wrote the first description of syringomyelia (1862). Gull’s disease, a disease  he is still known for, was described before him, but by 1874 Gull  associated myxedema with  thyroid atrophy, which he considered to be adult-type cretinism. .. He named the term anorexia nervosa (1874) “anorexia nervosa”. This has been known since it was explained by physician Richard Morton (1689). He believed in minimal drug use, but supported the use of vivisection in the study.