page_title: William Gull
section_title: Early career in medicine
hierarchical_section_title: William Gull / Early career in medicine
caption_attribution_description: Engraving of Guy's Hospital Entrance
context_page_description: Sir William Withey Gull, 1st Baronet, was a 19th-century English physician. Of modest family origins, he rose through the ranks of the medical profession to establish a lucrative private practice and serve in a number of prominent roles, including Governor of Guy's Hospital, Fullerian Professor of Physiology and President of the Clinical Society. In 1871, having successfully treated the Prince of Wales during a life-threatening attack of typhoid fever, he was created a Baronet and appointed to be one of the Physicians-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria.
  Gull made a number of significant contributions to medical science, including advancing the understanding of myxoedema, Bright's disease, paraplegia and anorexia nervosa.
  A widely discredited masonic/royal conspiracy theory created in the 1970s alleged that Gull knew the identity of Jack the Ripper, or even that he himself was the murderer. Although dismissed by scholars, its dramatic nature let the theory evolve and remain popular among producers of fictional works, despite Gull being 71 years old and of ill health when the murders were committed.
context_section_description: At about this time the local rector's uncle, Benjamin Harrison, the Treasurer of Guy's Hospital, was introduced to Gull and was impressed by his ability.  He invited him to go to Guy's Hospital under his patronage and, in September 1837, the autumn before he was twenty-one, Gull left home and entered on his life's work.
  It was usual for students of medicine to conduct their studies at the hospital as " apprentices."  The Treasurer's patronage provided Gull with two rooms in the hospital with an annual allowance of £50 a year.
  Gull, encouraged by Harrison, determined to make the most of his opportunity, and resolved to try for every prize for which he could compete in the hospital in the course of that year.  He succeeded in gaining every one. During the first year of his residence at Guy's, together with his other studies he carried on his own education in Greek, Latin, and Mathematics, and in 1838 he matriculated at the recently founded University of London.  In 1841 he took his M.B. degree, and gained honours in physiology, comparative anatomy, medicine, and surgery.
caption: 1820 Engraving of Guy's Hospital entrance by James Elmes and William Woolnoth
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