Identity area
Type of entity
Person
Authorized form of name
Girdwood, Gilbert Prout
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1832-1917
History
Gilbert Prout Girdwood was a medical doctor, chemist, and a professor of Chemistry at McGill University in Montreal. Girdwood was born in England and after coming to Canada with the military, decided to settle in Montreal in 1864. He was an expert in the detection of forgeries in criminal cases, and developed the magnesium flare as a lighting source for photography. He was also one of the first to use stereoscopic x-ray photography in the identification of foreign objects, and an expert at the stereoscopic microscopy of crystals. He was also a leader in the introduction of practical chemistry to university instruction.