Peter Mark Roget

Peter Mark Roget was appointed as a non-resident Fullerian Professor at the Royal Institution, at the same time as Michael Faraday was appointed resident Fullerian Professor in 1833. Roget was an accomplished physiologist and also a medical doctor, who played a leading role in the Royal Society as its Secretary. He is thorugh to have compiled his invaluable Thesaurus—the reverse of a dictionary—because of insomnia. And the Thesaurus has seldom been out of print since it first appeared, thanks to revisions of it carried out by his son and grandson. Many eminent scientists have occupied the Fullerian Professorship of Physiology, notably, Sir Peter Medawar and Sir Thomas Huxley (as well as his grandsons, Julian and Andrew Huxley). The contributions of these eminent physiologists are adumbrated in this chapter.