Edward Latham Ormerod

Edward Latham Ormerod (27 August 1819 – 17 March 1873) was a British physician.

Ormerod was born in Welbeck Street, London, the sixth son of the antiquarian, George Ormerod (1785–1873), and his wife, Sarah, "née" Latham (1784–1860). He was educated first at Laleham School, and afterwards at Rugby School, which he left in 1838. He was next a medical student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, remaining there until October 1841, when he entered Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. At Caius, he held both classical and science scholarships. He graduated MB in 1846 and MD in 1851, and he was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1850.

At St Bartholomew's, Ormerod worked as demonstrator of morbid anatomy during 1846 and 1847, and he became the first registrar of the hospital. However, 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". He was elected physician to the Brighton and Hove Dispensary in 1850, and three years later he became physician to the Sussex County Hospital. He married, on 12 April 1853, Mary Olivia Porter, daughter of Edward Robert Porter of Brighton, who died three months later; on 29 March 1856, he married Maria Millett (born 1831/2), daughter of Frederick Millett of Woodhill, Surrey, with whom he had six surviving children:

*Edith Harriet (1859–1910)
*Alice Mya (1860–1933)
*Effie Margaret (born 1865)
*Ernest William (1868–1944), surgeon
*Arthur Latham (born 1870), physician
*Rose Eveline (born 1873)

Ormerod published several papers on medical subjects, taking diseases of the heart as his main interest. He delivered the Goulstonian lectures to the Royal College of Physicians and gave an address to the British Medical Association at its 1864 annual meeting. In 1867 and 1868, he was an examiner for the MB degree at Cambridge. Like his sister, the renowned entomologist Eleanor Anne Ormerod (1828–1901), Edward Ormerod had a great interest in the study of insects. In 1868, he published a natural history, "British Social Wasps", a work well regarded by contemporary entomologists, and in 1872 he was elected FRS. At the time of his death, he was working on the change of colour observable in gurnards, fish of brilliant hues.

Ormerod died at his home, 14 Old Steyne, Brighton, of malignant disease of the bladder. A modest, shy, and sensitive man, his personal character and pathological attainments had won him the respect of a wide circle of professional colleagues.