William Hewson (surgeon)

William Hewson (1739 to 1774) was a British surgeon, anatomist and physiologist, born at Hexham in Northumberland and called the father of haematology. He trained at the Newcastle Infirmary and in Edinburgh, and was a student and later assistant of William Hunter in London. His major contribution was isolating fibrin, a key protein in blood coagulation. He showed that lymph vessels exist in animals, explained their function, and proposed a human lymphatic system, work that won the Copley Medal in 1769. He also showed that red blood cells are discoid rather than spherical and in 1773 gave evidence for a cell membrane around them. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1768 and the Royal Society in 1770, married Mary Stevenson, a friend of Benjamin Franklin, and ran an anatomy school at Franklin's London house. He died in 1774 of sepsis contracted while dissecting a cadaver.