Reginald John Gladstone

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Reginald John Gladstone (9 June 1865 – 12 February 1947) was a British anatomist and embryologist. He is known for his educational work and research on embryos, and for how his own congenital cataracts shaped his career toward teaching and study rather than clinical practice.

Gladstone was born in Clapham, the third and youngest son of Thomas H. Gladstone and Matilda Field. After his father died when he was six, his family moved to Aberdeen. He studied medicine at Aberdeen University, earning his MB CM DPH in 1888. He trained at Middlesex Hospital as a house physician and surgeon and obtained his MD in 1894. He began teaching anatomy there, becoming an Anatomy Demonstrator in 1895 and Senior Demonstrator in 1896. To broaden his understanding of embryology, he made study trips to Vienna and Vancouver.

In 1911 Gladstone was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He married Ida Millicent Field, his first cousin, in 1912. Because of bilateral congenital cataracts, his career focused mainly on education and research rather than clinical practice. In 1913 he moved to King’s College, London, as a Reader and Lecturer in Anatomy, specializing in Embryology, and remained there until his retirement in 1938. He lived at several addresses in London and Dulwich; his home at 22 Court Lane Gardens was destroyed during the Blitz, after which he moved to Greenhayes in Brockenhurst.

Gladstone published several works, including The Journal of Anatomy and Physiology (1915), The Development of Blood Plasma (1925) with John William Pickering, The Pineal Organ (1940), and A Presomite Human Embryo (1941). He also contributed the article on The Brain to Encyclopaedia Britannica. He and Ida had one son and one daughter.

Reginald John Gladstone died in 1947, leaving a legacy in anatomical education and embryological research.