author
Walter Kidd
b. 1852
A British physician who turned his sharp eye to zoology and evolution, writing books that explored animal hair patterns, touch, and adaptation. His work sits at an interesting crossroads of medicine, natural history, and early evolutionary debate.
1 Audiobook
Initiative in Evolution
by Walter Kidd
About the author
Born in Blackheath, London, on July 20, 1852, Walter Aubrey Kidd was a British physician as well as a medical and zoological author. He was the son of Dr. Joseph Kidd and later became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Alongside his medical career, he wrote on natural history and evolution, with books including The Direction of Hair in Animals and Man, Use-Inheritance, The Sense of Touch in Mammals and Birds, and Initiative in Evolution. His writing often focused on adaptation, touch, and the meaning of physical traits in animals.
Kidd died on February 21, 1929. While he is not a widely known popular writer today, his books reflect a lively period when doctors, naturalists, and evolutionary thinkers often crossed into one another’s fields.