Liddell, Edward George Tandy (1895-1981)

Identity Statement

Reference code(s)	: GB 0117 MS 748
Held at	: Royal Society   Click here to find out how to view this collection at https://royalsociety.org/collections/ ›
Full title	: Liddell, Edward George Tandy (1895-1981)
Date(s)	: 1926
Level of description	: Sub-fonds
Extent	: 6 volumes (5 notebooks and bound dissertation), 39 letters/clippings
Name of creator(s)	: Liddell | Edward George Tandy | 1895-1981 | physiologist
Detailed catalogue	: Click here to view repository detailed catalogue

Context

Administrative/Biographical history:

The son of a physician, Edward George Tandy Liddell was born on 25 March 1895 in Harrogate. Suffering from pneumonia bouts during his first years, Liddell was to remain in poor health throughout his life, but completed a vast amount of experimental work on the nature of the nervous system.

As an undergraduate reading medicine at Trinity College, Oxford, Liddell was greatly influenced by Sir Charles Scott Sherrington, who at that time held the position of Waynflete Professor of Physiology at Oxford. Sherrington had already made significant contributions to the study of the nervous system and reflexes with finely-tuned experiments on cats and dogs. His results demonstrated 'Sherrington's Law,' the principle that when one muscle is stimulated, muscles that work in opposition are simultaneously inhibited, a turning point in the understanding of co-ordinated motion. Liddell was to be Sherrington's sole assistant in research until 1926. Much of their collaboration appears in Liddell's dissertation, which provided concrete experimental evidence of Sherrington's theories of inhibition.

Liddell continued to refine his experimental techniques in recording reflexes and contributed many details to the emerging picture of the integrated nervous system, often collaborating with pioneers of neurology such as D Denny-Brown and J C Eccles. He conducted several experiments concerning postural reflexes and their origin of control in the brain, work which proved crucial in understanding spinal cord injuries. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1939 and Waynflete Professor of Physiology in 1940, he was increasingly active in administration and the rebuilding of laboratories at Oxford after the war. In 1960 Liddell published a book/memoir, 'The Discovery of Reflexes,' detailing the history of ideas about the nervous system up through the exciting time of Sherrington's laboratory work.

The collection of Liddell's papers includes his unpublished degree thesis, 'The excitatory and inhibitory states in reflex activity,' as well as notebooks from his early school years through university. A later notebook contains Liddell's own detailed instructions for cat dissection with an emphasis on features of the nervous system. The collection also includes correspondence relating to the publication of his book 'The Discovery of Reflexes,' with notes and reminiscing from Sherrington's son Carr, D Denny-Brown, R S Creed, R Granit and other well-known names in the history of neurophysiology.

Content

Scope and content/abstract:

Correspondence, papers and notebooks including the dissertation 'The excitatory and inhibatory states in reflex action' by Edward George Tandy Liddell.

Access & Use

Language/scripts of material:
English

System of arrangement:

The collection has been divided into 3 parts: notebooks, dissertation and personal correspondence.

Conditions governing access:

Open

Conditions governing reproduction:

No publication without written permission. Apply to Archivist in the first instance.

Finding aids:

Archival Information

Archival history:

Immediate source of acquisition:

Allied Materials

Related material:

Oxford University, History of Science Library holds Liddell papers and correspondence, mostly relating to Sir Charles Scott Sherrington.

Publication note:

Description Notes

Archivist's note:
Copied from the Royal Society catalogue by Sarah Drewery.

Rules or conventions:
General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.

Date(s) of descriptions:
Feb 2009.