John Flint South was born in 1797. He was educated by Rev Samuel Hemming DD, at Hampton, Middlesex, in 1805-1813. He was apprenticed as an articled pupil to Henry Cline the younger, a Surgeon at the St Thomas' Hospital, in 1814. He attended Sir Astley Cooper's lectures on anatomy. He was admitted MRCS in 1819. He became Prosector to the Lecturers on Anatomy at St Thomas's Hospital, and was appointed Conservator of the Museum and Assistant Demonstrator of Anatomy, in 1820. He was elected Demonstrator of Anatomy jointly with Bransby Cooper in 1823, and on the retirement of Sir Astley Cooper he was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy in 1825 in preference to Bransby Cooper, an event which brought to a head disagreements between the two Borough Hospitals and led to the separation of the Medical Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital in 1834, and full Surgeon in 1841. He resigned this post in 1863, having retired from the lectureship of surgery in 1860. At the Royal College of Surgeons, South was a Member of the Council from 1841-1873. He delivered the Hunterian Oration in 1844; he was Professor of Human Anatomy from 1845-1847; a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1849-1868; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1859; and a Member of the Dental Board from 1864-1868. He served as Vice-President during the years 1849, 1850, 1858, and 1859, and was elected President in 1851 and 1860. As Vice-President in 1859 he marked his year of office by getting the body of John Hunter re-buried in Westminster Abbey, and wrote the inscription for his monument. South died in 1882.
William Clift was born in Cornwall in 1775, and was educated locally. He became an apprentice anatomical assistant to the celebrated surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793) in 1792. He was appointed conservator of the Hunterian Museum after Hunter's death. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1823, and was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry. He died in 1849.
Anne Home Hunter was born in Greenlaw, Berwickshire, in 1742. She was a poet, and the wife of John Hunter, the surgeon and anatomist. She died in 1821.
Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster grammar school, the University of Edinburgh, and St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was a comparative anatomist, a palaeontologist, conservator of the Hunterian Museum, and superintendent of the Natural History collections of the British Museum. He died in 1892.
William Clift was born in Cornwall in 1775, and was educated locally. He became an apprentice anatomical assistant to the celebrated surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793) in 1792. He was appointed conservator of the Hunterian Museum after Hunter's death. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1823, and was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry. He died in 1849.
Philip Syng Physick was born in 1768. He was an American physician, who mainly studied in Philadelphia, but was also a pupil of John Hunter whilst in London. He became known as 'The Father of American Surgery.' He died in 1837.
Edmund Belfour was born in 1790. He became secretary to The Royal College of Surgeons of England at age 21, taking over from his father, Okey Belfour. Edmund Belfour held this post for fifty years, and died on in 1865 at his residence in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
William Clift was born in Cornwall in 1775, and was educated locally. He became an apprentice anatomical assistant to the celebrated surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793) in 1792. He was appointed conservator of the Hunterian Museum after Hunter's death. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1823, and was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry. He died in 1849.
Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster grammar school, the University of Edinburgh, and St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was a comparative anatomist, a palaeontologist, conservator of the Hunterian Museum, and superintendent of the Natural History collections of the British Museum. He died in 1892.
William Home Clift was born in London, in 1803. He was the youngest child of William Clift (1775-1849), museum curator and scientific illustrator, and was named after his godfather, Sir Everard Home, the surgeon and anatomist, and John Hunter's brother-in-law. His father and godfather were keen for him to continue the work of his father as conservator of the Hunterian Museum. The College records show that William Home Clift was already working in the Museum in 1818 and in 1823 he was officially appointed assistant conservator. One of the most important pieces of work he completed at the museum was the preparation of catalogues of the osteological section of the museum in 1830, and the Catalogue of Monsters and Malformed Parts in 1831. Biographers of John Hunter, and Sir Richard Owen (who was appointed as the second assistant in the museum in 1827) have attributed the preparation of these catalogues to Owen, not acknowledging William Home Clift's work. He died in 1832.
Jacques Vivier was probably a professional scribe working in Paris at the end of the 16th century. No further biographical information is currently available.
Pierre Seguin was born in 1566. He was a doctor in Paris; Professor of Surgery at the College Royal de France, 1594-1599; Professor of Medicine, 1599-1618 and 1623-1630; surgeon to King Louis XIII; and Principal Physician to the Queen-mother, Anne of Austria. He died in 1648.
Guy de Chauliac, a French surgeon, also known as Guido de Cauliaco, was one of the most famous surgical writers of the middle ages. At Avignon, he was physician to Pope Clement VI as well as two further popes. His major work Chirurgia magna (1363) was used as a manual by physicians for three centuries.
William Wadd was born in 1776 He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School from 1784, and was apprenticed to James Earle in 1797, becoming a surgeon's pupil at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was admitted a member of The Royal College of Surgeons in 1801. He practised and resided in Basinghall St, London. At The Royal College of Surgeons, Wadd was a member of the council in 1824, and he was appointed a member of the court of examiners in 1829. He was appointed one of the surgeons-extraordinary to the Prince Regent in 1817, and then surgeon-extraordinary to George IV in 1821. Wadd was a fellow of the Linnean Society and an associate of the Societe de Medecine of Paris. He died in 1829.
A new hospital was built in Tooting by the Metropolitan Asylums Board after a resurgence of Scarlet Fever in 1893. This was the 400 bed Fountain Fever Hospital, designed by Thomas W Aldwinckle, and built in nine weeks.
Most of the buildings were single-storey structures with timber frames, covered with boarding, felt and corrugated iron. On the inside, the walls were lined with boarding and asbestos on plaster. A porter's lodge stood at the west of the site at the entrance on Tooting Grove. It contained a gate office, waiting room, and lavatory, with discharging rooms and bathrooms to the rear. There were separate entrances at each side - the 'infected' one leading to the receiving wards, and the 'non-infected' one leading to the administration buildings and stores.
There were 8 ward blocks, arranged in two rows of 4, and all linked by a central covered way. Each block contained 24 beds, plus a scullery, attendant's bedroom and staff WC, linen room, and patients' bathroom. Two further isolation blocks were situated at the north-west edge of the site. The 'temporary' ward blocks were still in use in 1930. There was also accommodation for nursing staff, domestic staff and male servants, as well as workshops and a mortuary.
In 1911-1912, the hospital was redesignated as a mental hospital and became used for the accommodation of the lowest grade of severely subnormal children, becoming the Fountain Mental Hospital. In 1930, the administration of the hospital passed to the London County Council who retained it as a hospital for mentally defective children. From 1948 the hospital was known as the Fountain Hospital. It was demolished in 1963 and the site is now occupied by St George's Hospital.
Thomas Brushfield was a surgeon, and formerly the Senior Medical Officer at the Fountain Mental Hospital. This collection was compiled during his work there between 1914-1927, and is also known as the Brushfield Amentia Collection.
Charles Alexandre Lesueur was born in 1778, the son of a French naval officer. Aged 23, he sailed from his home at Le Havre, France, on an expedition to Australia and Tasmania. During the next 4 years, Lesueur and the naturalist François Péron collected over 100,000 zoological specimens representing 2,500 new species, and Lesueur made 1,500 drawings. Lesueur met William Maclure in 1815, and was persuaded to join him in Philadelphia where he lived until the end of 1825. Lesueur travelled on Maclure's 'Boatload of Knowledge' to Mount Vernon, Indiana, and then a few miles on to New Harmony. He remained there until 1837, when he returned to France. He was appointed curator of the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle du Havre in 1845, which was created to house his many drawings and paintings. He died in 1846.
Frederick Christian Lewis was born in London, in 1779. He was primarily a printmaker and engraver, and his prints were highly valued by his contemporaries. He became engraver of drawings to Princess Charlotte, Prince Leopold, George IV, William IV, and Queen Victoria. He also made tours in Europe producing various etchings. He died in Enfield, Middlesex, in 1856.
Biographical information regarding B A Vitry was unavailable at the time of compilation.
John Howship was born in 1781. He became assistant surgeon at the St George's Infirmary, London and a lecturer at the school of the St George's Hospital. He moved to the Charing Cross Hospital as Assistant Surgeon, in 1834, and was promoted to chief surgeon in 1836 after his predecessor, Thomas Pettigrew was dismissed after being found guilty of demanding and obtaining £500 from Mr Howship for the assistant surgeon position. Howship gave the Hunterian Lecture at the College of Surgeons in 1833. He died in 1841.
William White Cooper was born in Holt, Wiltshire, in 1816. He studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital from 1834, and became a private pupil of surgeon Edward Stanley. Cooper took notes of Sir Richard Owen's lectures on comparative anatomy given at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1838-1839. Owen was impressed and awarded Cooper a prize. The notes were later published as Lectures in the Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Invertebrate Animals (1843). Cooper received the MRCS in 1838, and the FRCS in 1845. He was one of the original staff of the North London Eye Institution. Subsequently he became Ophthalmic Surgeon to St Mary's Hospital Paddington. He was appointed Surgeon-Oculist in Ordinary to Queen Victoria in 1859. He died in 1886, before his imminent knighthood.
Marie Jean Pierre Flourens was born at Maureilhan, near Béziers, in 1794. He studied medicine at Montpellier, and he received the degree of doctor in 1823. He went to Paris in 1824, carrying an introduction from A P de Candolle, the botanist, to Georges Cuvier, who received him and took an interest in him. In Paris he engaged in physiological research. He gave a course of lectures on the physiological theory of the sensations, at the Athénée, in 1821. He became a member of the Institute, in the division "Economic rurale", 1828. He became Cuvier's substitute as lecturer on human anatomy at the Jardin du Roi, in 1830, and was elected to the post of titular professor, in 1832, which he vacated for the professorship of comparative anatomy created for him at the museum of the Jardin the same year. He was appointed a perpetual secretary of the Academy of Sciences in 1833. He was returned as a deputy for the arrondissement of Béziers, in 1838. He was elected, in preference to Victor Hugo, to succeed J F Michaud at the French Academy in 1840. He was created a commander of the legion of honour in 1845, and a peer of France, in 1846. Flourens drew the attention of the Academy of Sciences to the anaesthetic effect of chloroform on animals, in 1847. He withdrew completely from political life in the Revolution of 1848, and accepted the professorship of natural history at the College de France, in 1855. He died at Montgeron, near Paris, in 1867.
Lyon Playfair was born in Bengal, India, in 1818. He was sent from India to St Andrews to be raised by an aunt, in 1820. His mother joined him, but he did not see his father until he was 22 years old. He was educated at the parish school, a grammar school and then entered the University of St Andrews in 1832. He was sent to train as a merchant in Glasgow with an uncle, but his medical ambitions prevailed. He enrolled at Anderson's University and attended the chemistry classes of Thomas Graham. He continued his medical studies at Edinburgh University, and then University College, London. Here he became laboratory assistant to Thomas Graham. Playfair studied with the eminent organic chemist, Justus von Liebig, in 1839. His discoveries of a new fatty acid in the butter of nutmeg, and a new crystalline substance in cloves gave him an excellent reputation with Liebig. Playfair became honorary Professor of Chemistry at the Royal Institution of Manchester. He was a member of the Royal Commission on sanitation, and received a grant to study the efficiency of charcoal iron furnaces. He moved to London in 1845, becoming chemist to the Geological Survey, and worked on various research assignments for the Crown and the government, including trying to combat a series cholera epidemics. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1848. He was appointed Professor of Chemistry at the new government-run School of Mines, in 1851. He was appointed Secretary for Science in the new Department of Science and Art (DSA), in 1853. He accepted the Presidency of the Chemical Society, and also took up the Professorship of Chemistry at Edinburgh University, in 1858. He chaired a Royal Commission on the restrictions on herring fishing in 1862-1863, and then the cattle plague. He lobbyed for an investigation of the outcome of the Paris Universal Exhibition, in 1867. He presided over a commission looking into the administration of the civil service, which reported in 1875. At this time he was also involved in heated parliamentary debates on vivisection. He was appointed by William Gladstone as Deputy Speaker and Chairman of Ways in 1880. The issue of Irish Home Rule dominated this administration. He found he had a lack of support and resigned in 1882. In 1883 he was made KCB, and spent some years on the back benches. He served as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, in 1885. He published his principal public addresses in Subjects of Social Welfare, 1889. Playfair was created Baron Playfair of St Andrews in 1892, whereupon he left the Commons and was made lord-in-waiting to Queen Victoria. He was appointed as GCB in 1895. He proposed the creation of a new museum at South Kensington in 1897, proposing the title 'Victorian Museum' in honour of the Queen's jubilee. He did not live to see the opening of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1899. He died in 1898.
Thomas Wormald was born in Pentonville, in 1802. He was educated at Batley Grammar School in Yorkshire, and afterwards by the Rev W Heald, Vicar of Bristol. He was apprenticed to John Abernethy in 1818. He visited schools in Paris and saw the surgical practice of Dupuytren, Roux, Larrey, Cloquet, Cruveithier, and Velpeau. He became House Surgeon to William Lawrence in 1824. He became Demonstrator of Anatomy in 1826, and held the post for fifteen years. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1838, and spent the next 23 years teaching in the out-patient department. He became full Surgeon in 1861, and was obliged to resign under the age rule in 1867, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon. He was Consulting Surgeon to the Foundling Hospital from 1843-1864, where his kindness to the children was so highly appreciated that he received the special thanks of the Court of Management and was complimented by being elected a Governor. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Member of Council from 1840-1867; Hunterian Orator in 1857; a Member of the Court of Examiners from1858-1868; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1864; Vice-President in 1863 and 1864; and was elected President in 1865. He died in 1873.
Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster, in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster Grammar School and then enlisted as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He became interested in surgery He returned to Lancaster and became indentured to a local surgeon, in 1820. He entered the University of Edinburgh medical school, in 1824 and privately attended the lectures of Dr John Barclay. He moved to London and became apprentice to John Abernethy, surgeon, philosopher and President of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1825. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1826. He became Assistant Curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1827, and commenced work cataloguing the collection. He set up a private practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He became lecturer on comparative anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in 1829. He met Georges Cuvier in 1830 and attended the 1831 debates between Cuvier and Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, in Paris. He worked in the dissecting rooms and public galleries of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1831. He published anatomical work on the cephalopod Nautilus, and started the Zoological Magazine, in 1833. He worked on the fossil vertebrates brought back by Darwin on the Beagle. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1834; Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, in 1836-1856; and gave his first series of Hunterian Lectures to the public, in 1837. He was awarded the Wollaston gold medal by the Geological Society, in 1838; helped found the Royal Microscopical Society, in 1839; and identified the extinct moa of New Zealand from a bone fragment, 1839. He refused a knighthood in 1842. He examined reptile-like fossil bones found in southern England which led him to identify "a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles" he named Dinosauria, in 1842. He developed his concept of homology and of a common structural plan for all vertebrates or 'archetype'. He became Joint Conservator of the Hunterian Museum with William Clift, in 1842, and Conservator, in 1849. He was elected to 'The Club', founded by Dr Johnson, in 1845. He was a member of the government commission for inquiring into the health of London, in 1847, including Smithfield and other meat markets, in 1849. He described the anatomy of the newly discovered (in 1847) species of ape, the gorilla, [1865]. He engaged in a long running public debate with Thomas Henry Huxley on the evolution of humans from apes. He was a member of the preliminary Committee of organisation for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was Superintendent of the natural history collections at the British Museum, in 1856, and began researches on the collections, publishing many papers on specimens. He was prosector for the London Zoo, dissecting and preserving any zoo animals that died in captivity. He taught natural history to Queen Victoria's children, in 1860. He reported on the first specimen of an unusual Jurassic bird fossil from Germany, Archaeopteryx lithographica, in 1863. He lectured on fossils at the Museum of Practical Geology, and he was Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution, during 1859-1861. His taxonomic work included a number of important discoveries, as he named and described a vast number of living and fossil vertebrates. He campaigned to make the natural history departments of the British Museum into a separate museum, leading to the construction of a new building in South Kensington to house the new British Museum (Natural History), opened in 1881; [now the Natural History Museum]. He was knighted in 1884. He died in Richmond in 1892.
Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster, in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster Grammar School and then enlisted as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He became interested in surgery He returned to Lancaster and became indentured to a local surgeon, in 1820. He entered the University of Edinburgh medical school, in 1824 and privately attended the lectures of Dr John Barclay. He moved to London and became apprentice to John Abernethy, surgeon, philosopher and President of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1825. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1826. He became Assistant Curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1827, and commenced work cataloguing the collection. He set up a private practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He became lecturer on comparative anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in 1829. He met Georges Cuvier in 1830 and attended the 1831 debates between Cuvier and Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, in Paris. He worked in the dissecting rooms and public galleries of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1831. He published anatomical work on the cephalopod Nautilus, and started the Zoological Magazine, in 1833. He worked on the fossil vertebrates brought back by Darwin on the Beagle. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1834; Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, in 1836-1856; and gave his first series of Hunterian Lectures to the public, in 1837. He was awarded the Wollaston gold medal by the Geological Society, in 1838; helped found the Royal Microscopical Society, in 1839; and identified the extinct moa of New Zealand from a bone fragment, 1839. He refused a knighthood in 1842. He examined reptile-like fossil bones found in southern England which led him to identify "a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles" he named Dinosauria, in 1842. He developed his concept of homology and of a common structural plan for all vertebrates or 'archetype'. He became Joint Conservator of the Hunterian Museum with William Clift, in 1842, and Conservator, in 1849. He was elected to 'The Club', founded by Dr Johnson, in 1845. He was a member of the government commission for inquiring into the health of London, in 1847, including Smithfield and other meat markets, in 1849. He described the anatomy of the newly discovered (in 1847) species of ape, the gorilla, [1865]. He engaged in a long running public debate with Thomas Henry Huxley on the evolution of humans from apes. He was a member of the preliminary Committee of organisation for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was Superintendent of the natural history collections at the British Museum, in 1856, and began researches on the collections, publishing many papers on specimens. He was prosector for the London Zoo, dissecting and preserving any zoo animals that died in captivity. He taught natural history to Queen Victoria's children, in 1860. He reported on the first specimen of an unusual Jurassic bird fossil from Germany, Archaeopteryx lithographica, in 1863. He lectured on fossils at the Museum of Practical Geology, and he was Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution, during 1859-1861. His taxonomic work included a number of important discoveries, as he named and described a vast number of living and fossil vertebrates. He campaigned to make the natural history departments of the British Museum into a separate museum, leading to the construction of a new building in South Kensington to house the new British Museum (Natural History), opened in 1881; [now the Natural History Museum]. He was knighted in 1884. He died in Richmond in 1892.
Sir Everard Home was born in Hull, Yorkshire, in 1756. He was educated at Westminster School, and became a surgical pupil of his brother-in-law John Hunter (1728-1793), surgeon at St George's Hospital, London. Home qualified through the Company of Surgeons in 1778 and was appointed assistant surgeon in the new naval hospital at Plymouth. In 1779 he went to Jamaica as staff surgeon with the army, but on returning to England in 1784 he rejoined Hunter at St George's as assistant. He was elected FRS in 1787, and in the same year he became assistant surgeon at St George's Hospital. In 1790-1791 Home read lectures for Hunter and in the following year he succeeded Hunter as lecturer in anatomy. Home joined the army in Flanders in 1793, but returned just before Hunter's sudden death in 1793. He then became surgeon at St George's Hospital and was also joint executor of Hunter's will with Matthew Baillie, Hunter's nephew. In 1793-1794 they saw Hunter's important work, On the Blood, Inflammation and Gun-Shot Wounds, through the press and in 1794 Home approached Pitt's government to secure the purchase for the nation of Hunter's large collection of anatomical and pathological specimens. After protracted negotiations the collection was purchased for £15,000 in 1799 and presented to the College of Surgeons. In 1806 the collection was moved from Hunter's gallery in Castle Street to form the Hunterian Museum at the new site of the college in Lincoln's Inn Fields. Home was chief curator and William Clift, who had worked with Hunter since 1792, was retained as resident conservator. Clift also had charge of Hunter's numerous folios, drawings, and accounts of anatomical and pathological investigations, which were essential for a clear understanding of the collection. In the years following Hunter's death Home built up a large surgical practice and published more than one hundred papers of varying quality, some very good, mainly in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. The society awarded him its Copley medal in 1807. He gave the Croonian lectures fifteen times between 1794 and 1826. As Hunter's brother-in-law and executor he had great influence at the Royal College of Surgeons where he was elected to the court of assistants in 1801, an examiner in 1809, master in 1813 and 1821, and its first president in 1822. Having, with Matthew Baillie, endowed the Hunterian oration, he was the first Hunterian orator in 1814, and again in 1822. He became Keeper and a trustee of the Hunterian Museum in 1817 and was Professor of Anatomy and Surgery at the college from 1804 to 1813, and again in 1821. His Lectures on Comparative Anatomy were published in 1814 with a volume of plates from drawings by Clift. A further volume of lectures followed in 1823 accompanied by microscopical and anatomical drawings by Bauer and Clift. Two more volumes appeared in 1828. This work, although lacking in structure, is an important record of Hunter's investigations, especially the last two volumes. Home drew heavily on Hunter's work in the papers and books which he published after Hunter's death. Before the collection was presented to the Company of Surgeons in 1799 Home arranged for Clift to convey to his own house Hunter's folio volumes and fasciculi of manuscripts containing descriptions of the preparations and investigations connected with them. He promised to catalogue the collection, refusing help, but, despite repeated requests, only a synopsis appeared in 1818. B C Brodie says that Home was busily using Hunter's papers in preparing his own contributions for the Royal Society. Home himself later stated that he had published all of value in Hunter's papers and that his one hundred articles in Philosophical Transactions formed a catalogue raisonée of the Hunterian Museum. Home destroyed most of Hunter's papers in 1823. After his death in 1832, a parliamentary committee was set up to enquire into the details of this act of vandalism. Clift told this committee in 1834 that Home had used Hunter's papers extensively and had claimed that Hunter, when he was dying, had ordered him to destroy his papers. Yet Home, who was not present at Hunter's death, had kept the papers for thirty years. Clift also declared that he had often transcribed parts of Hunter's original work and drawings into papers which appeared under Home's name. Home produced a few of Hunter's papers which he had not destroyed and Clift had copied about half of the descriptions of preparations in the collection, consequently enough of Hunter's work survives to suggest that Home had often published Hunter's observations as his own. Although the full extent of Home's plagiarism cannot be determined, there is little doubt that it was considerable and this seriously damaged his reputation.
Whitlock Nicholl was born in Treddington, Worcester, in 1786. He grew up with his uncle, the Reverend John Nicholl. He was placed with Mr Bevan in 1802, a medical practitioner at Cowbridge in Glamorganshire. He entered as a pupil at St George's hospital, in 1806. He attended the lectures of Mr Wilson, Dr Hooper, Dr Pearson, Dr John Clarke, and Sir Everard Home. He was appointed house surgeon at the Lock Hospital, in 1808, and admitted as a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1809. He returned to Cowbridge and entered into partnership with his former master, Mr Bevan, and then succeeded him as physician on his retirement. He was created Doctor of Medicine by Marischal College, Aberdeen, in 1816, and was admitted an extra Licentiate of the College of Physicians, the same year. He was created Doctor of Medicine by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1817, through the interest of his relation Sir John Nicholl. He had a successful practice in Ludlow. He matriculated from Glasgow in 1825, and attained the M D in 1826. He then moved to London, where he was admitted a Licentiate of the College of Physicians in 1836. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1830. He died in 1838.
John Hunter was born in East Kilbride, in 1728. He received little formal education. He moved to London in 1748, with his elder brother William Hunter (1718-1783) who was a midwife and physician, and a private lecturer in surgery and anatomy. Initially John made dissections and prepared specimens for William's lectures, and he started attending lectures in 1749. He became a surgeon-pupil at St George's Hospital in 1754, and started to give lectures for William. By 1750 John was so proficient at dissection that he was able to make the first set of preparations for his brother's comprehensive study of pregnancy, The Anatomy of the Human Gravid Uterus, published in 1774. John was commissioned as an army surgeon in 1761, and joined the British military expedition to Belle Île, off the northern coast of France. He was posted to Portugal in 1762. While serving with the army he laid the foundations for future work by studying the regeneration of the tails of lizards. He also carried out researches on the treatment of venereal disease and gunshot wounds. On his return to London he taught practical anatomy and operative surgery, and worked with the dentist James Spence. The latter resulted in two major publications: The Natural History of Human Teeth (1771) and A Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Teeth (1778) which included important accounts of the transplantation of teeth in people, as well as the more famous experiment of the transplantation of a human tooth into a cock's comb. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767 and became a Member of the Company of Surgeons in 1768. He was appointed surgeon at St George's Hospital. He gave lectures in anatomy at the Incorporated Society of Artists in 1769-1770. Shortly afterwards he started to lecture in surgery to his pupils from St George's Hospital. In 1775 Hunter began to advertise a course of lectures on 'The Principles and Practice of Surgery', and he continued to stage these each year until his death. His surgical achievements were recognised by his appointment as Surgeon-extraordinary to George III and as Croonian lecturer at the Royal Society. He was elected a Member of the American Philosophical Society and received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society. He was elected a Member of the Court of Assistants of the Company of Surgeons in 1789. Hunter had been appointed Assistant Surgeon-General to the armed forces in 1785, and Surgeon-General and Inspector General of Regimental Hospitals in 1790. He drew up a scheme for training army medical staff which he successfully put into practice. Hunter was also one of the first vice-presidents of the London Veterinary College, established in 1791. He died in 1793.
William Hunter was born in Long Calderwood, Lanarkshire, Scotland, in 1718. Intended for the church, he attended the University of Glasgow from 1731-1736 where he was exposed to the philosophical teachings of Francis Hutcheson which turned him against the rigid dogmas of Presbyterian theology. An acquaintance with the physician William Cullen (1710-1790) interested him in the medical profession, and he studied with Cullen for three years. Eager to widen his experience, he went to London in 1741 where he worked as an assistant to William Smellie MD (1697-1763) and then from 1741-1742 with James Douglas, both of whom fostered his interest in obstetrics and gynaecology. Between 1741-1749 he was tutor to William George Douglas. In 1750 he was awarded an MD by the University of Glasgow. In 1749 he was appointed as a surgeon at Middlesex Hospital, England, before transferring for a brief time to the British Lying-in Hospital. He was particularly interested in obstetrics and in 1762 was called to attend Queen Charlotte on the birth of her first child. Two years later, he was appointed as Physician Extraordinary to Queen Charlotte and rapidly became the most sought after physician in London. His research, embodied in his Anatomical Description of the Human Gravid Uterus (1774) and his practical example, including the establishment of specialist training for both physicians and midwives, did much to establish obstetrics as a respectable branch of medicine for the first time, though he took a perverse pleasure in continuing to describe himself as a despised 'man-midwife'. He died in 1783.
William Clift was born in 1775. He was apprenticed to John Hunter in 1792 and had sole charge of his museum after his death. He made copies of many of Hunter's manuscripts before the destruction of the originals by his brother-in-law Sir Everard Home. Clift was then conservator of the Hunterian Museum after the collection was transferred to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800. He continued in this role for nearly 50 years compiling an osteological catalogue of the museum and researching the collections. He died in 1849.
Sir Richard Owen was born in 1804. He studied at the University of Edinburgh Medical School from 1824. He moved to London and became apprenticed to John Abernethy, in 1825. He was made Assistant Curator to the Hunterian Museum, in 1826. Owen engaged in private practice, lectured in comparative anatomy, worked with the collections in the museum, founded various societies, and made discoveries such as the identification of a sub-order of Saurian reptiles which he named Dinosauria. Owen became Joint Conservator of the Hunterian Museum with William Clift, in 1842. Owen worked on the natural history collections of the British Museum, and campaigned for them to form a separate museum, which was opened in 1881 (now the Natural History Museum). Owen was knighted in 1884 and died in 1892.
Sir Richard Owen was born in Lancaster, in 1804. He was educated at Lancaster Grammar School and then enlisted as a midshipman in the Royal Navy. He became interested in surgery He returned to Lancaster and became indentured to a local surgeon, in 1820. He entered the University of Edinburgh medical school, in 1824 and privately attended the lectures of Dr John Barclay. He moved to London and became apprentice to John Abernethy, surgeon, philosopher and President of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1825. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1826. He became Assistant Curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in 1827, and commenced work cataloguing the collection. He set up a private practice in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He became lecturer on comparative anatomy at St Bartholomew's Hospital, in 1829. He met Georges Cuvier in 1830 and attended the 1831 debates between Cuvier and Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, in Paris. He worked in the dissecting rooms and public galleries of the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, in 1831. He published anatomical work on the cephalopod Nautilus, and started the Zoological Magazine, in 1833. He worked on the fossil vertebrates brought back by Darwin on the Beagle. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society, in 1834; Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, in 1836-1856; and gave his first series of Hunterian Lectures to the public, in 1837. He was awarded the Wollaston gold medal by the Geological Society, in 1838; helped found the Royal Microscopical Society, in 1839; and identified the extinct moa of New Zealand from a bone fragment, 1839. He refused a knighthood in 1842. He examined reptile-like fossil bones found in southern England which led him to identify "a distinct tribe or sub-order of Saurian Reptiles" he named Dinosauria, in 1842. He developed his concept of homology and of a common structural plan for all vertebrates or 'archetype'. He became Joint Conservator of the Hunterian Museum with William Clift, in 1842, and Conservator, in 1849. He was elected to 'The Club', founded by Dr Johnson, in 1845. He was a member of the government commission for inquiring into the health of London, in 1847, including Smithfield and other meat markets, in 1849. He described the anatomy of the newly discovered (in 1847) species of ape, the gorilla, [1865]. He engaged in a long running public debate with Thomas Henry Huxley on the evolution of humans from apes. He was a member of the preliminary Committee of organisation for the Great Exhibition of 1851. He was Superintendent of the natural history collections at the British Museum, in 1856, and began researches on the collections, publishing many papers on specimens. He was prosector for the London Zoo, dissecting and preserving any zoo animals that died in captivity. He taught natural history to Queen Victoria's children, in 1860. He reported on the first specimen of an unusual Jurassic bird fossil from Germany, Archaeopteryx lithographica, in 1863. He lectured on fossils at the Museum of Practical Geology, and he was Fullerian Professor of Physiology at the Royal Institution, during 1859-1861. His taxonomic work included a number of important discoveries, as he named and described a vast number of living and fossil vertebrates. He campaigned to make the natural history departments of the British Museum into a separate museum, leading to the construction of a new building in South Kensington to house the new British Museum (Natural History), opened in 1881; [now the Natural History Museum]. He was knighted in 1884. He died in Richmond in 1892.
William Heberden was born in Southwark, London, in 1710. He was educated at the local grammar school. He transferred to St John's College, Cambridge, in 1724, and became a Fellow in 1730. He practised as a physician in Cambridge for several years, delivering a series of lectures on Materia Medica, for 10 years. He was admitted as a Candidate of the College of Physicians, in 1745 and a Fellow in 1746. He settled in London in 1748, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1749. He was also nominated Gulstonian Lecturer in 1749; Harveian orator in 1750; and Croonian lecturer in 1760. He was censor in 1749, 1755, and 1760; Consiliarius in 1762; and was constituted an Elect in 1762, which he resigned in 1781. He died in 1801.
William Clift was born near Bodmin, Cornwall, in 1775. He was educated locally and demonstrated an aptitude for illustration. This was noticed by Walter Raleigh Gilbert and his wife Nancy, who had been a schoolfellow of Anne Home, who had married John Hunter in 1771. On Gilbert's recommendation, Clift was apprenticed to John Hunter as an anatomical assistant, until Hunter's sudden death in 1793.
After Hunter's death, his collection of specimens was offered for sale to the government. During the period of negotiations, Clift was employed to look after the collections for a small income. He did this until 1799 when the collections were purchased by the government. During this period, Clift feared for the safety of the collection, and copied out many of Hunter's unpublished manuscripts. This meant that much of the content was saved from loss through Sir Everard Home's destruction of his brother-in-law's manuscripts in 1823. In 1799 the government asked The Company of Surgeons (soon to become the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800) to look after the John Hunter collections. The Trustees of the College then made Clift conservator of the new Hunterian Museum paying him £80 per annum. He was a prolific record keeper and his diaries are a valuable resource for information about the workings of the College and Museum as well as wider social life in London. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1823; he was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry; and also a fellow of the Geological Society. Clift retired from the museum in 1842, when he was replaced by Sir Richard Owen as curator. He died in 1849.
Florence Nightingale was born Villia Columbia, Florence, in 1820. She lived in Embley Park, Hampshire and was educated by her father. She recorded in 1837, that 'God had called her to His service.' She became interested in the mystics and studied the lives of people such as St Teresa of Avila and St John of the Cross. She travelled to the religious community at Kaiserwerth-am- Rhein, where she saw the possibility of changing nursing by training suitably motivated women of any class. She published an anonymous account of the community, The Institution of Kaiserwort on the Rhine for the Practical Training of Deaconesses, (1851). On her return to England she continued her interest in nursing, and accepted the post of unpaid superintendant to the Institute for Sick Governesses in Harley Street, London. She became an expert in hospital administration, demanding improvements in facilities, and insisting that Roman Catholics be admitted as patients. She assisted in the cholera epidemic in Soho, in 1851. When the Crimean War broke out in 1854, Sidney Herbert, Secretary of State at War, wrote to Nightingale asking her to take a party of nurses to Scutari, to help the neglected wounded. She took a party of 38 nurses to Scutari to assist at the 4 hospitals, in 1854, where she ensured conditions were improved. She used money from The Timesnewspaper to buy much needed equipment and improve hygiene. She insisted on attending to all the worst cases herself and made a point of visiting all the wards. Appalled by the inadequate feeding arrangements she persuaded Lord Panmure, Secretary of State for War to arrange for Alexis Soyer, Chef at the Reform Cub, to come out and organise the cooking. She proved a formidable administrator and organiser and her role at Scutari was as much that of a 'General Purveyor' as of a medical nurse. She collapsed with Crimean Fever (which she referred to as Typhus) in 1855. On her recovery she returned to Scutari to continue working. When news of her illness reached Britain there were prayers for her recovery and The Times referred to her as 'The Lady of the Lamp'. Many people made gifts to help her in her work, and raised £45,000. She returned to England after the war and set up a reform cabinet and established a highly effective relationship with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. She managed to establish a Royal Commission, with Sidney Herbert as chairman, in 1857, and published her report Notes on matters affecting the health, efficency and hospital administration of the British Army, in 1858. She was also made a member of the Statistical Society, in 1858. She became an invalid in 1858, but continued to work for the promotion of sanitary science, the collection of statistics, the design of hospitals, and reform of nursing and midwifery services. She campaigned for a pure water supply in 1861, and stressed the importance of irrigation and sanitary reform in India. She used part of the Nightingale Fund to finance an experimental training scheme for midwives at King's College Hospital. She assisted the Association for Improving Workhouse Infirmaries which eventually resulted in the Metropolitan Poor Law Act (1867). She used the Nightingale Fund to provide a training scheme for nurses based at the Highgate Poor Law Infirmary, and in 1881, for a team of Nightingale Nurses at the St Marylebone Institute, thus laying the foundations for training nurses in the new municipal hospitals after the Local Government Act (1888). She conducted a survey with Florence Lees in 1874, which resulted in the Report of the National Association for Providing Trained Nurses for the Sick Poor. In 1875 the Metropolitan and National Nursing Home was opened in Bloomsbury. She was the recipient of many honours including membership of the German Order of the Cross of Merit, and the French Secours aux Blesses Militaires. She became the first woman to be made a member of the Order of Merit, in 1907. She died in 1910.
Giovanni Aldini was born in Bologna, Italy, 1762. He became Professor of Physics at Bologna in 1798. His scientific work was chiefly concerned with galvanism and its medical applications, with the construction and illumination of lighthouses, and with experiments for preserving human life and material objects from destruction by fire. He travelled in Europe, publicly electrifying human and animal bodies, and his performances were extraordinary theatrical spectacles. He came to London in 1802. His most famous experiment took place at the Royal College of Surgeons in London, in 1803, on a hanged man named George Forster. According to newspaper reports of the time, some of the spectators genuinely believed that the body was about to come to life, and were suitably awestruck even though it did not happen. The Emperor of Austria made him a Knight of the Iron Crown and a Councillor of State in Milan. He died in 1834.
Henry Victor Martin was born in 1811. He studied in Birmingham, and St Bartholomews Hospital, London. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1834 and a fellow in 1859. He was surgeon to the 1st Devon Militia before taking medical charge of the military wards of the Barrington Hospital, Limerick. He practised at Staines, Middlesex, before retiring to Hounslow, and later to Epsom College. He died in 1901.
George Perkins was born in Staines, Middlesex, in 1892. He was educated at Hurstpierpoint College, Sussex, and Hertford College, Oxford. He studied medicine at Oxford, and St Thomas' Hospital, London. He was awarded his degree in 1916. He joined the RAMC and was posted to East Africa as the medical officer to the 3rd King's African Rifles, with the rank of Captain. He was awarded the Military Cross for his services in East Africa. He returned to St Thomas' Hospital as House Surgeon, and was appointed to the Military Orthopaedic Hospital, Hammersmith, in 1919. He was appointed Senior Medical Officer at Shepherd's Bush Orthopaedic Hospital, in 1920. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1921, and was elected honorary assistant surgeon to the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. He returned to St Thomas' Hospital as Chief Assistant to the Orthopaedic Department in 1923, and became Assistant Surgeon of the Department, in 1926. Perkins was recalled to the Army in 1939, where he served in the Casualty Clearing Stations in France until 1940, when he was invalided because of serious illness. He began to write his book on fractures at this time and after his convalescence he worked at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. He became President of the British Orthopaedic Association. He returned to St Thomas' in 1946, and became head of the Orthopaedic Department, a role he continued even when he was appointed Professor of Surgery in the London University at St Thomas' Hospital, in 1948 until 1954. He retired as head of the Orthopaedic department of St Thomas's in 1957. He died in 1979.
Thomas James Poole was born in Bridgwater, in 1809. He was apprenticed as a surgeon to Anthony Huxtable and Henry Clark in 1825. He went on to receive his medical education at St Bartholemews hospital, and passed his LSA in 1830, and his MRCS in 1832. Poole practised around the Somerset area and was Medical Officer to the Bridgewater Union, fl 1847. He died in 1881.
Anthony Huxtable MRCS, was a surgeon, apothecary and accouchier apprenticed to John Ball in Williton, Somerset, in 1797. He was practising surgery in Bristol in 1825, and his address given as Union Street, King Square, Bristol in 1826.
Henry Clark was a surgeon, apothecary and accouchier practising in Bristol, in 1825.
Samuel Crompton was born in Berry Fold House, Over Darwen, Lancashire, in 1817. He was apprenticed to his uncle Samuel Barton, an opthalmic surgeon in Manchester (possibly 1790-1871; MRCS 1811 and FRCS 1844; surgeon to the Manchester Eye Hospital from 1815). He received his medical education partly at the Manchester School of Medicine, Pine Street, and St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, from 1838. He became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and a Licentiate of the Apothecaries Society in 1839, and later MD St Andrews, in 1862. He returned to Manchester to practice in 1840. He became surgeon to Henshaw's Blind Asylum, Old Trafford, c 1849. He was Consultant Physician at Salford Royal Hospital and Dispensary. He published a treatise entitled Results of an Investigation into the Causes of Blindness, with Practical Suggestions for the Preservation of the Eyesight, in 1849. He retired to Cranleigh, Surrey, in 1881. He died in 1891.
Hugh Owen Thomas was born in 1834. He came from 7 generations of bone-setters, originally from Anglesey in North Wales. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Dr Owen Roberts, at St Asaph in North Wales, in 1851. He studied medicine at Edinburgh University, and University College London. He become a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1857. He went to Liverpool in 1858, to help his father, and set up his own practice in 1859. He spent most of his working life in the slums of Liverpool treating the poor. From 1870, he ran a free clinic on Sundays, where he treated dockers, shipyard workers and seamen. In the treatment of tuberculosis and fractures, he strongly advocated the use of rest which should be 'enforced, uninterrupted and prolonged'. His ideas were published in Diseases of the hip, knee and ankle joints, with their deformities (1875). This was at a time when it was often suggested that excision or amputation were the solution for chronic bone disorders. In order to achieve rest and immobilisation he invented several types of splints that were manufactured in his own work shop by both a blacksmith and a saddler. He also invented a wrench for the reduction of fractures and an osteoclast to break and reset bones. He was elected a member of the Liverpool Medical Institution in 1876, published many works on orthopaedic surgery, and was given an honorary degree by the University of St Louis. He died in 1891.
William Cumberland Cruikshank was born in Edinburgh in 1745. He attended both Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities and graduated in 1767. He was the pupil of John Moore, and became assistant to William Hunter. He moved to London in 1771, and gave anatomy demonstrations. He was later made a partner in the Windmill Street School by Hunter, and after Hunter died Cruikshank continued with Hunter's nephew, Matthew Baillie. Cruikshank attended Dr Johnson during his last illness. He received an honorary MD from Glasgow University in 1783. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1797. He published The Anatomy of the Absorbing Vessels of the Human Body, in 1786. He died in 1800.
Henry Nathaniel Rumsey was a surgeon in Chesham, Buckinghamshire. He took shorthand notes of John Hunter's lectures in 1786-1787, which were subsequently printed by James F Palmer in his edition of Hunter's works.
William Clift was born in Cornwall in 1775, and was educated locally. He became an apprentice anatomical assistant to the celebrated surgeon John Hunter (1728-1793) in 1792. He was appointed conservator of the Hunterian Museum after Hunter's death. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1823, and was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry. He died in 1849.
Sir Anthony Carlisle was born in Stillington, Durham, in 1768. He was sent to his maternal uncle, Anthony Hubback, in York, for medical training. Following his uncle's death Carlisle transferred to a Durham surgeon, William Green, in 1784. Carlisle went to London in the late 1780s, and attended lectures by John Hunter, Matthew Baillie and others. He became the house pupil of Henry Watson, and on Watson's death succeeded him to the post of surgeon to the Westminster Hospital, in 1793. He began offering lectures on surgery in 1794, hoping to establish a formal medical school there. He advocated the systematic collection and publishing of hospital statistics. He was active in securing the collections of John Hunter for the Royal College of Surgeons, during the 1790s. He was one of the original members of the College in 1800. He sat on Council and the Court of Examiners. He served as Vice-President and twice as President (1829 and 1839). He delivered the Hunterian Oration in 1820. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1804. With William Nicholson, he electrolyzed water into its constituent gases and communicated this to the Royal Society in 1800. He secured the post of Professor of Anatomy at the Royal Academy in 1808, and also studied art there. He was appointed surgeon to the Duke of Gloucester and then surgeon-extraordinary to the Prince Regent (later King George IV). He was investigated but exonerated for three cases of neglect in 1838. He opposed male midwives on the grounds of modesty and incompetence. He died in 1840.
George James Guthrie was born in London, in 1785. He was apprenticed to Dr Phillips, a surgeon in Pall Mall. He attended the Windmill Street School of Medicine, and was one of those into whose arms William Cruikshank fell when he was delivering his last lecture on the brain in 1800. Guthrie served as hospital mate at the York Hospital, Chelsea from 1800-1801. Surgeon General Thomas Keate issued an order that all hospital mates must be members of the newly formed College of Surgeons. Aged 16, Guthrie was examined by Keate himself, and made such a good impression that he was posted to the 29th Regiment immediately. He accompanied the 29th Regiment to North America as Assistant Surgeon, remained there until 1807, then returned to England with the regiment and was immediately ordered out to the Peninsula. He served there until 1814, seeing much service and earning the special commendation of the Duke of Wellington. Aged 26, he acted as Principal Medical Officer at the Battle of Albuera. He was appointed Deputy Inspector of Hospitals in 1812, but the Medical Board in London refused to confirm the appointment because of his youth. He was placed on half pay at the end of the campaign, and began to practise privately in London. He attended the lectures of Charles Bell and Benjamin Brodie at the Windmill Street School of Medicine. He went to Brussels after the Battle of Waterloo, in 1815, where he carried out a number of operations including tying the peroneal artery by cutting down upon it through the calf muscles, known afterwards as 'Guthrie's bloody operation'. He returned to London and was placed in charge of two clinical wards at the York Hospital, with a promise that the most severe surgical cases would be sent to him. He was instrumental in establishing an Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye in 1816, which became 'The Royal Westminster Ophthalmic Hospital', situated in King William Street, Strand, and removed to Broad Street, Bloomsbury, in 1928. Guthrie was appointed Surgeon and remained attached to the hospital until 1838, when he resigned in favour of his son, C W G Guthrie. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to Westminster Hospital in 1823, becoming full surgeon in 1827. He resigned his office in 1843, again to make way for his son. At the Royal College of Surgeons Guthrie was a Member of Council from 1824-1856; a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1828-1856; Chairman of the Midwifery Board in 1853; Hunterian Orator in 1830; Vice-President five times; and President in 1833, 1841, and 1854. He was Hunterian Professor of Anatomy, Physiology, and Surgery from 1828-1832. He was elected FRS in 1827. He died in 1856.
An ola is a leaf or strip of a leaf of the palmyra, traditionally used in Southern India and Sri Lanka for writing on. It is also a letter or document written on such a leaf.
The Sinhalese are the native inhabitants of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon).
No biographical information relating to William Cotton was available at the time of compilation.
William Long was born in 1747. He became a member of the Corporation of Surgeons in 1769. He was appointed to the Court of Assistants in 1789 until his death, firstly with the Corporation of Surgeons, and also when it became the Royal College of Surgeons in London. He was a member of the Court of Examiners, during 1797-1810. He was elected the second Master of the College in 1800. He became a Governor (equivalent to a Vice-President) between 1800-1807. He was a member of the first Museum Committee set up in 1799. He was Chairman of the Building Committee for the new College building in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in 1784, and became Surgeon, in 1791. He resigned the post in 1807 when he was elected a Governor of the Hospital. He was also a surgeon to the Bluecoat School, 1790-1807. John Painter Vincent, President of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1832 and 1840, was apprenticed to Long. Long became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, in 1792, and the Royal Society, in 1801. He died in 1818.
Sir Charles Blicke was born in 1745. He trained at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and was elected assistant surgeon in 1779. John Abernethy became his apprentice in 1779. Blicke became surgeon in 1787. He was a member of the Court of Assistants at Surgeon's Hall and in 1803 was knighted and became Master of the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The Court of Assistants gave their thanks to him in 1811, for his work as Treasurer during the building of the College. He died in London, in 1815.
William Sharpe was a former member of Court but no further biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
Robert Keate was born in Laverton, Somerset, in 1777. He was apprenticed to his uncle, Thomas Keate (1745-1821), a surgeon. Robert Keate entered St George's Hospital, London, in 1793. He became hospital mate at Chelsea Hospital in 1794. He became a member of the Company of Surgeons in 1798, and was appointed Staff Surgeon to the Army. He retired from the army in 1810 with the rank of Inspector-General of Hospitals. He was on the surgical staff of St George's Hospital, London, from 1800-1853. He was finally removed by the Governors. He was a member of the Court of Assistants, from 1822-1857, and the Court of Examiners, from 1827-1855. He was President of the College in 1831 and 1839. He held royal appointments to George III, George IV, William IV, and in 1841 to Queen Victoria. He supported the institution of a "higher grade" of surgeon which eventually became the Fellowship. He died in 1857.
Thomas Stone was the son of a beadle, and was appointed to assist in the Library in 1832. After Robert Willis retired in 1845, Stone took over all of the work in the Library. Dr John Chatto was appointed Librarian in 1853, and Stone was transferred to the College office as a clerk where he worked until 1871. His son, William Domett Stone (1840-1921), became a Fellow of the College in 1865.
Benjamin Travers was born in Cheapside, London, in 1783. He was educated at the grammar school in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, and then privately. He was a pupil of Astley Cooper from 1800-1806. During this time he gave occasional demonstrations and set up a weekly clinical society. He took his diploma and became MRCS in 1806. He was appointed demonstrator of anatomy at Guy's Hospital, and was appointed surgeon to the East India Company's warehouses and brigade in 1809. He was elected surgeon to St Thomas' Hospital in 1815, as well as the London Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye (now Moorfields Eye Hospital), where he succeeded Astley Cooper, and remained until 1816. He resigned his joint lectureship with Astley Cooper in 1819. He began to lecture again in 1834, with Frederick Tyrell at St Thomas' Hospital. He was appointed surgeon to Queen Victoria in 1837 and to Prince Albert in 1840. He was elected FRCS in 1813; Member of Council, 1839-1858; Examiner in surgery, 1841-1858; Chairman of the Board of Midwifery Examiners, 1855; Vice-President, 1845, 1846, 1854 and 1855; President, 1847 and 1856; and he was Huntarian Orator in 1838. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1813. He was elected president of the Hunterian Society in 1827, as well as President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society. He died in 1858.
Benjamin Brodie was born in 1783. He was educated by his father. At the age of 18 he began anatomical studies by attending the lectures of John Abernethy at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and in 1801-1802 the lectures of James Wilson at the Hunterian School in Great Windmill Street. He learned pharmacy with William Clifton LSA, in Little Newport Street. He became a close friend of the surgeon William Lawrence (1783-1867). Brodie entered St George's Hospital in 1803, as a surgical pupil of Sir Everard Home, and was appointed House Surgeon in 1805. He was then Demonstrator to the Anatomical School. He assisted Home in private operations and his researches on comparative anatomy with William Clift at the Hunterian Museum in the RCSEng. He continued his study of anatomy at the Great Windmill Street School, where he demonstrated jointly with Wilson until 1812. He also delivered an annual course of surgical lectures at the school, from 1808-1830. He was elected Assistant Surgeon to St George's Hospital in 1808, and Senior Surgeon,1822-1840. He bagan private practice in 1809, in a house in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, London. He moved to Savile Row in 1819. He became the personal surgeon of King George IV (having assisted at an operation to remove a tumour from his scalp) in 1828, and was made sergeant-surgeon under William IV in 1830. He continued under Queen Victoria. Brodie supported the foundation of the London Medical Gazette in 1827, to counter the assertions of Thomas Wakley, in The Lancet, that hospital surgeons and the council of the RCSEng were corrupt. Brodie was admitted MRCS in 1805. He was Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at the College, 1819-1823. He became President in 1844. He was elected a member of the Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge (a club that John Hunter had helped to found). He was elected to the Royal Society in 1810, and was awarded the Copley Medal in 1811. He was a member of the Royal Society's select dining club, the Assistant Society for the Improvement of Animal Chemistry (with Home, Humphry Davy and others), 1808-1825. He was President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society in 1839. He became the first President of the General Medical Council in 1858, and in the same year he was the first surgeon to be elected President of the Royal Society (he resigned in 1861). He died in 1862.
Eleanor Davies-Colley was born in 1874. Her father was John Neville Colley Davies-Colley, a surgeon at Guy's Hospital. On graduating in 1907, she became a house surgeon under Maud Chadburn at the New Hospital for Women, founded by Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (renamed the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in 1917, it is now part of the University College London Hospitals). She then became demonstrator in anatomy at the London School of Medicine, and surgical registrar at the Royal Free Hospital. In addition to her work at the South London Hospital, she was also later a surgeon at the Marie Curie Cancer Hospital and senior obstetrician at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital.
Davies-Colley and her colleague Maud Chadburn began raising funds in 1911 for a new South London Hospital for Women and Children. Enough money was raised to open an outpatients' department in Newington Causeway in 1912. A purpose-built eighty-bed hospital on Clapham Common, staffed entirely by women, was opened by Queen Mary in 1916. Davies-Colley worked at the South London Hospital for Women and Children from its foundation until her death, holding various positions including senior surgeon. The hospital remained open until 1984. It was unusual in retaining the women-only staffing policy initiated by Davies-Colley and Chadburn right up until closure.
She became the first female fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1911.She was one of the founding members of the Medical Women's Federation, in 1917. She died in 1934. One of the lecture theatres at the Royal College of Surgeons of England was refurbished and dedicated in Eleanor Davies-Colley in 2004, with the aim of celebrating the role of women in surgery and encouraging more women to enter the profession.
Sir Herbert John Seddon was born in Derby, in 1903. He spent his childhood in Manchester and then entered St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College. He became MRCS (with the Conjoint Diploma) in 1925, and graduated in 1928 with honours, becoming FRCS in the same year. He was appointed instructor in surgery to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, in 1930. He then took up the appointment of resident surgeon at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital, Stanmore, 1931-1939. He mostly worked with children suffering from bone and joint infections. There was an epidemic of poliomyelitis in 1938. He was appointed Nuffield Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery at Oxford in 1939, and undertook work on peripheral nerve injuries. During the World War Two, he became concerned with the epidemic poliomyelitis in Malta and Mauritius, making observations on the mode of infection and developing a technique for simple splint design and manufacture. He became Director of Studies at the Institute of Orthopaedics in London in 1948. He subsequently became the first Professor of Orthopaedics in the University of London. He became a member of the Medical Research Council for 4 years, and was a member of the Advisory Medical Council of the Colonial Office, leading to extensive tours of Africa for which he was awarded the CMG in 1951. He was awarded the Robert Jones Medal and gave the Robert Jones lecture in 1960. He was Honorary Secretary, and later President of the British Orthopaedic Association. He was knighted in 1964. He planned and implemented the Medical Research Council's investigation into tuberculosis of the vertebral column, carried out in Bulawayo, Hong Kong, Korea and South Africa. He also carried out advisory work for the Lebanese Army. He died in 1977.
Richard Phillips Jones was born in c 1797. He was educated at St George's Hospital. He entered as a 12 month pupil of Sir Everard Home, in 1817. He became MRCS in 1819. He obtained his MD from Glasgow, in 1821. He was a member of a Medical Board attending those dying of cholera in Wales, in 1832. He was appointed Honorary Physician to the Chester General Infirmary, in 1835. He became Physician to the Denbighshire General Dispensary and Asylum for Recovery of Health. He was appointed JP for the City of Chester and County of Denbigh, in 1845. He was Mayor of Chester, 1846-1848 and 1852-1853. He became FRCS in 1858. He also became Consulting Physician and Honorary Governor of the Chester General Infirmary, in 1861. He died in 1867.
The membership lists for the Royal College of Surgeons of England show more than one William Hutchinson in the early 1800s. No further biographical information was available at the time of compilation.
Sir James Berry was born in Kingston, Ontario, in 1860. He was educated at Whitgift School, Croydon, England, and St Bartholomew's Hospital. At the London BS examination in 1885, Berry took first-class honours and won the University scholarship and gold medal. He served as house surgeon at St Bartholomew's, and was demonstrator of anatomy. He then became surgical registrar. He became surgeon to the Alexandra Hospital for Diseases of the Hip (Queen Square, London) in 1885. He was elected surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital, in 1891. At the start of World War One, Berry's knowledge of Serbia led him and his wife, an anaesthetist at the Royal Free Hospital, to volunteer for medical service there. They organised the Anglo-Serbian hospital unit, under the British Red Cross Society, and largely from the Royal Free Hospital. It was established early-1915 at Vrnjatchka Banja. They were over-run in 1916 by the Austro-Hungarian army and an exchange of prisoners was arranged. Berry then led a Red Cross unit in Romania and was with the Serbian army at Odessa, 1916-1917. He was awarded the Orders of the Star of Romania, St Sava or Serbia, and St Anna of Russia. He returned to England in 1917 and was honorary surgeon at the military hospitals at Napsbury and Bermonsdsey. He was president of the Medical Society of London, 1921-1922; a member of the Council of the RCSEng, 1923-1929; and President of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1926-1928. He was knighted in 1925. He retired in 1927 and was elected consulting surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital. He died in 1946.
Lady Caroline Amelia Owen was born in 1801. She was the daughter of William Clift, Conservator of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. Richard Owen began work at the Museum as Assistant Conservator in 1827. He became friends with Clift's son, William Home Clift, and also became engaged to Caroline Clift in 1827. Mrs Clift refused to give her permission for the two to marry until Owen was earning an adequate income. They were married on Owen's birthday in 1835. Their only child, William, was born in 1837 but committed suicide at the age of 48. Caroline Owen died in 1873.
Berkeley George Andrew Moynihan was born in Malta, in 1865. He moved with his mother to Leeds, in 1867. He was educated in Leeds, and then at the Blue Coat School, Newgate Street, London from 1875-1881. He studied at the Royal Naval School, Eltham, from 1881-1883, and then proceeded to the Medical School of Yorkshire College, in Leeds. He graduated MB at the University of London in 1887, and became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England the same year. He passed the examination for the Fellowship in 1890, and for Master of Surgery in 1893, being awarded the gold medal. After serving as house surgeon at the Leeds General Infirmary in 1887, he acted as demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School from 1893-1896. He was elected assistant surgeon to the infirmary in 1896, was surgeon from 1906, and consulting surgeon from 1927 until his death. He was lecturer in surgery from 1896-1909, and from 1909-1927 he was professor of clinical surgery in the University of Leeds. At the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Moynihan was appointed an examiner in anatomy on the board of examiners in anatomy and physiology for the Fellowship in 1899. He gave three lectures as Arris and Gale lecturer in 1899, and three lectures in 1900. In 1920 he gave a lecture as Hunterian professor of surgery and pathology, and in the same year delivered the Bradshaw lecture. He was Hunterian Orator in 1927. He served on the Council of the College from 1912-1933, and was elected President, 1926-1931. During World War One, he held the rank of major à la suite attached to the 2nd Northern General Hospital of the Territorial RAMC, with a commission dated 14 Oct 1908. He was gazetted temporary colonel, AMS, in 1914, and served in France. On demobilization in 1919 he was holding the rank of major-general. He had been chairman of the Army Advisory Board form 1916, and chairman of the council of consultants 1916-1919. He died in 1936.
Russell Claude Brock was born in 1903. He was educated at Christ's Hospital, and entered Guy's Medical School, with an arts scholarship, at the age of 17. He won the Treasurer's Gold Medal both in medicine and in surgery, and the Golding Bird Medal in pathology. He also won the BMA Prize Essay in 1926. After qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma he sat the London MBBS examination a year later and obtained honours in medicine, surgery and anatomy. He became Hunterian Professor in 1928, and was awarded a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship in 1929. He joined the department of Evarts Graham in St Louis, from which he developed his interest in thoracic surgery. On his return he became surgical registrar and tutor at Guy's, and a research fellow of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain, in 1932. He won the Jacksonian Prize in 1935, and in the same year was appointed consultant thoracic surgeon to the London County Council. He was appointed to the staff of Guy's in 1936, and the Brompton Hospital, and Surgeon to the Ministry of Pensions at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton. During World War Two he was thoracic surgeon and regional advisor in thoracic surgery to the EMS. After the war he was elected to the Council of the College. He served successively from 1949-1966 as a member of Council, Vice-President and finally President, 1963-1966. During this period he delivered the Bradshaw Lecture in 1957, and the Hunterian Oration in 1960. After relinquishing the Presidency he became a member of the Court of Patrons and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Hunterian Collection. On retirement from his hospital posts in 1968, he continued to devote himself to his private patients and to his researches as Director of the College's Department of Surgical Sciences which he had promoted while President. He was active in promoting the Private Pensions Plan, of which he was Chairman, 1967-1977, and President in 1978. He received twenty or more honorary Fellowships and Doctorates from the British Isles, Europe and North and South America, as well as numerous prizes and gold medals. He was President of the Thoracic Society in 1951, President of the Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1958 and President of the Medical School of London in 1968. He died in 1980.
John Menzies Campbell was born in Paisley, in 1887. He studied dentistry at St Mungo's College and the Glasgow Dental School. He then became a pupil of J G Angus, LDS. Following his graduation as LDS in 1911, he went to Toronto where he graduated DDS in 1912. He became a dental practitioner in Glasgow, where he practised for 42 years. He developed a great interest in dental history, collecting a unique collection of books, artefacts, pictures and advertisements. He bequeathed his collection of books and historic dental advertisements to the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1964, while he donated the pictures and artefacts to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He died in 1974.