George Croom Robertson was awarded a Ferguson Scholarship in classics and mental philosophy in October 1861 and attended lectures at University College London from 1861 to 1862. He went to Germany and studied in 1862 in Heidelberg and Berlin, in 1863 in Gottingen, and later in Paris. In 1864 he assisted Alexander Bain in revising The senses and the intellect for a second edition. He also assisted Bain in revising The emotions and the will; compiled the classification of the species of poetry and versification for Bain's Manual of English composition and rhetoric (London, 1866); and later assisted Bain with parts of the manual of ethics for Mental and moral science (London, 1868). In September 1864 he was appointed Assistant to Professor Geddes at Aberdeen University, and lectured on Greek for the two following sessions. He was elected to the Chair of Mental Philosophy and Logic at University College London in December 1866. He began working on Hobbes; part of the result of his researches appeared in the article on Hobbes for the Encyclopaedia Britannica and part appeared in Volume 10 of Backwood's Philosophical Classics for English readers (London, 1886). From 1868 to 1873 and again from 1883 to 1888 he was an examiner in philosophy in the University of London. From 1870 to 1876 he was a member of the Committee of the London National Society for Women's Suffrage. In 1871 he took the principal share in a posthumous edition of Grote's Aristotle (with Bain). In 1872 he married Caroline Anna Crompton. Bain first mentioned the founding of a quarterly journal of philosophy in 1874, and Robertson accepted the editorship. At first they hoped to bring out the journal, entitled Quarterly review of mental science, in 1875: it finally appeared in January 1876 with the revised title Mind. Various articles by Robertson on Abelard, Analogy, Analysis, Analytic judgements, Autonymy, Association, Axiom, and Hobbes appeared in the Encyclopaedia Britannica in 1875. From 1877 to 1878 Robertson was an examiner for the Moral Sciences Tripos in Cambridge. In 1880 he experienced his first onset of serious illness. In 1886 he was elected to serve on the Council of the College. In April 1888 he tried to resign his professorship but this was not accepted by the Council: it was finally accepted in May 1892. In 1891 he resigned as Editor of Mind. In May 1892 Mrs Robertson died, and Robertson died in September of the same year.
Harris was a student in the Faculty of Science at University College London from 1886 to 1892.
John Bellenden: born in the last decade of the 15th century; he is thought to have been brought up in Haddington or Berwick; matriculated as a student of St Andrew's University, 1508; proceeded from Scotland to Paris, and took the degree of DD at the Sorbonne; in Scotland during the reign of James V; brought over with him Hector Boece's Historia Scotorum (Paris, 1527) and, appointed by the king to translate it into the Scottish vernacular, embarked upon this project from 1530 to 1531-1532; delivered his translation to the king, 1533; the translation appeared in 1536, apparently semi-privately printed for the king and nobles and special friends; Bellenden added two poems of his own to the translation, one entitled 'The Proheme to the Cosmographe' and the other 'The Proheme of the History'; also translated Livy for the king; some enemies apparently caused Bellenden to be dismissed from the royal service; appointed archdeacon of Moray during the vacancy of the see, and about the same time canon of Ross; in the succeeding reign, being an adherent to Roman Catholicism, opposed the Reformation and fled overseas; some accounts state that he died at Rome in 1550, but Lord Dundrennan alleges that he was certainly still alive in 1587.
Hector Boece (or Boethius): born at Dundee, Scotland, c1465; historian and humanist; educated at Dundee and the University of Paris; a friend of Desiderius Erasmus; chief adviser to William Elphinstone, bishop of Aberdeen, in the foundation of the University of Aberdeen (King's College, Aberdeen); first Principal of the University; lectured on divinity; received a pension from the Scottish court, 1527-1534; a canon of Aberdeen; vicar of Tullynessle; later rector of Tyrie; author of the Latin history Scotorum historiae a prima gentis origine (The History and Chronicles of Scotland), 1527; the work, based on legendary sources, glorified the Scottish nation; the History had wide currency abroad in a French translation; Boece died, 1536.
The transcriber of the manuscript, Louis Bellec, was a farmer in Kergoual, Pluméliau.
Flaxman was born in York on 6 July 1755. He was a sickly child, but showed a great aptitude for drawing. He spent his early life in London and attended the Academy Schools. He became known as a sculptor and draughtsman, with interests in art, architecture, engineering, construction, naval architecture and surveying. In 1787 he fulfilled a cherished ambition of travelling to Rome where he stayed until 1794, when he returned to London, a famous artist. In 1810 he was appointed Professor of Sculpture in the Academy. He died in 1826.
Headings suggest that the manuscript was written in Cologne.
Guido Delle Colonne: born, possibly in Sicily, c1215; jurist, poet, and author of several Latin chronicles and histories, whose version of the Troy legend was important in bringing the story to Italians and, through various translations, into other literatures; a poet of the Sicilian school, a group of early Italian vernacular poets; died, possibly in Sicily, c1290.
Saint Bonaventure (San Bonaventura): born, c1217; original name Giovanni Di Fidanza (John of Fidanza); entered the University of Paris, 1235; received the master of arts degree, 1243; joined the Franciscan order; studied theology in the Franciscan school at Paris, 1243-1248; named Bonaventure, 1244; leading theologian, minister general of the Franciscan order, and cardinal bishop of Albano; author of several works on the spiritual life; recodified the constitution of his order, 1260; died, 1274.
Antonio Milledonne: born, 1522; secretary of the Council of Ten in Venice; the Republic's observer at the Council of Trent (1545-1563), whose account of the Council was never published (although a French translation appeared in Paris in 1870); died, 1588.
Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini: born in Terranuova, Tuscany, Italy, 1380; humanist and calligrapher, who rediscovered classical Latin manuscripts in European monastic libraries; died in Florence, 1459. This manuscript may have been written in Germany.
John Peckham: educated at Oxford and Paris; a Franciscan; Archbishop of Canterbury, 1279; a prolific author of treatises on science and theology, including his work 'Perspectiva Communis' (on principles of optics, which was printed at Milan, 1482, and in many later editions) and of poetry; died, 1292. This manuscript was written in England.
This Haggadah is possibly of Castilian origin.
Written in Vienna.
Written in London.
Paget was called to the Bar at the Inner Temple in 1895. He was Secretary to the Patent Law Committee, 1900; Secretary to the University College Transfer Commission, 1905; Assistant Secretary to the Admiralty Board of Invention and Research, 1915-1918; and President of the British Deaf and Dumb Association, 1953. He published many writings on human speech and language.
The Society was founded in 1826, largely at the instigation of Lord Brougham. The object of the new Society was 'the imparting useful information to all classes of the community, particularly to such as are unable to avail themselves of experienced teachers, or may prefer learning by themselves' (SDUK Prospectus, 1829). It sought to achieve this object by acting as the intermediary between authors and publishers in several different and often ambitious series of publications. The Society fixed the form and selling price of treatises, frequency of publication and payments to authors; the publisher made arrangement with the printer and organised the distribution and sale of publications. In charge of the Society's affairs was a General Committee of not less than 40 and not more than 60 members. Prominent on the Committee besides Lord Brougham were James Mill, Lord John Russell, Lord Althorp, Zachary Macaulay, Joseph Hume, Robert Aglionby Slaney and Augustus De Morgan. Sub-committees were appointed and their function handed over to a reconstituted Publication Committee, though even after this date, ad hoc sub-committees persisted. The Society was responsible for many series of publications including: Library of Useful Knowledge; British Almanac; Library of Entertaining Knowledge; Farmer's series; Maps; Working Man's Companion; Quarterly Journal of Education; Penny Magazine; Penny Cyclopedia; Gallery of Portraits; Library for the Young; Biographical Dictionary. In 1829 there were 515 annual subscribers to the Society but that number fell to 49 by 1842. Together with the fall in the number of subscribers went a general fall in the sale of publications. Perhaps the main reason for the fall in popularity of the publications was the fact that too many and too diverse sets of treatises ran concurrently, with an extremely cumbersome review procedure for each treatise. This led to the erratic appearance of treatises, with consequent delays in the completion of readers' sets. The publications were also felt to be of a miscellaneous and non-controversial nature and therefore aroused little interest. The Society's active life lasted until 1846 and its affairs were wound up in 1848. A very useful study on the Society is Monica C Grobel, 'The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge 1826-1846 and its relation to adult education in the first half of the XIXth Century' (unpublished London University PhD thesis, 1932).
Unknown.
Born, 15 February 1748; learned Latin, Greek and French at a young age; attended Westminster School, 1755; Queen's College Oxford, 1760; awarded BA degree in 1763 and Master's in 1766; called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn, 1817; did not succeed or continue in the law profession; dabbled in chemistry and the physical sciences but the doctrine of utilitarianism and the principle of 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number', law reform, politics, jurisprudence and philosophy, became the occupation of his life; produced a utilitarian justification for democracy; also concerned with prison reform, religion, poor relief, international law, and animal welfare; published many writings on these subjects; died, 6 June 1832.
Publications: Introduction to the principles of morals and legislation (T Payne and Son, London, 1789)
Chrestomathia: being a collection of papers, explanatory of the design of an institution, proposed to be set on foot, under the name of the Chrestomathic Day School (Payne and Foss, London, 1815)
Supply without Burthen; or Escheat vice Taxation (J Debrett, London, 1795)
A Fragment on Government; being an examination of what is delivered on the subject of government in general, in the introduction to Sir W Blackstone's Commentaries (T Payne, London, 1776)
Constitutional Code; for the use of all nations, and all governments professing liberal opinions (printed for the Author, London, 1830)
A committee, known as the Board of Trade since 1786, adopted the title officially by an Act of Parliament of 1861 and, assuming more of an executive and less of a consultative role, dealt increasingly with domestic matters, from the 1840s given a range of regulatory duties in the economic sphere under various Acts of Parliament. During the 19th and 20th centuries the Board acquired many new responsibilities and, although several were later transferred to other government departments, its duties remained numerous, especially during wartime. By the 1960s it had general responsibility for commerce, industry and overseas trade, and in particular commercial relations with other countries. The Board's functions altered frequently during administrative reorganisations of the 1960s, losing and regaining responsibilities from other ministries. In 1970 the Board was merged with the Ministry of Technology to form the Department of Trade and Industry.
Born, 1923; educated at the County Grammar School, Bridgend; served with the Intelligence Corps, Psychological Warfare Branch, and Allied Commission, Austria, 1942-1946; attended Trinity College Cambridge; BA, 1948; MA, LLB, 1949; Lecturer in Law, Nottingham University, 1949-1954; barrister, Gray's Inn, 1950; member of the UK National Committee on Company Law from 1952; Senior Lecturer, University of Glasgow, 1954-1957; Douglas Professor of Civil Law, University of Glasgow, 1957-1965; Professor of Roman Law, University College London, 1965-1981; member of Council, Society for Roman Studies, 1968-1971; Crabtree Orator, 1969; member of the Comitato Internaz Scientifico, IURA, from 1969; Medaglia d'oro dei benemeriti della cultura della Repubblica Italiana, 1974; died, 1981. Publications: Private International Law (Hutchinson's University Library, London, 1955); with John Cyril Smith, A Casebook on Contract (Sweet & Maxwell, London, 1957); The Institutes of Justinian (North Holland Publishing Co, Amsterdam and Oxford, 1975); Textbook of Roman Law (North Holland Publishing Co, Amsterdam and Oxford, 1976); articles in various legal periodicals. There is a full bibliography in box 15 of his papers.
William Townsend was born in Wandsworth and educated at Simon Langton School in Canterbury. From 1926 to 1930 he attended the Slade School of Fine Art. He lived in Canterbury and later Bridge from 1925 to 1946. From 1946 to 1949 he taught part-time at the Camberwell School of Art and then joined the staff of the Slade School in 1949. He was Professor of Fine Art at University College London from 1968 to 1973. He visited Canada many times during his life on art tours. In 1970 he was editor and part author of Canadian Painting Today, published in London and New York. He held many exhibitions in London and Canada and had work included in many galleries.
Born, 1890; educated, Bradford Grammar School, 1899-1904; University College, London, 1907-1912; art classes at the Slade School of Fine Art, 1909-; Franks studentship in archaeology to study Roman pottery in the Rhineland, 1913; junior investigator for the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (RCHM), 1913; PhD, 1920; Royal Field Artillery, 1914-1917; 76th Army Brigade, 1917-1919; Military Cross, 1918; RCHM, 1919-1920; Keeper of Archaeology at the National Museum of Wales and Lecturer in Archaeology at the University College of South Wales and Monmouthshire, Cardiff, 1920; Director of the National Museum of Wales, 1924; excavated Roman sites, Segontium, 1921-1922 and Gaer near Brecon, 1924-1925; Keeper of the London Museum, 1926; established the Institute of Archaeology, 1937; excavations of the Romano-British villa and cult centre at Lydney Park, 1928-1929; Roman and immediately pre-Roman St Albans, 1930-1934 and the hill fort of Maiden Castle, Dorset, 1934-1937; 42nd Royal Artillery Regiment, 1939-1943; Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, 1944-1948; excavations at Taxila, 1944-1945; the Roman trading station of Arikamedu, 1945; the Indus city of Harappa, 1946 and the southern megalithic sites of Brahmagiri and Chandravalli, 1947; part-time professorship at the Institute of Archaeology in the University of London, 1948-; Secretary for the British Academy, 1949-1968; archaeological adviser to the newly formed Pakistan Archaeological Department; excavation of the hill fort of Stanwick in Yorkshire, 1954 and Charsada, Pakistan, 1956; member of the UNESCO team concerned with the preservation and conservation of Mohenjo-daro, 1960s; television broadcaster, in 'Animal, Vegetable, Mineral?' and 'Buried Treasure'; Fellowship of the Royal Society, 1968; died, 1976.
Philip Williams read history at Trinity College, Oxford, graduating in 1940; he was a member of the Labour Party at 16 and a member of the Oxford anti-Fascist movement in the 1930s; active in the Campaign for Democratic Socialism and a 'confirmed Gaskellite'; Labour economist and industrial relations expert at Nuffield College, Oxford; published a biography of Hugh Gaitskell in 1979; died, 1984.
Publications: Hugh Gaitskell: A Political Biography (1979, second edition 1982)
Woodger was born on 2 May 1894 and was educated at Felsted School in Essex, showing an early interest in biology. He went to University College London (UCL) in 1911 to read zoology. He served during the First World War. In 1919 he resumed his scholarship at UCL and carried out research there until 1922. He then went to the Department of Biology at the University of London Middlesex Hospital Medical School as a Reader, where he lectured. He wrote a text-book for his biology students in which he drew most of the illustrations himself. In 1926 he went to Vienna to study for a term under Przibram. He became interested in the philosophy of science and on his return to England continued to study it. He became Professor of Biology at the Medical School in 1947. He retired in 1959. Woodger published many writings on the biological sciences. He died on 8 March 1981.
William Henry Allchin was born in Paris, on 16 October 1846, the eldest son of a Bayswater doctor. After a private education Allchin studied medicine at University College, London. He qualified in 1869 and served as medical officer of the Great Eastern. In 1871 he graduated MB, with the University Scholarship.
He joined in succession the staff of the Western Dispensary, the St Marylebone Dispensary, and the Victoria Hospital for Children. Simultaneously he lectured on comparative anatomy at University College. In 1872 he was appointed registrar and demonstrator of practical physiology at the Westminster Hospital. He was elected assistant physician there in 1873, and physician in 1877. He lectured on pathology, 1873-78, physiology, 1878-82, and medicine, 1882-92. He also held the office of Dean from 1878-83, and 1890-93. His work at the Hospital led to the publication of his papers on Functional Disease' andVital Diagnosis', in the Westminster Hospital Reports (vol. II, 1886, pp.35-52 & vol. IV, 1888, pp.105-19, respectively).
It is said that he was `highly successful both as an administrator and as a clinical teacher of the deductive type' (Munk's Roll, vol. IV, p.254). Allchin made literary contributions to Sir Richard Quain's A Dictionary of Medicine (1882-94) and Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt's A System of Medicine by Many Authors (1896-99).
Allchin was closely connected with the Royal College of Physicians throughout his professional career, He was appointed to the new office of Assistant Registrar in 1883, but felt obliged to resign after two years due to his opposition to the College's policy of applying to the Crown for permission to grant medical degrees. He delivered the Bradshaw Lecture in 1891, the Harveian Oration in 1903, and the Lumleian Lectures in 1905. Allchin was much interested in the move to reconstitute London University. He was secretary of the Royal College of Physicians' University Committee, between 1889 and 1898, and one of its representatives to the new Senate, later compiling An Account of the Reconstruction of the University of London (3 vols.) (London, 1905-12). He was also a member of the Medical Consultative Board to the Admiralty, and an examiner for the Army and Navy Medical Departments and the Indian Medical Service.
He was the editor of A Manual of Medicine (London, 1900-3), which became well known. Allchin retired from the staff of the Westminster Hospital in 1905. In 1907 he received his knighthood, and three years later was appointed physician extraordinary to George V.
Allchin married Margaret Holland in 1880. He died at his country home in East Malling, Kent, on 8 February 1912.
Publications:
The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body; Prefixed Preliminary Observations on Diseased Structures by J. Wardrop, Matthew Baillie (1761-1823), Sir William Henry Allchin, George I. Fincham, & James Wardrop (London, 1833)
Medicine in its Economic Relations (London, 1876?)
Functional Disease', Westminster Hospital Reports, vol. II, 1886, pp.35-52 Vital Diagnosis', Westminster Hospital Reports, vol. IV, 1888, pp.105-19
Scheme for Case Reporting (London, 1887)
The Nature and Causes of Duodenal Indigestion (London, 1892)
A Manual of Medicine, Sir William Henry Allchin (ed.) (London, 1900-3)
Structure and Function (London, 1903)
An Account of the Reconstruction of the University of London (3 vols.) (London, 1905-12)
Sir Arthur William Garrard Bagshawe was born at St Leonards-on-Sea, Sussex, in 1871, the second son of the Rev. Alfred Drake Bagshawe. He was educated at Marlborough, where his interest in Natural History was already apparent, and then at Caius College, Cambridge, where he obtained a first class in Part I of the Natural Science Tripos in 1892. He then went to St George's Hospital, where he graduated MB, BCh in 1895. He became a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons (MRCS) and a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (LRCP).
Bagshawe held a house appointment at the Royal Northern Hospital until 1898 when he joined the Colonial Medical Service, and was posted to Uganda. In 1900 he became a medical officer of the Uganda Protectorate. He was a member of the Lango Expedition in 1901 and of the Anglo-German Boundary Commission, defining the borders of Tanganyika, Tanzania, 1902-4. As a consequence he became familiar with the medical problems of East Africa. Trypanosomiasis was epidemic in Uganda at the time, indeed little was known about the tsetse fly and the treatment of sleeping sickness. Bagshawe `quickly became one of the most distinguished workers on trypanosomiasis' (BMJ, 1950, i, p.847). In 1906-7 he was employed on a sleeping sickness investigation in Uganda, and was the first to discover the pupae of Glossina palpalis in their natural breeding ground. During his service he was able to indulge his interest in the local flora and fauna, and made extensive collections of specimens of rare plants, which he subsequently gave to the British Museum (to the section which later became the Natural History Museum).
An international conference to consider the problem of trypanosomiasis was held in London during 1907-8, at the behest of the British Government. It was recommended that a central international bureau be established to extract up-to-date information on sleeping sickness, and disseminate it to researchers and investigators in the field. Whilst an international bureau did not materialise, a British Bureau, the Trypanosomiasis Bureau (or the Sleeping Sickness Bureau), was established. In 1908 Bagshawe became its first Director. In the same year Bagshawe took the Cambridge Diploma in Public Health (DPH).
Between 1908 and 1912 Bagshawe produced four valuable volumes containing articles which treated special aspects of trypanosomoiasis in detail, as well as abstracts of the current literature, an exhaustive bibliography, and maps showing the known distribution of sleeping sickness and tsetse flies in Africa. These articles also appeared in the Bureau's monthly Sleeping Sickness Bulletins. It has been said that `the care he gave to their preparation set up new standards in medical abstracting' (The Lancet, 1950, i, p.694).
In 1912 the Trypanosomiasis Bureau became the Tropical Diseases Bureau, the work on sleeping sickness having been so successful that the idea was extended to other diseases. During this time Bagshawe also held the office of Honorary Secretary of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, 1917-21, and was its Treasurer, 1925-35, having been an original Fellow of the Society. In 1920 he was awarded the Mary Kingsley Medal of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. A further change to the Bureau occurred in 1926, when it became the Bureau of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases, the new name providing a much better reflection of its functions. Bagshawe was also the Editor of the Tropical Diseases Bulletin and the Bulletin of Hygiene.
Bagshawe was for a time a member of the expert committee of the Health Committee of the League of Nations, dealing with tuberculosis and sleeping sickness in equatorial Africa. He was knighted in 1933, having received in 1915 the CMG (Companion (of the Order) of St Michael and St George).
Retirement from his position as Director of the Bureau of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases, and from his editorial work, came in 1935. From 1935-37 he was President of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Of his contribution to the medical profession, it has been said that Bagshawe was `one of the real founders of scientific tropical medicine' (BMJ, p.848).
He had married Alice Mary Thornber in 1910, and they had had two sons. His wife died in 1944. Bagshawe died on 24 March 1950 in Cardiff, at the age of 78, after having joined one of his sons on his farm in South Wales the previous year.
Publications:
Sleeping Sickness Bulletins (monthly publications of Bureau of Hygiene and Tropical Diseases)
Editor of the Tropical Diseases Bulletin & Bulletin of Hygiene
William Baly was born in King's Lynn, Norfolk, in 1814. He was educated at the local grammar school, and was apprenticed in 1828 to Mr (later Dr) Ingle, an esteemed general practitioner in the town of Emsworth. In 1831 he went to study at University College, London, and in 1832, at St Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1834, after passing the diplomas of the Royal College of Surgeons and the Society of Apothecaries, Baly went to Paris, Heidelberg, and Berlin to continue his studies. He graduated MD from Berlin in 1836.
He returned to England and set up practice in London, first at Vigo Street and then Devonshire Street, whilst there he held, for a short time the post of Medical Officer to the St Pancras Infirmary, and finally Brook Street. His translation of Johannes Peter Muller's Elements of Physiology (1838-42) was his first accomplishment to attract attention, occupying the first four years of his time in London.
In 1840 he was appointed to visit and report on the state of the Millbank Penitentiary, where dysentery was prevalent. In the following year he was made physician to the Penitentiary, and came to be regarded by the Government as a leading adviser on questions of prison hygiene. It was also in 1841 that he became lecturer in forensic medicine at St Bartholomew's. His work in the Penitentiary led to a number of reports, including the elaborate paper `Diseases in Prisons', published in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions (vol. XXVIII, 1845), and provided the material for his Goulstonian Lectures on Dysentery, given to the Royal College of Physicians in 1847. He had been elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1846, and in 1847 Fellow of the Royal Society. Baly proved he was the first to observe that dysenteric sloughs in the large intestine may be associated with the ulcers of enteric fever in the small intestine. He later produced his Report on Epidemic Cholera (1854) for the College.
In 1854 he was made assistant physician at St Bartholomew's, and in 1855 he relinquished his lectureship in order to become joint lecturer on medicine, with Dr (later Sir) George Burrows, fellow physician.
Baly was appointed physician extraordinary to Queen Victoria, in 1859, to work alongside Sir James Clark, the Queen's physician, and to then attend alone the Queen and the Royal Family. He was subsequently nominated to the General Medical Council as Crown Representative. He was also Censor for the Royal College of Physicians, 1858-59. By this stage Baly had become `one of the brightest ornaments of the medical profession' (DNB, vol. III, p.99).
Baly's life and career however were brought to a sudden, tragic, end by his death in a railway accident, just south west of London, on 28 January 1861. The Royal College of Physicians instituted a gold medal, to be awarded biennially in his name, for distinction in physiology.
Publications:
Elements of Physiology, Translation with Notes by William Baly, author: Johannes Peter Muller, translator: William Baly (2 vols. London, 1838-42)
`Diseases in Prisons', Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, (vol. XXVIII, 1845)
Recent Advances in the Physiology of Motion, the Senses, Generation, and Development. Being a Supplement to the 2nd Volume of Professor Muller's "Elements of Physiology" (London, 1848)
Reports on Epidemic Cholera (2 parts) (London, 1854)
John O'Brien Milner Barry was born 26 February 1815 in Cork, the second son of John Milner Barry of Cork, the first doctor to introduce vaccination into an Irish town (Cork in 1800) and founder of the Cork Fever Hospital. Barry studied medicine in Paris between 1833 and 1836. He graduated MD from Edinburgh a year later; the subject of his thesis was Endocarditis. In 1838 became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh.
He set up practice first in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, 1839-42, and then in Totnes, Devon, where he practiced 1844-51. In 1852 he settled permanently in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, where he served as physician to the Infirmary and Dispensary. It has been said that he was
'a safe and an excellent practitioner, having a thorough knowledge of his profession, and his advice was often sought by his professional neighbours and the medical men in the surrounding districts' (BMJ, 1 Oct. 1881).
He became a Member of the Royal College of Physicians in 1859. During his career Barry made various contributions to medical journals, on the subjects of Cystine, Leucocythemia, Diphtheritis, and Ovarian diseases. In 1876 he was elected Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
He continued practicing in Tunbridge Wells until his death. Barry married twice. He died suddenly of heart disease on 15 September 1881, aged 66, and left behind a widow.
John Josias Conybeare was born on 13 December 1888, in Oxford, the son of Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare, a distinguished Oxford philologist. He was educated first at Rugby School before he went to New College, Oxford. He began by reading classics but subsequently turned to medicine. He was close to qualifying when the First World War broke out. Conybeare left immediately for service in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, where he was already a member of the Territorial Army. He served in France on the Somme, for which he was awarded the Military Cross. Conybeare returned to England in 1916, when a lack of doctors in the Army caused a recall of senior medical students from service. He returned to Guy's Hospital to finish his medical training and graduated MB BS in 1917 and rejoined the Army, this time in the Royal Army Medical Corps, in Mesopotamia.
At the end of the War he returned to Guy's as Medical Registrar. He held a postgraduate fellowship at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, and was then appointed Warden of the College at Guy's in 1923. In the following year he obtained his Oxford doctorate. In 1925 he was appointed assistant physician and Sub-Dean of the Medical School, and in 1926 was elected as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
In 1929 the first edition of Conybeare's Text-book of Medicine by Various Authors appeared, this proved so popular that a further thirteen editions appeared under his editorship. It was this work, as in all his writing, that his precise thinking, with Latin clarity and brevity of style, made for a terse, readable text which was widely appreciated' (Munk's Roll, vol. VI, p.112). In 1935 he wrote a Manual of Diabetes, which included a supplement for the use of patients, which was also widely valued at the time. Until 1939, Conybeare built up a wide consulting practice and was the Chief Medical Officer of several insurance companies, becoming President of the Assurance Medical Society in 1937. It is said that doctors and their families constantly sought his opinion, which wasthe accolade of the profession' (ibid, p.114). He was at his best at the patient's bedside, teaching medicine to students, where `his shrewd clinical judgement [sic] was rarely at fault' (ibid).
When the Second World War broke out, in 1939, Conybeare was commissioned as Group Captain, having held the post of civilian medical adviser to the Royal Air Force (RAF) in peacetime. He served throughout the War, reaching the rank of Air Vice Marshal and, at the end, was made a Knight of the British Empire (KBE). In 1946 Conybeare returned to Guy's and became Governor.
Conybeare, known as Cony' to his friends, andConny' to his military friends, had many interests. He had a love of music, painting and ecclesiastical architecture. He loved to travel abroad, taking many cruises during the inter-war years, and taking great delight in foreign cuisine. At home he generated a number of social circles, frequently entertaining or dining out, indeed he was a member of many dining clubs. Conybeare played golf with Lord Nuffield, which, it is thought, must have greatly influenced the latter's many benefactions towards medicine, particularly towards Guy's. Even when his health began to diminish in later years he did not modify his lifestyle.
He retired from the active staff of Guy's, as Senior Physician, in 1953 at the age of 65, and was appointed Consulting Physician Emeritus. His associations with the Hospital continued until his death. He died suddenly at his home in St Thomas's Street, near to Guy's, on 6 January 1967 at the age of 78.
Publications:
Textbook of Medicine by Various Authors, John Josias Conybeare (ed.) (Edinburgh, 1929-)
Manual of Diabetes (1935)
Frederic John Farre was born in Charterhouse Square, London, on 16 December 1804, the son of John Richard Farre, physician. He was educated at Charterhouse, where he was gold medalist in 1821, and school captain in 1822. He obtained a scholarship to St John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA with first class honours in Mathematics in 1827, and MA in 1830. During this time he undertook his medical studies at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London (St Barts).
In 1831 Farre was appointed lecturer on botany at St Barts. In 1836 he was appointed assistant physician to the hospital. He graduated MD in 1837. In 1838 he was elected fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and became closely involved with the work of the College. He was censor there in 1841 and 1842, and from 1843-45 he lectured on materia medica. From 1843, until his death, he was physician to the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital. He was also physician to Charterhouse and to the Rock Assurance Office. Furthermore, Farre conducted a private practice based at his residence in Montague Street, Russell Square, and later in Pimlico.
He was a member of the council of the Royal College of Physicians from 1846-48. In 1854 he became full physician and lecturer on materia medica at St Barts, on which subject he became an authority. In the same year he served again as censor for the College. Farre became an examiner for the College, 1861-62, and an examiner in materia medica for the University of London.
He was one of the editors of the first British Pharmacopoeia (1864), and the following year was involved in editing an abridged version of Jonathan Pereira's Elements of Materia Medica (1865). In 1866 he published a paper on the `Treatment of Acute Pericarditis with Opium' in the St Bartholomew's Hospital Reports, which recommends the disuse of the then popular but injurious mercurial treatment.
He served a second time as councillor and as an examiner of the Royal College of Physicians, from 1866-67, and was treasurer there from 1868-83. In 1870 he retired from his position as physician at St Barts, although he continued to lecture there for another six years.
Upon his resignation as treasurer of the College, in 1883, he presented the College with a manuscript history of its proceedings, compiled by himself. He finally became vice-president there in 1885.
He had married Julia Lewis in 1848 and they had two daughters. He died in his home at Kensington on 9 November 1886, at the age of 81.
Publications:
Manual of Materia Medica and Therapeutics: Being an Abridgement of the Elements of Materia Medica, Jonathan Pereira, F.J. Farre, R. Bentley & R. Warington (London, 1865)
Sir David Ferrier was born on 13 January 1843 at Woodside, near Aberdeen, the son of David Ferrier, businessman. He was educated at the local grammar school before entering Aberdeen University in 1859. He graduated MA in 1863 with first class honours in classics and philosophy, and then spent the next six months in Europe. Whilst abroad he spent some time studying psychology at Heidelberg. In 1865 he went to Edinburgh University to study medicine, graduating MB in 1868.
From 1868-70 Ferrier was assistant to a general practitioner, William Edmund Image, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk. During this time Ferrier prepared his MD thesis on corpora quadrigemina, for which he was awarded a gold medal. In 1870 he moved to London and was lecturer on physiology at the Middlesex Hospital for a short time. The following year he was appointed demonstrator of physiology at King's College Hospital, and in 1872 succeeded to the chair of forensic medicine.
In 1873 Ferrier began his research into electrical excitation of the brain. He proved through his experiments the existence of the localization of the cerebral functions, a fact hitherto disputed. Indeed he was the first to map the cerebral cortex, from what had been an unknown area. Ferrier demonstrated that the combined areas of excitable points on the brain's surface were more extensive, and that more movements throughout the body could be elicited, in an ape than in animals less like human beings. He further inferred, through his research on monkeys, that conditions of disease in the brain could be effectively dealt with surgically, to a far greater extent than had been done previously.
Ferrier undoubtedly made a great contribution to modern cerebral surgery, enabling relief for patients suffering from certain forms of brain tumour and brain injury, although his animal experiments brought him opposition from anti-vivisectionists. His Croonian Lectures to the Royal Society in 1874 and 1875 were on the subject of his early research, as was his treatise, The Functions of the Brain (1876; 2nd ed. 1886), which was translated into several languages.
In 1874 he was elected assistant physician both at King's College Hospital and at the West London Hospital. He was elected fellow of the Royal Society in 1876. In the following year he also became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, and in 1878 delivered the College's Goulstonian Lectures on the subject of localization of cerebral disease. Ferrier was an active member of the Neurological Society, and was one of the founders and editors of the journal Brain when it started in 1878. In 1881 he became physician in charge of outpatients at King's College Hospital. At this time he was also on the staff at the National Hospital for the Paralysed and Epileptic.
Ferrier was a member of the Metropolitan Counties Branch of the British Medical Association from 1888-89. In 1889 the post of Professor of Neuropathology was created for him at King's College London. The following year he was made full physician at King's College Hospital. Also in 1890 he was awarded the Royal Medal of the Royal Society, and in 1891 the Cameron Prize of Edinburgh University. In 1894 he was president of the Neurological Society, having been a member of the council of the society for a number of years. At the Royal College of Physicians he delivered the Harveian Oration in 1902, and acted as senior censor in 1907. In 1908 he was appointed emeritus professor at King's College London.
Ferrier was knighted in 1911. In 1913 he was president of the Medical Society of London. He was awarded honorary degrees from the universities of Cambridge and Birmingham.
Ferrier had married Constance Waterlow in 1874, and they had a son and a daughter. Ferrier died in London on 19 March 1928 at his home in Kensington. An eponymous lecture was posthumously endowed at the Royal Society in 1929, and at the Royal Society of Medicine a Ferrier memorial library was founded and endowed.
Publications
Historical Notes on Poisoning (London, 1872)
The Localisation of Cerebral Disease (Goulstonian Lectures, 1878) (London, 1878)
The Functions of the Brain (London, 1876; 2nd ed. 1886)
Principles of Forensic Medicine, William Augustus and David Ferrier (London, 6th ed. 1888)
Cerebral Localisation (London, 1890)
The Heart and Nervous System (Harveian Oration, 1902) (London, 1902)
On Tabes Dorsalis (Lumleian Lectures, 1906) (London, 1906)
The Bedell at the Royal College of Physicians was (and still is) the custodian of College property.
Born, 1773. British politician, nephew of Charles James Fox. He was a member of the Whig opposition party from 1797 and served as Lord Privy Seal in the coalition ministry of 1806-1807. An opponent of the Act of Union with Ireland (1801), he continually advocated its repeal, at the same time working for Catholic Emancipation. Although a loyal and active member he was never personally powerful in the Whig party. When the Whigs returned to power, he served as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (1830-1834, 1835-1840). Lord Holland is, perhaps, best known for his influence on literature, politics, and letters through the hospitality that Holland House in London provided for the brilliant and distinguished people of his day. Holland died in 1840, his son, the 4th baron, edited Holland's Foreign Reminiscences (1850) and Memoirs of the Whig Party (1852).
Leonard George Guthrie was born in Kensington, London, on the 7 February 1858, second son of Thomas Anstey Guthrie. He was educated at King's College School, before entering Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied classics. He graduated MA in 1880. He then chose to study medicine, and completed his clinical studies at St Bartholomew's Hospital, qualifying in 1886. He took the diplomas of both the Royal College of Surgeons and the Society of Apothecaries.
Guthrie obtained house appointments at the Paddington Green Children's Hospital and the Great Northern Central Hospital. Children's diseases became one of his chief interests, along with nervous disorders. His work as a paediatrician was greatly respected and it was noted that he was `adept in gaining the confidence of his young patients' (Munk's Roll, 1955, p.421). He joined the staff of the Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System in 1888, whilst the hospital was still situated at Regent's Park. He was also appointed assistant physician to the North-West London Hospital. He graduated MD from Oxford in 1893. In 1900 he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. He was subsequently made full physician at the Paddington Green Children's Hospital and the Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System, Maida Vale, having stayed with the hospital after its move from Regent's Park in 1903.
Guthrie's major publication was Functional Nervous Disorders of Childhood (1907), which became a minor classic. He was FitzPatrick Lecturer at the Royal College of Physicians in 1907-08, and chose to lecture on 'Contributions to the Study of the Precocity in Children' and the 'History of Neurology'. He was greatly interested in the history of medicine; indeed Guthrie, according to a colleague, was a man who `loved young people and old things' (BMJ, 1919, p.29).
Guthrie contributed chapters to Sir Thomas Clifford Allbutt's A System of Medicine (1896-99; 1905-11), and to the Diseases of Children (1913), edited by Archibald Edward Garrod, Frederick Eustace Batten and James Hugh Thursfield. He was made secretary of the Royal College of Physicians committee for the revision of the Nomenclature of Diseases (5th ed. 1917). He also served as president of the Harveian Society, and of the Section for the Study of Diseases in Children of the Royal Society of Medicine.
During the First World War, 1914-18, he served on the staff of Lord Knutsford's Hospitals for Neurasthenic Officers. He was also selected to examine medical men under the Ministry of National Service. Guthrie was senior physician to both the Paddington Green Children's Hospital and the Maida Vale Hospital at the time of his death. He had also recently been appointed examiner in medicine to Oxford University, and member of the Council of the Royal College of Physicians.
He died on 24 December 1918, after an accident on one of London's tube railways, and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery.
Publications:
Interstitial Nephritis in Childhood (London, 1897)
Functional Nervous Disorders in Childhood (London, 1907)
Contributions to the Study of Precocity in Children, and the History of Neurology (London, 1921)
The Nomenclature of Diseases, Leonard George Guthrie (ed.) (London, 1917, 5th ed.)
Baldwin Hamey was born in London on 24 April 1600, the eldest son of Baldwin Hamey, the Flemish physician. He received his early education at one of the public city schools. He entered the University of Leyden as a student of philosophy in May 1617, and then went to Oxford in 1621 and studied humanities in the public library. In the winter of 1622-23 he was apprenticed to his father in London, whereupon his real medical education began. Hamey returned to Holland in the summer of 1625 and graduated MD at Leyden on 12 August 1626. His thesis, De Angina, was to be his only published work.
He returned to London and continued his apprenticeship, gaining some necessary clinical experience. He then traveled in Europe, visiting the universities of Paris, Montpelier, and Padua, before returning to Southwark to marry Anna de Pettin of Rotterdam in May 1627. Later that year they moved from his parents' house in Sydon Lane, to a house in St Clement's Lane, and Hamey began to practice under the patronage of Simeon Foxe, physician and President of the Royal College of Physicians. At this time he enjoyed many hours of leisure. He began to record the biographies of his friends and contemporaries. Hamey was incorporated MD at Oxford, 4 February 1629/30, and then admitted a Candidate of the Royal College of Physicians of London in June 1630. He became a Fellow of the College in January 1633/4.
He was generous with his wealth throughout his life, and was `a liberal benefactor to many poor but deserving scholars' (Munk's Roll, 1878, p.211). In 1634 he financed the education of one such man, John Sigismund Clewer. Hamey performed many unpaid roles within the Royal College of Physicians, and was unfailing in his attendance at College events. He was a censor on several occasions between 1640 and 1654, and registrar in 1646, and 1650-54. In 1647 he delivered the anatomical Goulstonian Lectures at the College.
During the Interregnum, 1649-60, Hamey, a royalist and faithful member of the Church of England, considered leaving London, but an attack of inflammation of the lungs prevented him. Whilst convalescing he agreed to consult a puritan soldier who, much satisfied with the service, handed Hamey a bag of gold as payment. Hamey politely refused the generous gesture, whereupon the soldier took a handful of gold coins from the bag and placed them in the physician's pocket. On Hamey's producing the coins to his surprised wife he learnt that during his illness, to avoid troubling him, she had paid that exact sum, 36 pieces of gold, to a state exaction executed by another puritan soldier. Hamey perceived the providential incident as an omen against his leaving the capital. So he remained in London, where his burgeoning practice grew to include a number of parliamentarians.
Hamey became wealthy and his generosity continued unabated. In 1651 the Royal College of Physicians' building at Amen Corner, which stood in grounds belonging to St Paul's cathedral, was in a vulnerable position. Hamey, `with a generosity which does him immortal honour', bought the property and made it over in perpetuity to the College (ibid, p.212). Remaining a faithful royalist despite his apparent neutrality, Hamey also purchased a diamond ring of Charles I bearing the royal arms, for £500, which he presented to Charles II at the Restoration in 1660. During the Interregnum Hamey had sent Charles II a number of gifts. In recognition of his services the king offered him a knighthood and the position of physician in ordinary to himself, honours which an ageing Hamey respectfully declined.
Hamey was treasurer at the Royal College of Physicians in 1664-66. He retired from his practice in 1665, the year before the Great Fire of London, after having remained in London to fight the Plague. He went to live in Chelsea. After the fire he donated a large sum of money to the rebuilding of the College, and wainscoted the dining room with carved Spanish oak (which is still preserved in the Censor's Room of the present building). In 1672 he gave the College an estate near Great Ongar in Essex. The rents arising from the lands were to pay annual sums to the physicians of St Bartholomew's Hospital, provided that the hospital accepted the nominees of the College. He also donated £100 towards the repair of St Paul's Cathedral, and contributed to the upkeep of All Hallows, Barking, where his parents were buried, of his own parish church, St Clement's, Eastcheap, and to the restoration of St Luke's, Chelsea.
Hamey died in Chelsea on 14 May 1676, aged 76. He was buried in the parish church with a simple black marble slab. A gilt inscription, with his arms, was laid years later. Hamey and his wife, who had died in 1660, had had no children. A major benefactor of his inheritance was the Royal College of Physicians, to whom he confirmed forever the bequest of his estate in Essex. His friend, Adam Littleton, lexicographer, printed his essay On the Oath of Hippocrates (1688).
Publications:
De Angina (1626)
On the Oath of Hippocrates, Adam Littleton (ed) (1688)
Publications by others about Hamey:
The Stranger's Son, John Keevil (London, 1953)
Sir Jonathan Hutchinson was born at Selby, Yorkshire, on 23 July 1828, the son of Jonathan Hutchinson, a middleman in the flax trade and a member of the Society of Friends. Brought up as a Quaker, Hutchinson remained influenced by the doctrine of the Quakers throughout his life. He was educated at Selby and then apprenticed to the surgeon Caleb Williams of York in 1845. Between 1846 and 1850 Hutchinson attended both the York School of Medicine, where Williams lectured on materia medica and therapeutics, and the York County Hospital. Hutchinson went to London in 1849 to complete his medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital. In 1850 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries.
Disliking the thought of private practice, he began his medical career writing for the medical journals, and coaching pupils for examinations. From 1853 he wrote weekly hospital reports for the Medical Times and Gazette. He remained a prolific writer throughout his career. In the early 1850s he was also appointed as clinical assistant to the Liverpool Street Chest Hospital, assistant surgeon to the Metropolitan Free Hospital, and soon afterwards joined the staff of the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital and the Blackfriars Hospital for Skin Diseases. After marrying Jane Pynsent West in 1856, he began private practice in London. In 1859 he was appointed assistant surgeon to the London Hospital.
Hutchinson helped found the New Sydenham Society in 1859, after the dissolution of the original Sydenham Society. He was its secretary throughout its existence, until 1907, and was responsible for editing the many publications of the Society. He was appointed assistant surgeon to the Royal Lock Hospital, and full surgeon to the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, in 1862, and in the same year became lecturer on surgery at the London Hospital. Also in 1862 Hutchinson became a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1863 he became full surgeon at the London Hospital and began to lecture in medical ophthalmology, as well as surgery. Due to his new posts he stopped writing his weekly reports for the Medical Times and Gazette. 1863 also saw the publication of his book on inherited syphilis, A Clinical Memoir on Certain Diseases of the Eye and Ear, Consequent on Inherited Syphilis.
Hutchinson became a leading authority on the subjects of ophthalmology, dermatology, neurology, and in particular syphilis, and has been described as `the greatest general practitioner in Europe' (DNB, 1927, p.279). He promulgated the view that syphilis is a specific fever like smallpox or measles. His skill lay in observation, and the accumulation and collation of clinical facts. However his deductions from them were not always convincing, such as his conclusion that leprosy was caused by the consumption of decaying fish. Even after the discovery of the lepra bacillus Hutchinson did not change his opinion, despite being in direct opposition to the rest of the medical profession.
In 1868 he helped to establish the pathological museum held in connection with the annual meetings of the British Medical Association (BMA). From 1869-70 Hutchinson edited the British Medical Journal. In 1874 he moved to larger premises at 15 Cavendish Square, next door to his famous medical colleague Sir Andrew Clark. He was President of the Section of Surgery of the BMA in 1876. In 1878 the first volume of his Illustrations of Clinical Surgery (1878-84) appeared, consisting of drawings, photographs, and diagrams illustrating diseases, symptoms, and injuries with full explanations. From 1879-95 he served on the council of the Royal College of Surgeons, and between 1879-83 was their Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology. He served on the Royal Commission on Smallpox and Fever Cases in London Hospitals, in 1881. In 1882 he was elected fellow of the Royal Society.
In 1883 he left the active service of the London Hospital, and became emeritus professor of surgery at the Hospital's medical school. The Hutchinson triennial prize essay was established to commemorate his services to the Hospital. Hutchinson became president of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1889, and began the publication of his series Archives of Surgery (1889-1900), which was issued quarterly, and proved of interest to general practitioners, surgeons, physicians, and specialists. From 1890-96 he served on the Royal Commission on Vaccination. In 1891 he delivered the Hunterian Oration of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1895 he published A Smaller Atlas of Illustrations of Clinical Surgery.
Over the years Hutchinson acquired a vast collection of specimens and watercolour drawings. He donated his collections and a large number of books and periodicals to the Medical Graduates' College and Polyclinic at 22 Chenies Street, founded in 1899. Hutchinson played a major part instigating the foundation of the College, and, along with others, gave courses of lectures and demonstrations, as well as free consultations for impoverished patients. These public consultations were popular and largely attended by general practitioners. He also assumed the editorship of the College's journal, The Polyclinic.
Hutchinson established an educational museum and library at his own expense at his country house in Haslemere, Surrey, which included an aviary and vivarium, where he spent much of his time with his childhood friend the eminent neurologist John Hughlings Jackson. Hutchinson gave lectures and demonstrations to the local community on scientific, literary and religious subjects at the weekends. Edward VII knew of him as `the surgeon who had a hospital for animals on his farm' (Plarr, 1930, p.590). Hutchinson established a similar museum in his native Selby, but this proved less popular.
In 1907 he moved to Gower Street, to be closer to the Graduates' College in Chenies Street. He was knighted in 1908 for his distinguished services to medicine. It is said that he refused an earlier offering of a peerage and had to be persuaded by friends to accept this knighthood. He received honorary degrees from the universities of Glasgow, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Oxford, Dublin, and Leeds, and was a corresponding member of the Societe de Chirurgie de Paris. At various times he held the presidency of several London medical societies, including the Royal Medical and Chirurgical, Pathological, Hunterian, Ophthalmological, Medical, and Neurological Societies.
Hutchinson had a large family, with six sons, four of who survived him, and four daughters. His wife died in 1886. Hutchinson died at his house in Haslemere, Surrey, on 26 June 1913. He was buried in Haslemere, with a tombstone that was inscribed on his orders, `A Man of Hope and Forward-Looking Mind'.
Publications:
A Clinical Memoir on Certain Diseases of the Eye and Ear, Consequent on Inherited Syphilis (London, 1863)
A Descriptive Catalogue of the New Sydenham Society's Atlas of Portraits of Diseases of the Skin (London, 1869-75)
An Atlas of Illustrations of Pathology, Jonathan Hutchinson (ed.) (New Sydenham Society, London, 1877-1900)
Atlas of Skin Diseases, Jonathan Hutchinson (ed.) (New Sydenham Society, London, 1800s)
Illustrations of Clinical Surgery (2 Vols., London, 1878-88)
The Pedigree of Disease (1884)
Syphilis (London, 1887)
A Smaller Atlas of Illustrations of Clinical Surgery (1895)
Archives of Surgery (London, 1889-1900)
Atlas of Clinical Medicine, Surgery and Pathology, Jonathan Hutchinson (ed.) (New Sydenham Society, London, 1901-7)
Leprosy and Fish-Eating, A Statement of Facts and Explanations (1906)
A System of Syphilis; with an Introduction by Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, Sir D'Arcy Power, James Keogh Murphy & Sir Jonathan Hutchinson (London, 1908-10)
Retrospective Memoranda, by Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, and Subject Index and Index of Names compiled by Charles R. Hewitt (New Sydenham Society, London, 1911)
Neurological Fragments of J.H. Jackson; with Biographical Memoir by James Taylor, and including the Recollections of Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, and Charles Mercier, John Hughlings Jackson, James Taylor, Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, and Charles Arthur Mercier (London, 1925)
Publications by others about Hutchinson
The Life and Letters of Jonathan Hutchinson, Herbert Hutchinson (London, 1946)
Edward Jenner was born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, on 17 May 1749, the youngest son of Stephen Jenner, vicar at Berkeley. His father died when Jenner was five years old, and his eldest brother Stephen directed his education. From the age of eight he was sent to school at nearby Wotton-under-Edge, and then to Cirencester Grammar School. During his time at Cirencester Jenner developed an interest in natural history, collecting the fossils that were abundant in the area. In 1761 he was apprenticed to a surgeon, Daniel Ludlow of Sodbury, before, at the age of 21, enrolling as a resident house pupil of the great surgeon John Hunter, in London. Over the next two years he received his most important education, and began a lifelong friendship with Hunter. On Hunter's recommendation Jenner was employed to prepare some of the specimens brought back from James Cook's circumnavigation of the world in 1771. He went on to pursue his studies at St George's Hospital, London.
In 1773 he returned to Berkeley to set up practice, and soon became successful. In his spare time he made botanical and ornithological observations, continued to collect fossils, played the flute and violin, and wrote poetry. He made observations on the temperature of animals. Hunter encouraged him in this task, and upon his request Jenner sent him specimens of salmon-spawn, porpoises, cuckoos, and fossils.
Jenner helped establish a medical society in Rodborough, Gloucestershire, whose members met to read papers on medical subjects before dining together. Jenner contributed papers on angina pectoris, ophthalmia and valvular disease of the heart and commented on cowpox, which had already begun to concern him. He also belonged to a similar society which met in Alveston, near Bristol. In 1787 Jenner wrote a paper on the `Natural History of the Cuckoo', which was published in the Philosophical Transactions the following year. Some discrepancies exist in the text; due it is thought to the fact that Jenner had instructed his nephew to make the observations. The latter, upon being directed by Jenner to perform this task, gave his uncle an imaginary report. In 1788 he was elected Fellow of the Royal Society. It was in March of that year that Jenner married Catharine Kingscote.
Jenner's burgeoning practice forced him to give up surgery and midwifery. In 1792 he obtained his MD from the University of St Andrews. In 1793 he published `A Process for Preparing Pure Emetic Tartar by Recrystallisation' in the Transactions of the Society for the Improvement of Medical and Chirurgical Knowledge.
In 1794 Jenner suffered severely from typhus fever. Upon his recovery he continued his investigations into the protective power of cowpox against smallpox, the commonest of diseases affecting all levels of society. He was at this time well aware of the widely held belief that diary maids who had contracted cowpox did not get smallpox. In May 1796 he vaccinated a young boy with lymph taken from vesicles of cowpox, which the boy accordingly developed. The boy was then inoculated with smallpox in July, which did not develop thus proving Jenner's argument. Jenner summarised his observations in a paper, `On the Cow-pox, the Original Paper', which was never printed. He stayed in London from April to July 1798 publicising his discovery in medical circles, however he failed to find any volunteers for vaccination. In June 1798 he published a fuller account, which became a medical classic, An Inquiry into the Cause and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of the Cow-pox. Interest did arise after Jenner's return to Berkeley, from a surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital, London, who was vaccinating patients with lymph given to him by Jenner, but Jenner was not keen to return to the capital.
Opposition to Jenner's discovery inevitably arose and, in reply to his critics, Jenner published Further Observations on the Variolae Vaccinae or Cow-pox (1799). He continued his work on vaccination in Berkeley and in Cheltenham, before returning to London in March 1799. From 1800 he lived in the capital for part of each year. The practice of vaccination slowly began to gain ground, though errors due to carelessness and ignorance did occur. Developments included discussion on the establishment of a vaccine institution, sending lymph throughout England and abroad, being presented to the King and then the Queen, and vaccinating the 85th regiment and then the British fleet. In 1800 he published A Continuation of Facts and Observations Relative to the Variolae Vaccinae or Cow-pox, and A Complete Statement of Facts and Observations Relative to the Cow-pock. During 1801 he received a number of congratulatory addresses and medals, including a medal from the medical officers of the British fleet, a ring from the Empress of Russia, and a service of plate from the gentry of Gloucestershire.
In 1802, on the advice of his friends, he petitioned Parliament for remuneration due to the time spent on his discovery preventing him acquiring his professional income. With the King's recommendation the petition went to a committee, which investigated the usefulness of the discovery and Jenner's right to claim to be the discoverer. It was proposed that he be granted £10,000. It has been said that whilst he sought just public reward for his services he showed `complete freedom from any wish to enrich himself unworthily when riches were in his power' (DNB, 1892, p.324). Jenner returned to Berkeley until February 1803, when he again visited London. He became involved with the Jennerian Institution, a society concerned with promoting vaccination to eradicate smallpox. In 1808, with government aid, this society became the National Vaccine Establishment.
Jenner took a house in Mayfair and set up practice as a physician, but success was not forthcoming and he returned to Berkeley. He became a member of the Medical and Chirurgical Society on its foundation in 1805, and subsequently presented to them a number of papers. With his professional practice so impeded by his work promoting vaccination he again applied to Parliament for aid in 1806. An inquiry set up by the Royal College of Physicians reported favourably on the advantages of vaccination and the merits of Jenner. The House of Commons consequently awarded him £20,000.
In 1811 he was seriously ill. Upon his recovery he returned to London, and noticed that a significant number of cases of smallpox after vaccination were occurring. He found that in these cases the severity of the illness was notably diminished by the previous vaccination. In 1813 the University of Oxford awarded him the degree of MD.
In April 1814 he visited London for the last time, and stayed three months. He met the Czar, his sister the Duchess of Oldenburg, and the King of Prussia. He then returned first to Cheltenham, where his wife died in 1815, and then to live in Berkeley. In 1820 Jenner had an apoplexy attack from which he completely recovered. In 1821 he was appointed Physician Extraordinary to King George IV and was made Mayor of Berkeley and Justice of the Peace. In 1822 he published A Letter to C.H. Parry, MD, on the Influence of Artificial Eruptions in Certain Diseases Incidental to the Human Body, and wrote Observations on the Migration of Birds (1823), which he read to the Royal Society on 23 November 1822.
On 26 January 1823 he had another attack of apoplexy and died, one son and one daughter survived him, the eldest son having died of tuberculosis at the age of 21. Jenner was buried on 3 February 1823 in the chancel of the parish church of Berkeley. A marble statue of Jenner was erected in the nave of Gloucester Cathedral, whilst a bronze statue was erected in Trafalgar Square in 1858, which was moved to Kensington Gardens in 1862. Jenner made an invaluable contribution to medicine, with innumerable lives being saved throughout the world by his discovery. Vaccination became compulsory in the United Kingdom in 1853, and spread throughout Europe during the nineteenth century. In 1967 the World Health Organisation (WHO) launched a worldwide vaccination programme; by 1979 the disease was eradicated.
Publications:
An Inquiry into the Cause and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, a Disease Discovered in Some of the Western Counties of England, Particularly Gloucestershire, and Known by the Name of the Cow-pox (London, 1798)
Further Observations on the Variolae Vaccinae or Cow-pox (London, 1799)
A Continuation of Facts and Observations Relative to the Variolae Vaccinae or Cow-pox (1800)
A Complete Statement of Facts and Observations Relative to the Cow-pock, Thomas Paytherus, Edward Jenner, & William Woodville (London, 1800)
On the Origin of Vaccine Innoculation (London, 1801)
On the Varieties and Modifications of the Vaccine Pustule, Occasioned by an Herpetic State of the Skin (Cheltenham, 1806)
A Letter to C.H. Parry, MD, on the Influence of Artificial Eruptions in Certain Diseases Incidental to the Human Body (London, 1822)
Observations on the Migration of Birds (1823)
Publications by Others about Jenner:
The Life of Edward Jenner, John Baron (London, 1838)
Monument a Edward Jenner; Ou, Histoire Generale de la Vaccine a l'Occasion du Premier Centenaire de son Invention, Adolphe Pierre Burggraeve (Brussels, 1875)
Edward Jenner and the Discovery of Smallpox Vaccination, Louis Harry Roddis (Menasha, Wisconsin, 1930)
The Note-book of Edward Jenner in the Possession of the Royal College of Physicians of London, with an Introduction on Jenner's Work as a Naturalist by F. Dawtrey Drewitt, Frederick Dawtrey Drewitt (London, 1931)
Edward Jenner, Conqueror of Small Pox, Boswell Taylor (London, 1950)
A Bio-Bibliography of Edward Jenner, 1749-1823, William Richard LeFanu (London, 1951)
Dr Jenner of Berkeley, Dorothy Fisk (London, 1959)
Jenner and the Miracle of Vaccine, Edward F. Dolan, Jr. (New York, 1960)
Edward Jenner and Vaccination, Anthony John Harding Rains (London, 1974)
Edward Jenner's Cowpox Vaccine: The History of a Medical Myth, Peter Razzell (Firle, Sussex, 1980)
Letters of Edward Jenner and Other Documents Concerning the Early History of Vaccination, from the Henry Barton Jacobs Collection in the William H. Welch Medical Library, Genevieve Miller (ed.) (Baltimore, 1983)
Edward Jenner, Charles Bruce Perry ([Bristol] [1984?])
Edward Jenner, 1749-1823, Richard B. Fisher (London, 1991)
The Eradication of Smallpox: Edward Jenner and the First and Only Eradication of a Human Infectious Disease, Herve Bazin (San Diego, 2000)
Robert Lee was born in Melrose, Roxburghshire, in 1793, the second son of John Lee. He was educated in the Scottish Border town of Galashiels, under the Rev. Robert Balmer, the profound theologian. Lee entered Edinburgh University in 1806. Initially intended for the church he changed his mind and chose to pursue a career in medicine. He graduated MD in 1814, and became a member of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons. He was appointed physician's clerk at the Royal Infirmary to Dr James Hamilton, physician and professor of midwifery.
In 1817 Lee moved to London and took charge of an epileptic patient, the son of the Honorable William Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne). On relinquishing this appointment he spent the winter of 1821-22 in Paris, furthering his medical education through the study of anatomy. He remained abroad for the following year, employed as domestic physician to a family of high rank. He traveled with them through the South of France and Northern Italy. On his return to England he became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London, in March 1823, and began to practice as an obstetric physician.
He suffered a severe illness at this time. When he recovered he obtained a medical appointment with the East India Company. However, before leaving for Calcutta, he received the offer of appointment as domestic physician to Prince Woronzow, then governor-general of the Crimea and the Russian provinces around the Black Sea. He left for Odessa in October 1824. In 1825 he traveled with the Prince and his family to the Crimea, where he was presented to Czar Alexander a few days before the Czar's sudden death from epidemic fever. Lee later published an account of the Czar's final days, Last Days of Alexander and the First Days of Nicholas (1854), in order to counteract rumours that the Czar had died a suspicious death.
Lee returned to England with Prince Woronzow in 1826, and again began to practice as an obstetrician in London. In 1827 he was elected physician to the British Lying-in Hospital, and began to lecture on midwifery. In 1829 he also became lecturer on midwifery in the Webb Street School of Anatomy and Medicine. He had taught himself shorthand and this enabled him to make full notes of every lecture he attended and the cases he treated, making it possible for him to preserve written histories of the important cases of puerperal and uterine disease he came across after these appointments.
From his settling in London in 1827, Lee devoted much time and effort to investigations into the pathology of the diseases of women, puerperal fever, and in prolonged dissections of the ganglia and nerves of the uterus. He contributed to the Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine (1833-35), writing entries on 'Abortion', 'Diseases of the Ovaries', 'Puerperal Fevers', 'Pathology of the Uterus and its Appendages', and 'Diseases of the Veins'. He also wrote numerous papers. Many were published in the Transactions of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, whilst others he read before the Royal Society. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1830. Despite Lee's proliferation of papers the Society never awarded him a medal and even suppressed some of his articles. This was due, it is said, to `differences of opinion as to the value of his discoveries' (DNB, 1892, p.373).
He became secretary to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, 1830-35. In 1834 he obtained, through the interest of Lord Melbourne, the appointment of Regius Professor of Midwifery at the University of Glasgow. However he resigned after his introductory address and returned to London. In 1835 he was appointed lecturer on midwifery and the diseases of women at St George's Hospital, an appointment he held for thirty years. Lee was admitted a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1841.
In 1842 he published what some consider his most valuable contribution, Clinical Midwifery (2nd ed. 1848), which contained 545 cases of difficult labour. His subsequent work, Three Hundred Consultations in Midwifery (1864) was also deemed to be important (ibid). However, others consider that it was his remarkable' dissections of the nerves of the heart and uterus thatentitle him to a place in the foremost rank of anatomists and physiologists of his time and country' (Munk's Roll, 1878, p.268).
Lee's relationship with the Royal Society did not improve in the 1840s. It was owing in part to his dissension that the president, the Marquis of Northampton, and the secretary, Dr Peter Mark Roget, resigned in 1849. Lee's version of his treatment by the Royal Society can be found in his Memoirs on the Ganglia and Nerves of the Uterus (London, 1849). Although it was recognized that Lee could be somewhat dictatorial in manner and intolerant of those in slightest opposition to his views, his honesty of purpose in all he did was never doubted' (ibid). Furthermore, he was undoubtedlyan indomitable worker, and made numerous discoveries of permanent value' (DNB, p.373)
He delivered several of the eponymous lectures of the Royal College of Physicians, namely the Lumleian Lectures in 1856-57, the Croonian Lectures in 1862, and the Harveian Oration in 1864, the last time the lecture was delivered in Latin. He resigned his lecturership at St George's Hospital in 1866, but continued in practice.
Lee worked indefatigably until 1875 when he retired from practice at the age of 82. He moved from his home in Savile Row to Surbiton Hill, Surrey, and died there on 6 February 1877. He was buried at Kensal Green.
Publications:
On the Structure of the Human Placenta, and its Connection with the Uterus (London, 1832) Researches on the Pathology and Treatment of the Diseases of Women (London, 1833)
Pathological Observations on the Diseases of the Uterus, with Coloured Engravings from Original Drawings by Joseph Perry, Representing the Most Important Organic Diseases of the Uterus (London, 2 parts 1840; 1849)
The Anatomy of the Nerves of the Uterus (London, 1841)
Clinical Midwifery, with the Histories of the Four Hundred Cases of Difficult Labour (London, 1842; 2nd edition 1848)
On the Ganglia and Other Nervous Structures of the Uterus (London, 1842)
Lectures on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, delivered in the Theatre of St George's Hospital (London, 1844)
Memoirs on the Ganglia and Nerves of the Uterus (London, 1849)
Memoir on the Ganglia and Nerves of the Heart (London, 1851)
Clinical Reports of Ovarian and Uterine Diseases, with Commentaries (London, 1853)
The Last Days of Alexander, and the First Days of Nicholas, Emperors of Russia (London, 1854)
Treatise on the Employment of the Speculum in the Diagnosis and Treatment of Uterine Diseases (London, 1858)
Engravings of the Ganglia and Nerves of the Uterus and Heart (London, 1858)
Three Hundred Consultations in Midwifery (London, 1864)
History of the Discoveries of the Circulation of the Blood, of the Ganglia and Nerves, and of the Action of the Heart (London, 1865)
A Treatise on Hysteria (London, 1871)
Entries in Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine (London, 1833-35), ed. by Sir John Forbes, John Conolly, & Alexander Tweedie
Publications about Lee:
Extracts from the Diary of Dr Robert Lee, FRS, 1821-22 (London, 1897, privately printed - posthumously)
Thomas Marwood was physician to James I. Dr William Munk, who made an exhaustive study of the manuscript doubted the authorship of Dr Marwood, and rather favoured the suggestion that 'the volume is really neither more nor less than the daily entry book of a leading and fashionable Apothecary in London, containing the copies in extenso of the prescriptions he compounded for the physicians who patronised and the persons who employed him. He may even have been 'Apothecary to the Person.' As such he would have been in immediate attendance on the king, as glysters and cupping had to be employed. Or lastly, the report of the illness and of the post-mortem examination may have been merely copied by the writer of the volume from the notes of one of the many physicians who were present throughout. It is clear that the author of the report was a medical man, and one thoroughly conversant with the habits of the king and the king and the whole course of his illness'.
Gavin Milroy was born in 1805, in Edinburgh, the son of a silversmith. He was educated at the Royal High School, Edinburgh, before entering the city's university to study medicine. He qualified licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1824, and graduated MD from the university in 1828. He was a founder member of the Hunterian Society of Edinburgh.
Rather than enter into practice, Milroy enlisted as a medical officer in the Government Packet Service to the West Indies and the Mediterranean. On his return he was attracted to medical journalism, and from 1844-47 was co-editor of the Medico-Chirurgical Review. Milroy's detailed commentary on a French report on `Plague and Quarantine' was published in the Review in October 1846. In the article he advocated the abolition of quarantine, and the dependence on sanitary measures alone for protection from foreign diseases. Milroy was consequently acknowledged as an expert on epidemiology and was employed on several Government commissions of inspection and enquiry. From 1849-50 he acted as a superintendent medical inspector of the General Board of Health. Milroy was a member of the Medical and Chirurgical Society, and played an active role in establishing the Epidemiological Society of London in 1850.
In 1852 he went to Jamaica for the Colonial Office, to investigate a cholera epidemic. He presented to the authorities a report which charted the origin and progress of the epidemic, gave details of the social conditions of the natives, and made recommendations for sanitary measures. In 1853 he was elected fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. For the next two years, 1853-55, he was again medical inspector for the General Board of Health. From 1855-56, during the Crimean War, he served on the Sanitary Commission inspecting the British troops in the field. The reports, written by Milroy and his colleague John Sutherland, from the Board of Health, did influence subsequent reforms, although at the time the Army Medical Department had insufficient authority to institute the necessary changes.
In 1858 Milroy was honorary secretary of a committee appointed by the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science to enquire into the question of quarantine worldwide. As secretary Milroy assimilated and digested the results, and communicated them to the Board of Trade. The committee's findings were incorporated into three parliamentary papers, 1860-61. The papers contained information not only on the laws and practice of quarantine, but also on the appearance and prevalence of the diseases for which quarantine was being imposed throughout the world. Milroy was secretary of the Epidemiological Society, 1862-64, and then its president, 1864-66.
Milroy was a member of the committee of the Royal College of Physicians, appointed at the request of the Colonial Office in 1862, to examine the spread of leprosy. The committee's report of 1867 included an appendix by Milroy giving suggestions, entitled Notes respecting the Leprosy of Scripture'. Other contributions to medical literature included the article onPlague' in Sir John Russell Reynold's System of Medicine (1866-79), many articles for The Lancet, and many other anonymous articles in various medical journals. It has been said of Milroy that he was `a modest, unassuming man, of sound judgment, and considerable intellectual powers' (DNB, 1894, p.23). In 1871 Milroy was awarded a civil list pension of £100 a year by the Government.
In later years he lived at Richmond, Surrey. His wife Sophia (nee Chapman) died about three years before her husband. Milroy died at Richmond on 11 January 1886, and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery. He bequeathed to the College £2,000 to found the Milroy Lectureship on state medicine and public health, and accompanied the bequest with a memorandum of suggestions.
Publications:
Quarantine and the Plague, being a Summary of the Report on these Subjects recently addressed to the Royal Academy of Medicine in Paris, with Introductory Observations, Extracts from Parliamentary Correspondence, and Notes (London, 1846)
Abstract of Regulations in Force in Foreign Countries respecting Quarantine (Parliamentary Papers no.568, 25 August 1860); Abstracts of Information concerning the Laws of Quarantine (Parliamentary Papers no.568-1, 21 August 1860); Papers relating to Quarantine (Parliamentary Papers no.544, 6 August 1861)
Sir Alexander Morison was born on 1 May 1779 at Anchorfield, near Edinburgh. He was educated at the city's high school, and then proceeded to the University of Edinburgh where he spent five years. He studied medicine under the eminent surgeon Alexander Wood, who was at the time head of the surgical profession in Edinburgh. He graduated MD on 12 September 1799. His thesis was entitled `De Hydrocephalo Phrenitico', and he continued to take a special interest in cerebral and mental diseases throughout his life.
Morison became a licentiate of the Edinburgh College of Physicians in 1800, and a fellow in 1801. He practiced medicine in Edinburgh for a time before, in 1808, moving to London. In the same year he became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Morison devoted his attention particularly to insanity. He was appointed inspecting physician of lunatic asylums in the county of Surrey in 1810. For many years he gave an annual course of lectures on mental diseases and became recognised as an expert in this field.
In 1826 he published Outlines of Lectures on Mental Diseases, and two years later, Cases of Mental Disease, with Practical Observations on the Medical Treatment (1828). In 1835 he became physician to the Bethlehem Hospital. He was also physician to Princess Charlotte and to Prince Leopold. He was knighted in 1838.
In 1840 Morison published The Physiognomy of Mental Diseases. His publications were brief but were illustrated with a large series of portraits of lunatics. He was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1841.
Morison died in Edinburgh on 14 March 1866, aged 86, and was buried at Currie.
Publications:
Outlines of Lectures on Mental Diseases (London, 1826)
Cases of Mental Disease, with Practical Observations on the Medical Treatment (London and Edinburgh, 1828)
The Physiognomy of Mental Diseases (London, 1840)
Possibly Joseph Phelan, MD Glasgow 1785, LRCP 1786, naval surgeon.
Born, 1707; education: St Andrews; St Leonard's College, 1722; Edinburgh University, 1727; studied medicine in Leiden, graduating MD, 1730; completed his medical studies in Paris; medical practice in Edinburgh; joint Professor of Pneumatics (metaphysics) and Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh University; Physician to the Earl of Stair; Physician to the Army in Flanders, 1742; Physician-General to the Duke of Cumberland, 1744-1748; resigned his professorship in Edinburgh, 1744; settled in London and continued in medical practice, 1748; Physician-in-Ordinary to the Duke of Cumberland, 1749; Council member of the Royal Society, 1753; LRCP, 1758; FRCP, 1763; speciali gratia, Physician to the Queen, 1761; President of the Royal Society, 1772-1778; baronet, 1766; gazetted Physician-in-Ordinary to the king, 1774; died, 1782.
Publications:
Observations on the Nature and Cure of Hospital and Jayl Fevers (1750)
Observations on the Diseases of the Army (1752)
Born, 1862; educated at Maclaren's School at Summerfield, Oxford, and at Marlborough College; medical student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, 1881-1883; St John's College, Cambridge, 1883-; Demonstrator in Pathology at Cambridge, 1887; House Physician at St Bartholomew's; Demonstrator in Anatomy at St Bartholomew's; Curator of the museum at St George's Hospital, London, 1890; MD, 1891; Assistant Physician to St George's, 1893; Physician to St George's, 1898-[1918]; staff of the Victoria Hospital for Children, London; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1894; Consulting Physician to the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at Pretoria, South Africa, 1901; served on advisory committees set up by the Royal Army Medical Corps and the Royal Naval Service to improve the conditions of its officers; examiner for the service's entrance and promotion examinations in medicine; consulting physician to the Royal Navy, with the temporary rank of surgeon rear-admiral, First World War; representative of the medical department of the Admiralty on the medical board of the flying corps, and he became Physician to the Central Flying Hospital at Mount Vernon, Hampstead, London, 1917-1919; Consulting Physician to St George's Hospital, 1918; Consulting Physician to the Ventnor Hospital for Consumption on the Isle of Wight, 1922; Consulting Physician to the King Edward VII Sanatorium at Midhurst, 1923; Physician-in-Ordinary to King George V, 1923; President of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1918-1920; President of the Royal College of Physicians, 1922-1926; President of the Association of Physicians of Great Britain and Ireland, 1925 and 1929; President of the Medical Society of London, 1926-1927; Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge, 1925; retired, 1932; died, 1944.
Born, 1751; educated University of Edinburgh; surgeon's mate on one of the East India Company's ships, 1766; assistant surgeon on the Company's Madras establishment; General Hospital at Madras; practised botany in his spare time; full surgeon, 1780; stationed at Samulcotta, 1781; naturalist in the Madras Presidency, 1790; Superintendent, Royal Botanic Garden in Calcutta, 1793-1813; returned to England, 1813; died, 1815.
John Snow was born on 15 March 1813 in York, the eldest son of William Snow, farmer. He was educated locally at a private school, until the age of fourteen when he was apprenticed to William Hardcastle, a surgeon in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In Newcastle he worked as one of three surgeon apothecaries at the Lying-In Hospital, where he was also secretary. He also held an appointment as mining doctor at the Killingworth Colliery. This work brought him into contact with George and Robert Stephenson, who in 1827 were listed as patients of his practice. Throughout the Cholera epidemic of 1831-32 he attended victims at the colliery. During his apprenticeship, 1827-1833, he became a vegetarian and teetotaler.
Between 1833 and 1836 he was an assistant in practice, first in Burnopfield, Durham, and then in Pateley Bridge, North Yorkshire. During this time he often returned to York and was much involved in the temperance movement. In 1836 Snow decided to further his medical education in London. He undertook the journey on foot, walking via Liverpool, Wales and Bath. In October 1836 he became a student at the Hunterian School of Medicine, Great Windmill Street, where his initial research in medicine began, the subject being the toxicity of arsenic. In October 1837 he began to attend the medical practice at the Westminster Hospital. He was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England on 2 May 1838, and in October of that year he became a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries.
Snow set up practice in his new home at 54 Frith Street from 1838. To further his medical knowledge Snow regularly attended the meetings of the Westminster Medical Society (later the Medical Society of London), having joined as a student member in 1837. He presented the results of his research on a number of diverse scientific problems at the Society's meetings, and subsequently published articles on them in the medical journals, throughout the late 1830s and early 1840s. The two dominant themes were toxicology and respiratory physiology. His first published paper, Arsenic as a Preservative of Dead Bodies', appeared in The Lancet in 1838. However, his most well known paper was published in 1842, On Asphyxia, and on the Resuscitation of Still-born Children. Other topics included the danger of candles incorporating arsenic, postscarlatinal anasarca, and haemorrhagic smallpox. By the end of this phase of his career,the name of John Snow was quite well known to anyone who read the English Medical Press' (Shephard, 1995, p.44).
He graduated MD from London University on 20 December 1844, having graduated MB in November 1843. At this time, after the immense pressure of hard work, he had a breakdown and it is thought suffered an attack of tuberculosis (Fraser, 1968, p.504). His health was further affected during the following year when he suffered from renal disease. It was in 1845 that he was appointed lecturer on forensic medicine at the Aldergate Street School of Medicine, a position he held until 1849 when the school closed.
In 1846 Snow became interested in the properties of ether, which had been newly adopted in America as an anaesthetizing agent. His work in anesthesia had begun during his earlier investigation into asphyxia of the newborn. Snow made great improvements in the method of administering the drug, and obtained permission to demonstrate his results in the dental out-patient room at St George's Hospital. This proved so successful that he won the confidence of Robert Liston, the eminent surgeon, and so the ether practice of London came entirely into his hands. Despite having practically introduced the scientific use of ether into English surgery, he had `so well balanced a mind that he appreciated the value of other anaesthetizing agents, more particularly chloroform' (DNB, 1898, p.208). It was this drug that he famously administered to Queen Victoria during the birth of Prince Leopold, 7 April 1853, and again, a few years later, during the birth of Princess Beatrice, 14 April 1857.
Snow is famous for his scientific insight which led to the theory that cholera is communicated by means of a contaminated water supply. His essay On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, was first published in 1849. The second edition, in 1855, included a more elaborate investigation into the effect of the water supply on certain districts of South London during the 1854 epidemic. Ultimately then Snow became
`widely recognised as one of the founding fathers of epidemiology as well as a leading figure in the initial development of anaesthetics in Britain' (Galbraith, 2002, p.1).
During the intervening years between the two editions of his publications on cholera, Snow was admitted as a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians and was a founder member of council of the Epidemiological Society of London, in 1850. In 1852 the Medical Society of London selected him orator for the following year. It was also in 1853 that he moved home and practice to 18 Sackville Street. He was a member of the Royal Medical Chirurgical Society and the Pathological Society, and was President, in 1854 of the Physiological Society, the Medical Society of London in 1855, and in 1857 of the Epidemiological Society.
Snow died unmarried, at the age of 45, on 16 June 1858. The direct cause of death was a stroke, however the autopsy revealed his health for many years had been undermined by the earlier attacks of tuberculosis. He was engaged on his work, Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics, at the time of his death. This was edited and published posthumously by his friend and fellow physician Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson. Snow was buried at Brompton Cemetery, where his colleagues and friends erected a monument in his memory.
Publications:
`On Distortions of the Chest and Spine in Children from Enlargement of the Abdomen', London Medical Gazette, 1841, 28, pp.112-116
On the Inhalation of the Vapour of Ether in Surgical Operations (London, 1847)
A Letter to the Right Honorable Lord Campbell, Lord Chief Justice of the Court of Queen's Bench, on the Clause Respecting Chloroform in the Proposed Prevention of Offences Bill (London, 1851)
On the Mode of Communication of Cholera (London, 1849, 2nd ed. 1855) - translated into German, Quedlinburg, 1856
On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics, John Snow, edited with a memoir, Benjamin Ward Richardson (London, 1858)
On Narcotism by the Inhalation of Vapours, John Snow, with an introductory essay by Richard H. Ellis (London, 1991)
Death from Amylene (date & place of publication unknown)
Publications by others about Snow:
Memoir by B.W. Richardson in On Chloroform and Other Anaesthetics, John Snow, edited by Benjamin Ward Richardson (London, 1858)
Dr John Snow (1813-1858): His Early Years: An Account of the Family of Dr John Snow and his Early Life, Dr Nicol Spence Galbraith (London, 2002)
Born, 1871; education: Market Harborough Grammar School; Wycliffe College, Stonehouse; Firth College, Sheffield; Guy's Hospital; University of Heidelberg. Physician St George's Hospital, 1904-1913; Dean of the Medical School; Physician to Victoria Hospital for Children; London Chest Hospital; Demonstrator of Physiology, Guy's Hospital, 1898-1904; Captain, Royal Army Medical Corps; left London for Scotland where he conducted Duff House, Banff clinic, 1913-1922; Honorary Medical Advisor to Ministry of Food, 1917-1918; Senior Physician, Ruthin Castle Clinic, 1922-1944; High Sheriff for County of Denbigh, 1945-1946; Consulting Physician; died, 1949.
Born, 1850; degree of DSc, London, 1884; graduated in medicine at the Victoria University, Manchester; 1889; Diploma of Public Health of the University of Cambridge, 1892; MD, 1896; first Medical Officer of Health for the County of Essex; Consulting Medical Officer; Lecturer in Public Health at the London Hospital Medical College; Examiner in State Medicine for the University of London; one of the early pioneers who established the importance of hygiene in connection with the home; died, 1932.