Richard Caton

Richard Caton (1842, Bradford – 1926), of Liverpool, England, was a British physician, physiologist and Lord Mayor of Liverpool who was crucial in discovering the electrical nature of the brain and laid the groundwork for Hans Berger to discover alpha wave activity in the human brain.

Early life and education

Richard Caton was born in Bradford, son of Richard Caton M.D. and Mary Fawcett. He had a younger sister, Sarah (1846–1872). His father gave up his medical practice through ill health and moved to Scarborough where he died. Following this, the family returned to his mother's former home of Halifax. Caton became a boarder at Scarborough Grammar School where he developed a life-long love of the classics, reflected in later life when he wrote a number of papers on Ancient Greek medicine. Leaving school at sixteen, he worked in the Halifax and Huddersfield Bank but had to leave due to ill health. The medical treatment he received sparked an interest in practising medicine himself. In 1863 after receiving a small legacy from an aunt, he and his mother were able to move to Scotland where he attended Edinburgh Medical School qualifying MB in 1867, FRCP in 1868, and MD in 1870.

Physician

After graduating, Caton was resident at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh. He moved to Liverpool in 1868 and became assistant physician to The Liverpool Infirmary for Children. He was physician to the Northern Hospital, Liverpool from 1876 to 1886, and physician to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary from 1886 to 1902, where he became consulting physician upon his retirement. He was Vice-Chairman of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine from its foundation in 1899.