Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Ormerod, Edward Latham
ORMEROD, EDWARD LATHAM (1819–1873), physician, sixth son of George Ormerod [q. v.], the historian of Cheshire, and his wife Sarah, eldest daughter of Dr. John Latham [q. v.], was born in London in 1819. He was sent to school first at Laleham, and afterwards at Rugby, which he left in 1838. He then became a student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and worked there till October 1841, when he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. At Caius he obtained a classical scholarship, and afterwards scholarships in anatomy and chemistry. In 1846 (Graduati Cantabr. 1800–84, p. 389) he graduated M.B., and in 1851 M.D. In 1867 and 1868 he was an examiner for the M.B. degree. At St. Bartholomew's Hospital he worked in the post-mortem room as a demonstrator during 1846 and 1847, but in the latter year his health broke down, and he left London and went to practise as a physician at Brighton. In 1848 he published ‘Clinical Observations on Continued Fever,’ and in 1853 he was elected physician to the Sussex County Hospital. He published two papers on ‘Degeneration of the Bones’ in the ‘St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports’ (vols. vi. and vii.), and one (vol. iv.) on ‘Fatty Degeneration,’ as well as several less important papers in the ‘Medico-Chirurgical Transactions’ and in medical journals. All contain evidence of his careful pathological work. In 1868 he published a natural history of ‘British Social Wasps,’ a work esteemed by entomologists, and was elected F.R.S. in 1872. At the time of his death he was working at the change of colour observable in gurnards, fish of brilliant hues. He died on 18 March 1873 of malignant disease of the bladder, the agony of which he bore patiently. He was a modest, shy, and sensitive man, whose personal character and pathological attainments were respected by the physicians of his time, and in the wide circle of the school of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He married, in 1853, Mary Olivia Porter, who died three months later; and, in 1856, Maria Millett, by whom he had six children.
[Memoir by Sir James Paget in St. Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, vol. ix.; information from his son; Works.]