Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Beevor, Charles Edward
BEEVOR, CHARLES EDWARD (1854–1908), neurologist, born in London on 12 June 1854, was eldest son of Charles Beevor, F.R.C.S., and Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Burrell. He received his early education at Blackheath proprietary school and at University College, London. Pursuing medical study at University College Hospital, he proceeded M.R.C.S. in 1878, M.B. London in 1879, M.D. London in 1881. In 1882 he became M.R.C.P. London, and in 1888 F.R.C.P. After holding the appointments of house physician at University College Hospital, and resident medical officer at the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic, Queen Square, W.C., he went abroad in 1882–3, and studied under the great teachers, including Obersteiner, Weigert, Cohnheim, and Erb, at Vienna, Leipzig, Berlin, and Paris. On his return in 1883 he was appointed assistant physician to Queen Square Hospital, and to the Great Northern Hospital in 1885. In course of time he became full physician to both institutions, offices which he held until his death.
From 1883 to 1887 Beevor was engaged with (Sir) Victor Horsley in experimental research on the localisation of cerebral functions, especially with regard to the course and origin of the motor tracts. This work crystallised the truth of the results obtained by previous investigators, and established the reputation of the authors (Phil. Trans. clxxxi. 1890; also 1887–9). In 1903 Beevor delivered the Croonian lectures before the Royal College of Physicians, on ‘Muscular Movements and their Representation in the Central Nervous System’ (published in 1904), a classical piece of work entailing prodigious labour and painstaking observation. In 1907 he delivered before the Medical Society of London the Lettsomian lectures on ‘The Diagnosis and Localisation of Cerebral Tumours.’ He contributed many papers on subjects connected with neurology to ‘Brain’ and other medical journals, and in 1898 he published a ‘Handbook on Diseases of the Nervous System,’ which became a leading text-book. His most important work, however, was embodied in a paper on ‘The Distribution of the Different Arteries supplying the Brain,’ which was published in the ‘Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society’ in 1908. After many attempts, he succeeded in injecting simultaneously the five arteries of the brain with different coloured substances held in solution in gelatin. By this means he determined exactly the blood supply to different parts of the brain, and showed that the distribution of blood is purely anatomical, and does not vary according to the physiological action of the parts. Until this work was published, no book contained an accurate description of the cerebral arterial circulation. The importance of Beevor's discovery was not only from the anatomical side but also from the pathological, for it enables the physician to know the exact portions of the brain which are liable to undergo softening when any particular artery is blocked by a clot of blood.
In May 1908 he went by invitation to America. There his lectures on his own subjects were received with enthusiasm at Philadelphia, New York, Chicago, and Boston by the members of the American Neurological Society, and by those of the American Medical Association at their fifty-ninth annual session. In 1907-8 he was president of the Neurological Society, and on its amalgamation with the Royal Society of Medicine he became the first president of the corresponding section, and died in office. For ten years he was hon. secretary to the Association for the Advancement of Medicine by Research.
He died from sudden cardiac failure, on 5 Dec. 1908, at his residence in Wimpole Street. He married on 7 Feb. 1882 Blanche Adine daughter of Dr. Thomas Robinson Loulain, who with a son and daughter survive him. He was buried at Hampstead cemetery.
An enlarged photograph hangs in the committee-room of the medical board of the National Hospital, Queen Square, Bloomsbury.
Becvor ranks amongst the great authorities on the anatomy and diseases of the nervous system. He possessed great intellectual power, energy and industry, and was unsurpassed in accuracy of observation. As a recorder of facts he was conscientious and precise. Yet he was so imbued with scientific caution, that he often hesitated to publish his own observations when they seemed at variance with tradition and accepted teaching.
[Lancet, 19 Dec. 1908; Brit. Med. Journal, 12 Dec. 1908; Presidential Address, Royal College of Physicians, 1909.]