Born, 1675; extra-licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, 1700; practised at Alnwick; graduated MD at the University of Utrecht, 1720; licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, 1721; author of a number of medical works, in particular making detailed comments on the problems and use of 'Jesuits' bark', cinchona, in fever, and on the treatment of smallpox; died, 1737.
Alexander Stuart (1673-1742) MD of Leyden and Cambridge, was a Fellow of the College of Physicians and of the Royal Society. He was Physician to the Westminster Hospital during the same period as Dr Wasey.
William Wasey (1691-1757) MD Cambridge and President of the College of Physicians in 1750, 1751, 1752 and 1753, was Physician to the Westminster Hospital, 1719-1733.
Baptized, 1624; educated Oxford University and Montpellier; began his career as an army officer in the army of Charles I; entered medicine and became a famous London practitioner, often called 'the English Hippocrates'; His conceptions of the causes and treatments of epidemics and his classic descriptions of gout, smallpox, malaria, scarlet fever, hysteria, and chorea established him as a founder of modern clinical medicine and epidemiology; died, 1689.
John Stephen Taylor of Thorne, Yorkshire, fl 1900-1960.
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.
Frederick Treves was born on 15 February 1853, in Dorchester, Dorset, the youngest son of William Treves, upholsterer and furniture maker in Dorchester, and his wife Jane, daughter of John Knight of Honiton. In 1860, at the age of seven, Treves attended the school in Dorchester run by the Rev. William Barnes, poet. From 1867, until the age of eighteen, he was educated at the Merchant Taylors' School in the City of London. Treves left in 1871 to begin his study of medicine at University College London, and then at the Medical School of the London Hospital. In 1874 he became a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries. He passed the membership examinations for the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1875 after four years of study, during which time he proved his `excellent manipulative ability' (DNB, 1937, p.856).
Treves held a house-surgeonship at the London Hospital in the early summer of 1876. In August of that year he became resident medical officer at the Royal National Hospital for Scrofula (later the Royal Sea-Bathing Hospital) at Margate, Kent, where his elder brother, William, was honorary surgeon. Treves soon left to take up practice, in order to provide a home for his fiancé Anne Elizabeth Mason, in Wirksworth, Derbyshire. He and Anne married in 1877. Treves continued to study for the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1878. In 1879, after two years, he gave up his practice in Derbyshire and returned to London, to become surgical registrar at the London Hospital. Almost immediately a vacancy on the surgical staff became available, and Treves was appointed assistant surgeon.
Meanwhile in order to ensure a livelihood, which was essential until he had built up a consulting practice, Treves became a demonstrator of anatomy to the Medical School of the Hospital. His reputation soon spread, it has been said that
`his clear, incisive style, his power of happy description, his racy humour, and the applicability of his teaching brought crowds of students to his daily demonstrations' (ibid, p.857).
He was also at this time clinical assistant to the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital.
Treves was in charge of the practical teaching of anatomy from 1881-1884. During this period he produced one of many successful textbooks, Surgical Applied Anatomy (1883). In 1884 Treves, at the age of thirty-one, became full surgeon at the London Hospital. Later in this year he met Joseph Merrick, known as the 'Elephant Man', who became Treves' greatest pathologicalsuccess'', despite his inability to diagnose his condition (Trombley, 1989, p.36). Treves ultimately `rescued' Merrick from destitution, creating a home for him the attic of the London Hospital, until his death in 1890. Also in 1884, and for almost the next ten years, he became lecturer on anatomy, during which period he edited A Manual of Surgery (3 vols, 1886), A Manual of Operative Surgery (1891), and The Student's Handbook of Surgical Operations (1892). He gave this post up in 1893 to teach operative surgery, which he did for one year until he was appointed lecturer in surgery, 1894-1897. He edited A System of Surgery (2 vols, 1895), which, as with all his publications, offered a lively, clear style supported by many practical observations.
Treves also acquired renown as an investigator. His research into scrofula, instigated during his early experience in Margate, led to the publication of his research, Scrofula and its Gland Diseases (1882). He also became interested in the abdomen, at that time a field of advance in surgery. He made a survey of the anatomy of the abdomen, and in 1883 the Royal College of Surgeons awarded him the Jacksonian prize for his dissertation, Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment of Obstruction of the Intestine (1884). (This was later revised as Intestinal Obstruction, its Varieties with their Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment (1899).) His best original work however is considered to be his Hunterian lectures, delivered to the Royal College of Surgeons, on The Anatomy of the Intestinal Canal and Peritoneum (1885). Treves was one of the first surgeons to devote special attention to diseases of the appendix. With regard to appendicitis (then known as perityphlitis), he became convinced that it was the appendix and not the caecum, as had originally been believed, that was the site of the disease. He did great service to the advance of English surgery by advocating operative treatment for appendicitis, and was the first to advise that in chronic cases operating should be delayed until a quiescent interval had passed.
During these years Treves built up a reputation as a leading surgeon. It has been said that he was a man of many-sided genius and widely varied achievement' (JRSM, 1992, p.565). His consulting room at No. 6 Wimpole Street becameone of the best known in England' (DNB, 1937, p.857). Indeed so extensive had it become by 1898 that he resigned his post as surgeon at the London Hospital, where for twenty years he had played an important role in the management of the medical school, and had been, for most of that time, a member of the College Board.
In 1899, on the outbreak of the Boer War, he was called to serve as consulting surgeon to the field forces. The following year he published an account of his experiences, in charge of No. 4 Field Hospital and being present at the relief of Ladysmith, in his Tale of a Field Hospital (1900). He was subsequently a member of the committee established to report on the re-organsiation of the Army Medical Service, after charges had been made in the public arena about the inadequate care of the sick and wounded during the early months of the War. His personal experiences contributed greatly to the recommendations made and accepted.
Upon his return to England from South Africa in 1900 he was appointed surgeon extraordinary to Queen Victoria. He was made CB and KCVO in 1901, and was subsequently awarded the GCVO in 1905. The summer of 1902 saw Treves' fame spread suddenly across the world when, on 24 June 1902, two days before his coronation, King Edward VII became acutely ill with perityphlitis. After consultation with Lord Lister and Sir Thomas Smith, Treves operated on the King, who made a good recovery and was crowned on 9 August. Treves was created a baronet in the same year. He was later made sergeant-surgeon to King George V in 1910, as he had been to King Edward VII.
After his retirement from professional work in 1908, Treves occupied himself as a member of the Territorial Forces Advisory Council, as Chairman of the Executive Committee of the British Red Cross Society, and as a member of the London Territorial Forces Association. He was an honorary colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps Wessex Division and an honorary staff surgeon to the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. He also served as an examiner in anatomy or surgery for several years at the Royal College of Surgeons, and at the universities of Cambridge, Aberdeen and Durham. He received several honorary degrees, and was elected to the Rectorship of Aberdeen University, 1905-1908. He was also, throughout his life, a keen athlete and an accomplished sailor, holding his Master Mariner's ticket.
Treves was furthermore a successful travel writer, and wrote a series of books based on his travels and adventures. The Other Side of the Lantern (1905) was based on a tour around the world during 1903-4, undertaken with his wife. He wrote a guide to his native county, Highways and Byways of Dorset (1906). A voyage to the West Indies supplied the material for The Cradle of the Deep (1908), as did a trip to Uganda for Uganda for a Holiday (1910). He wrote about his experiences of Palestine in The Land that is Desolate (1912). He also went to Italy to investigate the topography of Robert Browning's The Ring and the Book, which provided the basis for The Country of `The Ring and the Book' (1913).
During the First World War Treves served at the War Office as President of the Headquarters Medical Board. At the end of the War his health made it advisable for him to live abroad. Upon his retirement Treves had been granted by King Edward VII the use of Thatched House Lodge, Richmond Park. In 1920 however he moved first to the South of France, and then to Vevey, on Lake Geneva. His experiences of this period were expressed in his publications, The Riviera of the Corniche Road (1921) and the Lake of Geneva (1922). Treves' last book was devoted to recollections of his medical experiences and was entitled The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923). He had written a manuscript of his autobiography, however, having had second thoughts about its publication, ensured that it was eventually destroyed.
Treves died on 7 December 1923 at his home in Vevey, Switzerland, after a few days illness. He died of peritonitis, ironically the disease in which he was the expert. His ashes were buried in Dorchester Cemetery, at a service arranged by his lifelong friend Thomas Hardy, author and poet. He had had two daughters; the elder survived him, the younger having died of acute appendicitis in 1900.
Publications:
Scrofula and its Gland Diseases (London, 1882)
Surgical Applied Anatomy (London, 1883)
Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment of Obstruction of the Intestine (London, 1884) (later revised and published as Intestinal Obstruction, its Varieties with their Pathology, Diagnosis and Treatment (1899).)
The Anatomy of the Intestinal Canal and Peritoneum (London, 1885)
A Manual of Surgery (3 vols, 1886)
A Manual of Operative Surgery (1891)
The Student's Handbook of Surgical Operations (London, 1892)
A System of Surgery (edited by Treves) (2 vols, 1895)
Tale of a Field Hospital (London, 1900)
Highways and Byways of Dorset (1906)
The Cradle of the Deep (1908)
Uganda for a Holiday (1910)
The Land that is Desolate (1912)
The Country of `The Ring and the Book' (1913)
The Riviera of the Corniche Road (1921)
Lake of Geneva (1922)
The Elephant Man and Other Reminiscences (1923)
Publications by others about Treves:
Sir Frederick Treves: The Extra-Ordinary Edwardian, Stephen Trombley (London, 1989)
Alexander Tweedie was born in Edinburgh on 29 August 1794. He was educated at the Royal High School in the city. In 1809 he began his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh, and became a pupil of a surgeon to the Royal Infirmary named Wishart, who had distinguished himself for his knowledge and skill in ophthalmic disease. Tweedie graduated MD in 1815. Choosing to specialise in surgical pathology he became a fellow of the Edinburgh College of Surgeons in 1817.
Tweedie was elected to one of the two house-surgeon positions at the Royal Infirmary, Robert Liston taking the other. In 1818 Tweedie commenced practice in Edinburgh, with a view to devoting himself to ophthalmic surgery. However in 1820 he moved to London, and took a house in Ely Place. In June 1822 he was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians. In the same year he was appointed assistant physician at the London Fever Hospital. He became physician to the hospital two years later, on the retirement of John Armstrong.
Tweedie was a prolific writer; he devised the Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine (1831-35), in four volumes, which included chapters on the 'Nature and Treatment of Diseases', 'Materia Medica and Therapeutics', and 'Medical Jurisprudence'. Tweedie wrote many articles and was one of the editors. During this time he also jointly authored A Practical Treatise on Cholera (1832), with Charles Gaselee.
In 1836 he was elected physician to the Foundling Hospital. Tweedie became a fellow of both the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal Society in 1838. He planned and edited the eight-volume Library of Medicine, which appeared in 1840-42. The first five volumes of this work dealt with practical medicine, the sixth with midwifery, and the seventh and eighth were a translation with illustrations of the French physician Jean Cruveilhier's celebrated work on anatomy.
At the Royal College of Physicians he was Consiliarius (adviser to the President), 1853-55, and Lumleian Lecturer in 1858 and 1859. In 1861 he resigned his position as physician from the London Fever Hospital, and became consulting physician and a vice-president of the hospital. The following year he published his Lectures on the Distinctive Characters, Pathology, and Treatment of Continued Fevers (1862). In 1866 he was elected an honorary fellow of the King's and Queen's College of Physicians in Ireland. During his career he was also examiner in medicine at the University of London.
Tweedie continued to practice until the age of 89, when on 30 May 1884 he died at his home, Bute Lodge, in Twickenham.
Publications:
Clinical Illustrations of Fever, Comprising a Report of the Cases Treated at the London Fever Hospital, 1828-29 (1828)
Cyclopaedia of Practical Medicine (1831-35), Sir John Forbes, John Connolly, & Alexander Tweedie (eds.)
A Practical Treatise on Cholera, as it has Appeared in Various Parts of the Metropolis (1832), Alexander Tweedie & Charles Gaselee
Library of Medicine (1840-42)
Lectures on the Distinctive Characters, Pathology, and Treatment of Continued Fevers (1862)
Born, 1661; education: Magdalen Hall, Oxford, 1667-1677; moved to London and continued to pursue anatomy, 1677; MD, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 1680; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1683; anatomical curator, Royal Society, 1683; Ventera reader in anatomy at the Company of Barber-Surgeons, 1684-1699; Physician to Bethlem and Bridewell Hospitals, 1684; died, 1708.
Wilfrid Bernard Vaillant was born at Meadowleigh, Weybridge, on 23 September 1864, son of Major Albert Vaillant. He was educated at Clewer Hill School from 1874-78, and then Radley College from 1878-83, where he won several sports prizes. He entered Christ Church College, Oxford, in 1883 and graduated BA in 1890 and MA in 1891.
Between 1885-90 he worked at the recently established Oxford House, Bethnal Green, East London. Oxford House was built to be a home to graduates, tutors and those intending to enter the church so that they might learn at first hand the problems of the city poor, through social, educational and religious work with them.
Vaillant attended Ely Theological College between 1890 and 1891. He was ordained Deacon on 20 September 1891 in Ely Cathedral, and Priest in St Paul's Cathedral on 18 February 1894. He became Curate at the Christ Church Oxford Mission, St Frideswide's, East London.
Born, 1885; educated: Prior Park College, near Bath, 1898-1901; University College School, London, 1901-1903; University College Hospital; National Hospital, Queen Square. Royal Army Medical Corps, consulting neurologist to the British forces in Egypt and the Middle East, 1915-; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1920; staff of the National Hospital, 1921; the Department of Neurology was founded for him at University College Hospital, 1924; died, 1973.
John Warburton attended Caius College Cambridge and was a Member of the Royal Medical Society Edinburgh. He died, 1843.
Unknown
Martha Beatrice Webb was born on 20 October 1863 in Furness Vale, Cheshire. She was educated at a private school in Stockport until the age of 16. After a four-year period of ill health, she entered Newnham College, Cambridge, where she studied natural sciences. She began the study of medicine relatively late in life, having worked for ten years as a teacher at Edgbaston High School, Birmingham. In 1902, at the age of 38, she attended the Birmingham Medical School, as one of the first female students. Part of her education included clinical training at the General Hospital and Queens Hospital. Both in the classroom and in the wards she experienced discrimination due to her sex from her male colleagues, teachers, and some patients. She graduated MB ChB at Edinburgh in 1907, proceeding MD in 1909.
Webb practiced medicine in Birmingham, where she held the post of lecturer in personal hygiene at Birmingham University, and later became the medical officer for the Department of Education. She created the Women's University Club, a social gathering for professional women, and the Women's Medical Society.
During World War One, 1914-18, Webb studied the conditions affecting the health of working girls for the Ministry of Munitions. She published two books on the subject, entitled Health of Working Girls and On Keeping Well.
During Webb's life there were great advances in women's higher education and their establishment as professionals. Webb was a pioneer in social medicine, and played her part in making this progress possible. From 1923-25 she was a member of the council of the British Medical Women's Federation. She also became president of the Birmingham Association of Medical Women, vice-president of the Birmingham Medical Institute, and a founder member of the Birmingham Soroptimists. She actively supported the British Medical Association's (BMA) campaign for equal pay and conditions for men and women.
Webb retired from medical practice and teaching in 1932. She lived to see Cambridge University admit women to full membership in the late 1940s. She died in Birmingham on 14 February 1951.
Publications:
Health of Working Girls (London, 1917)
On Keeping Well
Teaching Children as to Reproduction
Publications by others about Webb:
`To Live History: the Letters of Martha Beatrice Webb, an Edwardian Medical Student', Katharine Appleton Downes (Harvard University BA thesis, 1989)
The Western Dispensary was founded in Charles Street, Westminster, in 1789, 'for gratuitously administering advice, medicines and attendance to the poor inhabitants of the City of Westminster and places adjacent'. From 1822 it also undertook maternity cases 'for the delivery of needy lying-in married women at their homes'. It moved to Tothill Street, Westminster, in 1850, to Broadway, Westminster, in 1858, and to Rochester Row, Westminster, in 1878-1879. A subsidiary organisation, the 'Marie Celeste Convalescent Branch', was established in 1888 with the object of sending patients of the Dispensary to suitable convalescent homes for recovery. The Dispensary was closed in December 1949 and its funds were handed over to the United Westminster Almshouses in 1952.
The Westminster General Dispensary, Gerrard street, was instituted in 1774. It treated medical and surgical cases and also had a lying-in department. It closed in 1961.
Born, 1614; educated: Pembroke College, Cambridge, 1637; Trinity College, Oxford; studied chemistry and medicine with John Scrope at Bolton Castle, 1642-1645; moved to London to study medicine, 1645; returned to Oxford, 1646; DM, 1647; Fellow of the College of Physicians, London, 1650; incorporated at Cambridge on his doctor's degree, 1652; served as a censor of the College of Physicians, London, 1658, 1661, 1666, 1667, 1668, and 1673; practised medicine in London, 1648-; physician to St Thomas's Hospital, London, 1657-1673; died, 1673.
Born, 1618 or 1619; educated: the free school of Thame, Oxfordshire; Trinity College, Oxford, 1635-1639; fellow of Merton College, 1640; studied medicine at Leiden, 1642-1645; incorporated his Leiden MD at Oxford, 1647; Professor of Geometry at Gresham College, 1648-1656; fellow of the College of Physicians, 1649; cared for seamen, wounded in the Dutch war, at Ipswich, Harwich, and possibly London, 1653-1654; physician to Bulstrode Whitelocke's embassy to Sweden, 1653; practised in London, 1654-; served twelve terms as censor of the College of Physicians between 1657 and 1680; College of Physicians registrar, 1674-1682; College of Physicians elect from 1676; College of Physicians treasurer, 1682; College of Physicians president, 1683; died, 1684.
Unknown
Sir W H Willcox (1870 - 1941) was Physician to St Mary's Hospital, London, where he lectured on chemical pathology, forensic medicine and related subjects. As scientific analyst and honorary medical adviser to the Home Office, he was associated with many famous criminal trials, and became widely known to the British public in the early years of the twentieth century. An account of his life is given in Philip Henry Almroth Willcox, The detective-physician: the life and work of Sir William Willcox (Heinemann Medical, London, 1970).
Henry Leonard Wilson was born at Sheffield on 17 May 1897, the only child of Cecil Henry Wilson, Labour MP, JP, and gold and silver refiner of Sheffield. The family was Congregationalist, and Wilson was sent to a Quaker school at Stramongate, Kendal. He left school in 1914 to work in a bank and train for the family business. However, conscription began and, as a conscientious objector, he joined the Friends' Ambulance Unit. At the end of the War he entered Emmanuel College, Cambridge, to study medicine. It was whilst a student that he became a member of the Society of Friends. During his studies at Cambridge and St Bartholomew's Hospital (St Barts), where he was house physician, he won several prizes. He qualified with the conjoint diploma in 1925. Also in 1925 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons, and a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians.
After graduating MB BChir in 1927, he became clinical assistant at the Bethlem Royal Hospital, and registrar and resident medical officer at Maida Vale Hospital. From 1929-31 he was senior assistant physician at the Retreat in York. In 1931 he returned to London and became medical superintendent at Bowden House, Harrow, under the psychologist Hugh Crichton-Miller, and physician to the Institute of Medical Psychology. In 1932 he graduated MD, and in the following year was appointed clinical assistant in psychological medicine at St Barts.
In 1936 Wilson joined the Department of Neurology at the London Hospital, as clinical assistant to the neurologists George Riddoch and Walter Russell Brain. During the Blitz of the Second World War, 1940, he displayed `highly original qualities' establishing a service for psychiatric casualties at the Hospital (Munk's Roll, 1982, p.468). He was a pioneer in the field of psychiatry, and his strength lay in his clinical skills. Wilson was instrumental in forming the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry in 1942, and joined the consulting staff as physician. He held this position for twenty years, inaugurating a modern psychiatric service at the Hospital. In 1943 Wilson became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians.
Wilson made many contributions to medical journals including The Lancet, the British Medical Journal, The Practitioner, the London Hospital Gazette, and various specialised psychiatric journals. He was said to be `expert in the psychiatric analysis of historical and literary characters' (ibid).
Wilson had been a member of the Medical Art Society since its early years, and was an accomplished water-colourist. In 1947 he became the Society's honorary secretary, and in 1951 its vice-president, serving in this office until his death. Wilson was an examiner for the Royal College of Physicians for 1951-55, and 1959-62. In 1952 he was vice-president of the Section of Psychiatry at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association.
In 1961, on Brain's retirement, Wilson became head of the Department of Neurology and Psychiatry. He retired from the London Hospital in 1962, and moved from London to Cambridge. He was president of the Section of Psychiatry of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1962-63.
He had married in 1927 Ruth Taylor of Letchworth, with whom he had two sons and one daughter. He suffered much ill health throughout his life, for prolonged periods in later years. Wilson died in the London Hospital on 8 April 1968, at the age of 70.
James Wilson was born, 1765; surgeon and from 1799 teacher of anatomy at the Hunterian School of Medicine in Great Windmill Street, London; father of James Arthur Wilson; died, 1821.
James Arthur Wilson was born, 1795; educated: Westminster School, 1808; Christ Church, Oxford, 1812-1815; entered his father's school in Great Windmill Street; studied at Edinburgh, 1817; MA at Oxford, 1818; MB, 1819; MD, 1823. Travelled through France and Switzerland to Italy as Physician to George John Spencer, second Earl Spencer, and his wife, 1819-1820; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1825; practised in London and was Physician to the Lisson Grove establishment, 1829; Censor of the Royal College of Physicians, 1828 and 1851; Physician to St George's Hospital, 1829-1857; consulting physician to St George's Hospital, 1857-; left London for Dorking, 1869; died, 1882.
Robert Woody (1770-1823), son of Robert Woody, Apothecary, born in Old Bond Street, 13 Sep 1770; admitted House Surgeon at the Salop Infirmary on the recommendation of John Hunter; left June 20th 1800; doctor on board the Hon. East India Company's ships; went to Tamworth early in 1800; died 6 Aug 1823.
John Yellowly was born 30 April 1774 at Alnwick, Northumberland. He was educated locally before studying medicine at Edinburgh, where he graduated MD on 12 September 1796.
He was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in September 1800 and, at about that time, was elected physician to the General Dispensary. Yellowly was an active figure in establishing the Medico-Chirurgical Society of London in 1805 (which became the Royal Society of Medicine in 1907), and remained interested in the affairs of the Society throughout his life.
In September 1807 he was elected physician to the London Hospital. As well as a good practitioner and chemist, he was `a person of considerable scientific attainments' (Munk's Roll, 1878, p.471). Yellowly was a Fellow of the Royal and of the Geological Societies.
In 1818 he resigned his office at the London Hospital and left London to settle in Norwich. In 1820 he was appointed physician to the Norfolk and Norwich hospital. In 1832 Yellowly retired from the practice of his profession and withdrew to Woodton Hall, Norfolk, and then to Cavendish Hall.
He died at Cavendish Hall on 31 January 1842, aged 67.
Publications:
Remarks on the Tendency to Calculous Diseases, with Observations on the Nature of Urinary Concretions; and an Analysis of a Large Part of the Collection Belonging to the Norwich and Norfolk Hospital (London, 1829; sequel, London 1830)
Observations on the Arrangements Connected with the Relief of the Sick Poor, in a Letter to Lord John Russell (London, 1837)
Born, 1835; Joint Professor of Medicine (with Dr Duffin) at King's College Hospital, London; died, 1914.
The College of Physicians was founded by Royal Charter in 1518 after a small group of distinguished physicians led by Thomas Linacre petitioned the King to be incorporated into a College similar to those found in a number of other European countries. The main functions of the College as set down in the founding Charter, were to grant licences to those qualified to practise medicine and to punish unqualified practitioners and those engaing in malpractice. Membership comprises Fellows, Licentiates and from 1859 Members. Membership is by examination, Fellowship by invitation after recommendation by an existing Fellow.
In 1745 a split in the Company of Barber-Surgeons [est. 1540] led to the formation of The Company of Surgeons. The Company of Surgeons obtained a Royal Charter in 1800 and became the Royal College of Surgeons of London. A new charter in 1843 led to the current name The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
The Company of Surgeons started by keeping the bylaws of the Barber-Surgeons, which mean that they elected a Court of Assistants consisting of twenty one members including a Master and two wardens. From the Court of Assistants was chosen a ten member Court of Examiners testing students at the end of their apprenticeship. Despite a change in the bylaws of Apr 1748 stipulating that the Court of Assistants should meet every month this did not happen and the Assistants rarely met and so until 1799 the Company was under the effective control of the Master, Wardens and Examiners. The Examiners remained in post for life. The examinations were well administered but the running of the Company was subject to much criticism without a proper lecture theatre, or library. A Royal Charter was obtained in 1800 changing the name of the Company but the administration was still basically the same. Proposed changes in the constitution were delayed by failure of the College to gain control of surgical education in the wake of the Apothecaries Act of 1815 and it was only in 1822, William IV agreed to allow amendments to the charter and from that time on the College was controlled by a President, two Vice Presidents and a Council.
The Council discussed all aspects of policy, membership and its members also sat on a number of committees to cover the main activities of the College relating to finance, examinations, library, museums, discipline, building projects etc.
The day to day running of the College was given to a Secretary - there have only been eight incumbents of this role since 1800. Two Assistant Secretaries were created after the Second World War- one of whom was in control of finance. The other principal employees were Conservator of the museums from 1800; Librarian from 1828 and Secretary to the Conjoint Examining Board from 1888 [to administer the examinations system which was jointly run with the Royal College of Physicians].
From 1931 the College supported a research institute called the Buckston Browne Research Farm at Darwin's former home at Downe in Kent and laboratories were also built in extensions to the College's buildings at Lincoln's Inn Fields between from 1937 until the 1950s. The title of the Conservator was changed in 1933 to include Conservator and Director of Research. These posts were separated in 1941 with the creation of the Bernhard Baron Research Professorship, and the following year chairs were created in anatomy and pathology - each chair had a well equipped laboratory and post graduate teaching was established as part of the Institute of Basic Medical Research [IBMS]. The IBMS was a constituent part of the British Postgraduate Medical Federation of the University of London and had its own committee of Management, Academic Board and Dean and received funding from the University of London. By 1959, there were six Scientific departments in the IBMS - anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacology, opthalmology, and biochemistry. Two other Research Departments, of Dental Surgery and Anaesthetics, were part of the corresponding Faculties of the College with more independence than the other departments. The Faculty of Anaesthetists broke away entirely in 1988 with the formation of a separate Royal College of Anaesthetists. In 1986 the IBMS was dissolved but many of the research departments continued under a newly created Hunterian Institute, funded entirely by the College. Work at the Buckston Browne Research Farm was also drastically reduced at this time, with a complete cessation of all research at Downe by 1989. A decision was taken in 1992 for the Hunterian Institute to come to an end, and an Education department was formed in 1993 to take over the post graduate training courses for surgeons, dental surgeons and general practitioners. In 1996, the last research department of the Hunterian Institute based at the College - the Pharmacology department - was closed.
In 1990, the structure of administration of the College was revised with the creation of five boards - External Affairs, Training, Finance, Academic and Internal Affairs - with several specialised committees e.g. Regional Training Committee reporting to the appropriate Board and the Boards themselves reporting the Council. Also created were a Presidential Board of Surgical Specialities and a Welsh Board. By 1992 the Academic Board had gone to be replaced by an Examinations Board, Research Board and an Education Board and in 1997 the Internal Affairs Board was abolished.
From 1746 the Company of Surgeons leased a site at the Old Bailey next to Newgate Prison and George Dance built them a hall between 1847 and 1851. The Company was not a guild and the connection with the city lessened and it was thought better to move further west and in 1797 number 41 Lincoln's Inn Fields was purchased followed by number 42 in 1802. At one time the College the owned numbers 35 to 49 Lincoln's Inn Fields but in 1967 numbers 47-49 were sold to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund.
Between 1886 and 1908 the conjoint MRCS examinations were run from a purpose built building on The Embankment, which was then sold to the Institute of Electrical Engineers. New premises were found at 8-11 Queen's Square, Bloomsbury until 1993 when examinations moved back to Lincoln's Inn Fields.
William Francis Victor Bonney was born in Chelsea in 1872. He was educated at a private school and at St Bartholomew's Hospital, but transferred to the Middlesex Hospital, intending to become a physician. Sir John Bland-Sutton invited him to the Chelsea Hospital for Women, where he laid the foundations of his success as a gynaecological surgeon. In 1905 he became obstetric registrar and tutor at the Middlesex Hospital. He was elected assistant gynaecological surgeon in 1908, a post which he held till 1930, when he succeeded his old friend Sir Comyns Berkeley FRCS as gynaecological surgeon. Together they wrote Textbook of Operative Gynaecology. During the first World War Bonney served as a surgeon made famous for his 'violet green anti-septic', popularly called 'Bonney's blue' (British Medical Journal 15 May 1915). At the Royal College of Surgeons he was a Hunterian Professor in 1908, 1930, and 1931, Bradshaw Lecturer in 1934, and Hunterian Orator in 1943. He was the only gynaecological specialist ever elected to the Council, and served with distinction from 1926 to 1946, being a Vice-President 1936-1938; died, 1953.
Nathaniel Bedford was born in 1757. In 1776 he served a years apprenticeship under John Gunning at St George's hospital. He qualified under the auspices of the Company of Surgeons as Second Mate, First Rate, March 5 1778 and as Surgeon, 5th Rate on April 19 1781. In December 1781 Bedford, joined the 'Formidable' as Surgeon. It was docked at Portsmouth and left in January 1782 sailing for the West Indies. Bedford was appointed Surgeon to the 'Ardent' in June 1782, soon after that he joined the 'Conqueror' in Barbados and sailed with it to New York and Boston and then back to Barbados. In December 1782 the ship sailed to Antigua and Guadeloupe and then to English Harbour returning to England in July 1783. The rest of Bedford's life and career is not known.
Christoper Bowes was surgeon to the slave-ship LORD STANLEY, which traded between the African coast and the Isle of Grenada, West Indies in the late eighteenth century. Bowes was born in 1770, and became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England on November 6th 1788. He was a naval surgeon and apothecary, residing in Richmond, Yorkshire.
Between 1450 and 1850 at least 12 million Africans were taken across the 'Middle Passage' of the Atlantic. European traders would export manufactured goods to the west coast of Africa where they would be exchanged for slaves. The slaves were then sold in the Americas, and traders used the money to buy raw materials such as sugar, cotton, coffee, metals, and tobacco which were shipped back and sold in Europe. To maximize their profits slave merchants carried as many slaves as was physically possible on their ships. A House of Commons committee in 1788 discovered that one slave-ship, The Brookes, was originally built to carry a maximum of 451 people, but was carrying over 600 slaves from Africa to the Americas. Chained together by their hands and feet, the slaves had little room to move. A large number of slaves died on the journey from poor food and diseases such as smallpox and dysentery.
Born, 1855; educated at Durham School and at St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1879; served in South Africa as Senior Surgeon, Portland Hospital, Bloemfontein, 1899-1900; Major, 1908-1914, and Lieutenant Colonel, 1 London General Hospital, Royal Army Medical Corps, 1914-1919; civilian member of Army Medical Advisory Board, [1913]-1918; served in Army Medical Service, 1914-1919; British Red Cross Society representative on the Technical Reserve Advisory Committee on Voluntary Aid, 1914-1920; member of honorary consulting staff of Royal Army Medical College, Queen Alexandra Military Hospital, 1914-1920; served on British Red Cross Society Executive Committee, 1917-1920; honorary Major General, Royal Army Medical Corps, 1920; died, 1929.
Publications include: A descriptive catalogue of the Anatomical and Pathological Museum of St. Bartholomew's Hospital [Edited by F. S. Eve.] (J & A Churchill, London, 1882); Surgical Pathology and Morbid Anatomy (J & A Churchill, London, 1887); Injuries and Diseases of Nerves and their surgical treatment (J & A Churchill, London, 1889; The Surgical Work [of the Portland Hospital in South Africa] with Sir Cuthbert Sidney Wallace (1901); The Hunterian Oration on British Military Surgery in the time of Hunter and in the Great War (Adlard & Son & West Newman: London, 1919).
Bryce was born in Southport and educated at Manchester University Medical School from which he graduated in 1912. Apart from wartime service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, 1915-1919, he spent most of his professional career in the Manchester area, holding appointments at the Manchester Memorial Jewish Hospital and the Manchester Royal Infirmary where he was appointed to the honorary staff in 1934. Bryce was a founder member of the Society of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland. He was the Society's first Secretary and Treasurer until November 1946, when he was elected Vice-President, a position he held for three years; he served as President of the Society, 1949-1951. Bryce was also President of the Thoracic Society and of the Manchester Surgical Society. He retired in 1955.
Sir James Clarke (1788-1870) was from 1809-1815 a surgeon in the Navy. From 1819 to 1826 he lived mainly in Rome, Italy where he established a practice amongst the visiting aristocracy of Europe. In 1826 he returned to England where he settled in London and became an LRCP and FRS. In 1837 he was made First Physician to Queen Victoria and on her marriage, Physician also to Prince Albert. Clark is perhaps best known for his work on consumption and the effects of climate on health. During his time in Europe he visited most of its spa resorts. Further accounts of Clark's life can be found in Munk's Roll vol iii, DNB, and Obituaries of Fellows of the Royal Society.
William Clift (1775-1849), museum curator and scientific illustrator, was born near Bodmin in Cornwall on 14 February 1775. He was the youngest of the seven children of Robert Clift (1720-1784), a miller, and his wife Joanna, a seamstress. Clift went to school at Bodmin, where is demonstrated his ability in illustration. This attracted the attention of Walter Raleigh Gilbert and his wife Nancy, who had been a schoolfellow of Anne Home who had married John Hunter in 1771. On the Gilbert's recommendation, Clift was apprenticed to John Hunter as an anatomical assistant, employed to make drawings, copy dictation and assist in the care of Hunter's anatomical specimens. Until Hunter's sudden death in 1793, Clift assisted him with dissections and often wrote from dictation from early morning until late at night. After Hunter's death, his collection of specimens was offered for sale to the government. During the period of negotiations, Clift was employed to look after the collections for a small income. He did this diligently from 1793 to 1799 when the collections were eventually purchased by the government. During this period, Clift feared for the safety of the collection, and copied out many of Hunter's unpublished manuscripts. This meant that much of the content of the collection was saved from loss through Sir Everard Home's destruction of his brother-in-law's manuscripts in 1823. In 1799 the government asked The Company of Surgeons (soon to become the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800) to look after the John Hunter collections. The Trustees of the College then made Clift conservator of the new Hunterian Museum paying him £80 per annum. Under Clift's supervision the collections were twice moved without damage into storage and then to new premises, and were greatly enlarged and enriched. Clift was a prolific record keeper and his diaries are a valuable resource for information about the workings of the College and Museum as well as wider social life in London. Clift married Caroline Harriet Pope (1775-1849) in January 1801. They had a son, William Home Clift (1803-1832) and a daughter, Caroline Amelia Clift (1801-1873). William Home Clift died after a carriage accident in 1832 and Caroline Amelia Clift married William Clift's assistant Richard Owen in 1835. William Clift was well known and highly thought of in the scientific community. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1823, was a member of the Society for Animal Chemistry, and also a fellow of the Geological Society. His skills as an illustrator were demonstrated through his work for Matthew Baillie's "A series of engravings... to illustrate the morbid anatomy of some of the most important parts of the human body," and also his work on illustrations in Sir Everard Home's numerous papers in the Philosophical Transactions. Clift submitted some papers to the Philosophical Transactions (1815, 1823), the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal (1831), and to Transactions of the Geological Society (1829, 1835). William Clift and Richard Owen also published the "Catalogue of the Hunterian Collection of the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of London (1830-1831), and then the "Descriptive and illustrated catalogue of the physiological series of comparative anatomy contained in the museum of The Royal College of Surgeons (1833-1840). Clift retired from the museum in 1842, when he was replaced by Richard Owen as curator. His wife died on the 8th May 1849 and Clift died shortly afterwards on 20th June 1849, both being buried in Highgate cemetery. [Source: Edited from the entry by Phillip R. Sloan, 'Clift, William (1775-1849)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5668, accessed 7 March 2005]
Cooper, Sir Astley Paston, first baronet (1768-1841), surgeon, was born on 23 August 1768 at Brooke Hall, Norfolk. Cooper spent his early education learning at home. After an accident in which his foster brother died, and his witnessing of a operation for the stone by Mr Donnee (surgeon to the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital), he became interested in surgery. Cooper's maternal grandfather had been a prosperous surgeon in Norwich, and his uncle William Cooper was senior surgeon at Guy's Hospital in London. In August 1784, Cooper was articled to his uncle, arrangements being made for him to reside in the house of Henry Cline, surgeon at nearby St Thomas's Hospital. He then became apprenticed to Cline instead. Cooper became ill with fever in 1787, interrupting his studies. He spent time convalescing in Great Yarmouth and Edinburgh. He returned to London in 1788 and resumed his studies with Cline, becoming Cline's anatomy demonstrator in 1789. In 1791 he shared the lectures on anatomy and surgery with Cline. Also in 1791, Cooper became engaged to Anne Cock, whom he married in December of that year. The Cooper's resided at first at a house in Jefferies Square which his father-in-law had purchased before his death just before the wedding. In June 1792, the Cooper's went on a tour of Paris, where Sir Astley Cooper attended lectures and operations of the surgeons Desault and Chopart. They returned to London in September, just two months before the birth of their only child, Anna Maria, who died in March 1794. They subsequently adopted a daughter, Sarah, who was the same age as their dead child, and a son, Astley, who was a nephew of Cooper's. In the 1790s Cooper taught at St Thomas's and worked in dissections and lectured in anatomy and surgery. Cooper's lectures became more practical, usually based on his own cases and experiences. A compilation of notes based on his lectures was published in 1820 titled Outlines of Lectures on Surgery, which went through many editions. From 1793 until 1796 Cooper was also lecturer in anatomy at the Company of Surgeons (after 1800 the Royal College of Surgeons). In 1800 his uncle, William Cooper, resigned as surgeon to Guy's Hospital and Cooper was elected to the post. Cooper had a successful practice, often attracting wealthy and influential patients such as Lord Liverpool, the Duke of York, the Duke of Wellington, and the Prince of Wales. (who as George IV created him a baronet in 1821). Cooper was also an excellent operator. He was interested in the surgical treatment of arterial aneurysms and used animals to investigate different methods of surgical treatment. Cooper was elected professor of comparative anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1813-1815. He became a member of the court of examiners of the college in 1822, and he served as president twice, in 1827 and 1836. He was also a vice-president of the Royal Society, to whose fellowship he had been elected in 1802, and won the society's Copley medal. He was a member of the Physical Society at Guy's. the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and the Pow-Wow, a medical dining club started by John Hunter. His publications included a monograph on hernias (published in two parts between 1804 and 1807); treatises on fractures and dislocations (1822; sixth edition, 1829), the diseases of the breast (1829) and testis (1830), and the anatomy of the thymus gland (1832) and the breast (1840). His publications usually had high-quality illustrations drawn by a number of artists he employed. Cooper began to have dizzy spells during the 1820s and after the death of his wife in 1827 he retired from his London activities, to an estate at Gadesbridge, near Hemel Hempstead. He married Catherine Jones in 1828 and began to practice again in London, and also travelled on the continent. In 1840, Cooper's health became worse, and he died in Conduit Street on 12 February 1841. He had requested a post-mortem examination to be conducted. [Sources: Edited from the entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2004, by W. F. Bynum]
Deptford Hospital was founded in 1877 and run by the Metropolitan Asylums Board. It became the South Eastern Fever Hospital in 1885 and then New Cross General Hospital in 1949, since c.1964 it has been known as New Cross Hospital.
EDWARDS, Arthur Tudor (1890-1946). M.R.C.S. 13 November 1915; FR.C.S. 9 December 1915; M.B., B.Ch. Cambridge 1913; M.Ch. 1915; L.R.C.P. 1915; Hon. Ph.D. Grenoble and Oslo.
Born 7 March 1890, the elder son of William Edwards of Langlands Glamorgan, Chairman of Edwards Limited, and his wife Mary Griffith Thomas. He was educated at Mill Hill School and St John's College Cambridge. He took his clinical training at the Middlesex Hospital, when Sir John Bland-Sutton was senior surgeon, and served as dresser and house surgeon to Sir Gordon Gordon-Taylor; he was awarded a University scholarship in the Middlesex Hospital Medical School. After serving as surgical registrar at the hospital he was commissioned in the R.A.M.C. on the outbreak of the war in 1914. He worked in France at No.6 casualty clearing station at Barlin under Sir Cuthbert Wallace, and at Wimereux under Maurice Sinclair; he attained the rank of major.
On returning to London practice he became assistant surgeon to Westminster Hospital, and to the Brompton Hospital. At Brompton he played a pioneer part in applying to civilian illnesses the surgical intervention into the thorax which Pierre Delbet, G. E. Gask and others had successfully demonstrated in the treatment of war injuries. He explored successively the surgery of pulmonary tuberculosis, bronchiectasis tumours of the mediastinum, tumours of the lung both malignant and simple. In all this work he was ably supported by his physician-colleague R. A. Young and his anaesthetist Ivan Magill. In ten years he established thoracic surgery as a necessary speciality and himself as its recognised leader.
In 1936 he gave up his general surgical work at the Westminster Hospital on appointment as first Director of the Department of Thoracic Surgery at the London Hospital. He was a consulting surgeon to King Edward VII's Sanatorium at Midhurst and to Queen Alexandra's Hospital, Millbank. As surgeon under the Ministry of Pensions to Queen Mary's Hospital at Roehampton he did valuable work in the repair of the aftermath of war-time gastric operations. He also supervised the London County Council's Thoracic Clinic at St Mary Abbott's Hospital, Kensington. During the war of 1939-45 Tudor Edwards, who had already under gone two severe illnesses in 1938 and 1939, was a civilian consultant with the Royal Air Force, adviser for thoracic casualties to the Ministry of Health and Civilian adviser to the War Office. He organised the reception centres for thoracic casualties under the Emergency Medical Service. He was an excellent teacher and did much to establish a school of thoracic surgeons in Great Britain. During the years of war he provided intensive courses of instruction for service thoracic units, and was assiduous in visiting these units all over the country. He was elected to the Council of the College in 1943, but died before he had completed three years as a councillor.
He was an Honorary Fellow of the American Society of Thoracic Surgeons, and President of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons at home. In the last years of his life he was elected first president of the new Association for the Study of Diseases of the Chest, and contributed a survey of one thousand operations for bronchial carcinoma to the first number of its journal Thorax.
Edwards married on 13 April 1920 Evelyn Imelda Chichester Hoskin, daughter of Theophilus Hoskin, M.R.C.S., of London and Cornwall. He practised at 139 Harley Street, but died suddenly while taking his holiday at St Enodoc, C9rnwall, on 25 August 1946, aged 56. He was buried at St Enodoc Church. At a memorial service in London Lord Horder delivered an obituary oration. Mrs Tudor Edwards survived him, but without children; she died on 13 May 1951, and left £5,000 to the College for the promotion of surgical science. Tudor Edwards was of medium height, handsome and youthful in appearance with thick dark hair.
Fish was born in Chard, Somerset and educated at Kingswood School and Manchester University (L.D.S. 1914; Ch.B. 1916; M.D. 1924). He was a leading figure in British dentistry. He was Chairman of the Dental Board, 1944-1956, Dean of the Faculty of Dental Science of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1956-1959, and President of the General Dental Council, 1956-1964. Fish was knighted in 1954.
Born, Stratford-on-Avon, 1831; educated, University College London; studied medicine and surgery at Middlesex Hospital; MD, 1851; medical service at Scutari, 1854; Assistant Surgeon, Lecturer in anatomy and curator of the museum, Middlesex Hospital; Curator, Hunterian Museum, Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1861-1884; Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, 1870; member of Council, 1862-1899, President, 1879-1899, Zoological Society; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1864; President, Anthropological Institute, 1883-1885; Director of the Natural History Museum, 1884-1898; died, London, 1899.
Publications include: Diagrams of the Nerves of the Human Body, exhibiting their origin, divisions and connections (London, 1861); An Introduction to the Osteology of the Mammalia: being the substance of a course of Lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1870 (London, 1870); Introductory Lecture to the course of Comparative Anatomy, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, February 14, 1870 (London, 1870); Catalogue of the Specimens illustrating the Osteology and Dentition of vertebrated animals ... contained in the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (1879); The Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. (Address, etc.) [1879]; Races of Men [1880]; A general guide to the British Museum. Natural History (1887); The Horse: a study in natural history (1891); An introduction to the study of Mammals, living and extinct with Richard Lydekker (A & C Black, London, 1891); Essays on Museums and other subjects connected with natural history (Macmillan & Co, London, 1898).
John Heaviside was a medical student and later lectured at Surgeon's Hall.
John Hunter (1728-1793) and his brother William ran a School of Anatomy in Great Windmill Street, opened by William in 1768. John practised as surgeon in Golden Square from 1763 and was Surgeon to St George's Hospital from 1768. He began to lecture on the principles and practice of surgery in 1773. His publications included A treatise on the venereal disease (London, 1786) and A treatise on the blood, inflammation, and gunshot wounds (London, 1794).
These are the collected letters, poems and relicts of the Hunter-Baillie family. Matthew Baillie, (1761-1823), was an anatomist and physician extraordinary to George III and nephew to the surgeons William Hunter (1718-1833) and John Hunter (1728-1893). Matthew had two sisters, Joanna Baillie, (1762-1851) poet and dramatist and Agnes Baillie (1760-1861), their parents were Revd James Baillie and Dorothea Hunter Baillie. The family moved from the manse at Bothwell, Lanarkshire, Scotland in 1775 to Glasgow when Revd Baillie was appointed Professor of Divinity at the University of Glasgow. Revd Baillie died in 1778 and Dorothea's brother William Hunter supported the family.
Matthew moved to London in 1779 to lecture at William Hunter's medical school in Great Windmill Street. When William Hunter died in 1783, he left his medical museum and his collections of manuscripts, books and coins to Glasgow University, subject only to the life interest of his nephew, Matthew Baillie, who succeeded him in his school of anatomy. Matthew Baillie kept only certain personal things, among them the letter-book, which Hunter had acquired from the family of Queen Anne's physician, John Arbuthnot (1667-1735). To this William Hunter had added letters written to himself by famous or distinguished people.
In 1783 Joanna, Agnes and Dorothea moved to London to keep house for Matthew. Joanna built up a close relationship in London with her other uncle, John Hunter, his wife, the poet, Anne Home Hunter [whose poems are included in this collection] and their daughter Agnes, later Lady Campbell. After Matthew's marriage to Sophia Denman in 1791 Joanna, Agnes and Dorothea moved to Red Lion Hill and later after the death of Dorothea in 1802 to Hampstead.
Joanna started publishing poems and plays in 1790 and gradually her reputation became known. She made friends with many leading literary and society figures of the day including Maria Edgeworth, Samuel Rogers, William Sotheby, William Wordsworth, and Lord Byron among many others. Joanna was particularly close to Sir Walter Scott [over sixty letters between them are included in this collection].
Joanna's long life, she died aged 88 in 1851 meant that she witnessed the death of many of her contemporaries, the death of her brother, Matthew in 1823 affected her strongly but she became close to younger generation especially her niece Elizabeth Margaret Baillie (1794-1876) companion of Walter Scott's daughter Sophia; and her nephew William Hunter Baillie (1797-1894). William, a barrister, moved in the same literary circles as his aunt and was interested in Hunter-Baillie family history.
Matthew Baillie was one of the leading London physicians of his day and a favoured friend at Court. He continued to add to the family collection letters, which he received, from his distinguished friends and patients. He also kept together the letters written to him by the Royal Princesses, all of which begin 'Dear Baillie.'
Matthew Baillie's wife was Sophia, daughter of Dr. Thomas Denman, (1733-1815) whose reminiscences of his early life as a ship's surgeon have been quarried for some historical novels. Denman had a fashionable obstetric practice, in which he was followed by his other son-in-law, the ill-fated Sir Richard Croft (1762-1818), who killed himself after the death of his patient Princess Charlotte, the heir to the Throne. Denman's son, Thomas Denman (1779-1854), a lawyer, advocated legal reform including the abolition of slavery, defended Queen Charlotte and became Lord Chief Justice.
Justice Denman interested himself in the family collection, helping Matthew Baillie's granddaughters to complete the work, begun by Matthew's wife Sophia, of identifying and arranging the letters. He also brought into it a miscellaneous collection of autographs gathered by his side of the family. Matthew Baillie had been a friend of Edward Jenner (1749-1823), discoverer of the small pox vaccine and of Jenner's biographer John Baron (1786-1851), and at the end of his life settled near them in Gloucestershire. Through Baron a small collection of papers of Jennerian interest was added.
John Hunter and his brother William ran a School of Anatomy in Great Windmill Street, London which was opened by William in 1768. John practised as surgeon in Golden Square from 1763, was Surgeon to St George's Hospital from 1768, and enjoyed widespread recognition as the leading teacher of surgery of his time. Edward Jenner was born in Berkeley, Gloucestershire, 1749, and was a resident pupil of John Hunter from 1770 to 1772. He returned to practice medicine at Berkeley in 1773, but continued to correspond with John Hunter on many subjects until Hunter's death in 1793. Jenner went on to investigate and experiment with vaccinations for small pox with cow pox, publishing articles and books on the subject. Hunter maintained a long correspondence with his former pupil which ended only with Hunter's death in 1793. Only Hunter's letters survive.
Born, Berkeley, Gloucestershire, 1749; educated at private schools at Wootton-under-Edge and Cirencester; apprenticed to Daniel Ludlow of Sodbury, a surgeon; pupil-resident in the house of John Hunter, 1770-1772; employed by Sir Joseph Banks to prepare specimens from Captain Cook's voyage; studied at St George's Hospital; practiced at Berkeley, 1773; continued to correspond with John Hunter on many subjects; member of medical societies at Rodborough and Alveston, reading papers on medical subjects and natural history; Fellow, Royal Society, 1788; MD, University of St Andrew's, 1792; continued his investigations into cow pox and small pox; vaccinated a boy James Phipps with cow pox and then small pox, who contracted cow pox but not small pox, 1796; published An inquiry into the causes and effects of the variolæ vaccinæ, a disease discovered in some of the Western Counties of England ... known by the name of the cow pox, 1798; sent cow pox material throughout England and abroad for vaccinations; vaccinated nearly 200 people at Petworth, Sussex, 1800; granted £10,000 by Parliament in recognition of his work, 1802; Royal Jennerian Society established to promote spread of vaccination in London, 1802; replaced by the National Vaccine Establishment, 1808; continued to work and publish on vaccination; died, 1823, Berkeley, Gloucestershire.
Publications include: Cursory observations on Emetic Tartar [1780?]; An inquiry into the causes and effects of the variolæ vaccinæ, a disease discovered in some of the Western Counties of England ... known by the name of the cow pox (Printed for the author: London, 1798); Further observations on the Variolæ Vaccinæ or Cow Pox (London, 1799); A comparative Statement of facts and observations relative to the cow-pox with Dr Woodville (London, 1800); The origin of the Vaccine Inoculation (London, 1801); On the varieties and modifications of the vaccine pustule, occasioned by an herpetic state of the skin (Cheltenham, 1806; Gloucester reprinted, 1819); Facts for the most part unobserved, or not duly noticed, respecting variolous contagion (London, 1808); Letter from E. J. to W. Dillwyn on the effects of vaccination, in preserving from the small-pox. To which are added sundry documents relating to vaccination, etc (Philadelphia, 1818); A letter to C. H. Parry, M.D., ... on the influence of Artificial Eruptions in certain diseases. ... With an inquiry respecting the probable advantages to be derived from further experiments (London, 1822); The Note-Book of Edward Jenner in the possession of the Royal College of Physicians of London (Oxford University Press, London, 1931).
Frederick Wood Jones FRS 1925; MRCS 1904; FRCS 1930; LRCP 1904; BSc London 1903; MB; BS 1904; D.Sc. London 1910, Adelaide 1920, Melbourne 1934 FRACS 1935; FZS. Medical Officer Cocos Keeling islands 1905-1906; Anatomy Department St Thomas' 1908-1912; Professor of Anatomy Royal Free Hospital 1912-1919; Professor of Anatomy Adelaide University 1919-26; Professor of Anthropology University of Hawaii 1926-1930; Professor of Anatomy Melbourne University 1930-1938; Professor of Anatomy University of Manchester 1938-1945; Professor of Comparative and Human Anatomy Royal College of Surgeons of England 1945-1951; Honorary Conservator 1951-1954.
Sir Arthur Keith (1866-1955) Kt. 1921; F.R.S. 1913; M.R.C.S. 1894; F.R.C.S. 1894; L.R.C.P. 1894; M.B. Aberdeen 1888; M.D. 1894; F.R.C.S. Ed. 1930; F.R.S.N.Z. 1939; L.L.D. Aberdeen 1911, Birmingham 1924; D.Sc. Durham 1921, Manchester 1923, Oxford 1930. Arthur Keith was born at Old Machar, Aberdeenshire, fourth son and sixth of ten children of John Keith, a farmer, and Jessie Macpherson his wife. He was educated at Gordon's College and Aberdeen University (Marishal College), where he graduated with first class honours in 1888. It was at Aberdeen that Keith came under the influence of James Trail, the botanist and Sir John Struther, the anatomist. After postgraduate study at Leipzig, he spent three years in Siam as physician to a rubber company with a commission to collect botanical specimens for Kew, and he also made extensive study of the muscles of cqatarrhine monkeys. The botanical collection was later used by H N Ridley in his comprehensive work on Flora of the Malay Peninsula. Keith's thesis based on his monkey research earned him the M.D. at Aberdeen, with the Struthers anatomy medal in 1894. He took Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England the same year while working under G D Thane at University College, London, and in 1895 was appointed to teach anatomy at the London Hospital Medical College, where he worked with marked success until 1908. He was an extremely popular and efficient teacher and in 1898 published a seminal textbook Human Embryologand Morphologyy, which went through six editions. Keith also began extensive research in teratology, particularly on the anatomy and malformations of the heart. In the course of this work he was the first to describe, with his pupil Martin Flack, the sino-atrial node or pacemaker of the human Heart (Lancet 1906, 2, 359; Journal of Anatomy 190 ,41, 172).
He was appointed Conservator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1908, and began to revive the scientific side of the College's works by his brilliant lectures, popular scientific writings, and by attracting surgeons, anatomists and anthropologists to work with him for shorter or longer periods in the Museum and its laboratories. The Hunterian Museum, under Keith's direction became recognised as one of the finest records of the structure, history, anatomical and embryological basis of the human body and the surgical disabilities and disorders that can effect it. Keith started to concentrate on the problems of human evolution and the diversification of the modern races of mankind. There followed a number of palaeo-anthropological studies in which Keith claimed a higher antiquity for Homo sapiens than was usually accepted. In recent years some of the fossils on which Keith based his studies have been found to be more modern than he was able to assertion using the methods of dating at the time.
Keith was elected F.R.S. in 1913 in recognition of his anatomical researches, but the last forty years of his life were devoted to anthropology. The publication of the alleged discovery of the Piltdown skull in 1912 led Keith into serious controversy with those who claimed that the skull (as well as the jaw) displayed remarkable simian characteristics, and he was able to show that, if properly reconstructed, the skull was, in fact quite like that of Homo sapiens. Nevertheless, though he expressed doubts as to the interpretation of this 'fossil', which we now, know to have been a forgery, Keith thought that Piltdown man was akin to a very early ancestor of modern man.
He published The Antiquity of Man in 1915, with an enlarged edition in 1925 and a supplementary volume of New Discoveries in 1931. These works attempted to review all the fossil remains of man.
During the First World War Keith was occupied with problems of surgical anatomy related to war injuries, and published a number of lectures on the anatomical and physiological principles underlying the treatment of wounds to the muscles, bones and joints Some of these lectures given during 1917-18 appeared in his work of 1919 Memoirs of the Maimed (1919, reprinted 1952. He was President of the Royal Anthropological Institute in 1914-1917.
After the First World War the army medical authorities gave the College it's collection of war specimens (in 1946 a second collection was given). Other notable collections added during Keith's Conservatorship were the Onodi collection of nasal anatomy specimens bought for the College in 1921; Sir William MacEwen's specimens given in 1924 and the Strangeways collection of chronic arthritis specimens. Keith also oversaw new collections medico-legal, historical, Odontological specimens and instrument collections.
During the 1920s he became a one-man 'Court of Appeal' for physical anthropologists from all over the world, while his journalism made his name familiar amongst the general public. He was in the tradition of T H Huxley in his efforts to popularise science. Keith was knighted in 1921. He was President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1927, his Presidential address was entitled Darwin's Theory of Man's Descent as It Stands Today. Keith was also active in the Royal Institution as Fullerian Professor (1918-1923), Honorary Secretary, and a Manager. His children's lectures there formed a popular book on Engines of the Human Body (1919, second edition 1925).
Berkeley Moynihan later Viscount Moynihan (1865-1936) became President of the College in 1926 and was very supportive of Keith's endeavours. With the financial aid of Sir Buckston Browne (1850-1945) Moynihan founded in 1932, at Keith's instigation, the Buckston Browne Research Farm at Downe in Kent. Keith and Browne had already persuaded the British Association to form the Darwin Museum in Darwin's home, Down House. Keith retired as Conservator in 1933 and moved to Downe to become the first master of the Buckston Browne Research Farm.
In 1930 Keith became Rector of Aberdeen University and in his Rectorial address he developed the thesis that nationalism is a potent factor in the evolutionary differentiation of human races, this idea was expanded in to A New Theory of Human Evolution which was published in 1948.
Keith married in 1899 Celia Caroline Gray; Keith and his wife formed a small collection of water-colours by leading artists, which he bequeathed amongst his friends. There were no children, and Lady Keith died at Downe in 1934.
During Keith's years at Downe 1933-1955, besides supervising young surgeons engaged in research at the farm Keith continued to be active, writing many semi-popular articles mostly on evolution and Darwinism. He wrote his Autobiography in 1950. He died suddenly at Downe in 1955.
Joseph Rudyard Kipling was born in Bombay on 30 December 1865. He was the son of the architectural sculptor and designer John Lockwood Kipling (1837-1911) and a cousin of Stanley Baldwin (1867-1947). He was educated at United Services College, Westward Ho! North Devon. In 1882, he joined the staff of the Civil and military gazette and pioneer in Lahore, and became Assistant Editor serving until 1889. He then settled in London though travelled widely in China, Japan, America, Africa, and Australia. From 1902 he lived in Burwash. His early writing included Plain tales from the hills (1887), Soldiers three and Wee Willie Winkie . Other stories and verse such as The light that failed (1891), The jungle book (1894), Second jungle book (1895), and Captains Courageous (1897) brought him to the height of his fame. His publications also included Barrack-room ballads (1897), Kim (1901), the Just so stories for little children (1902), Puck of Pook's hill (1906), and A school history of England (1911). In 1907 Kipling was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Rudyard Kipling, who was a cousin of Stanley Baldwin, died on 18 January 1936.
Born, Cirencester, Gloucestershire, 1783; educated, private school at Gloucester; apprenticed to John Abernethy, 1799; Demonstrator of Anatomy, St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1801-1813; Member, 1805, Fellow, 1813, Royal College of Surgeons of England; Assistant Surgeon, St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1813; Surgeon, London Infirmary for Diseases of the Eye, 1814; Surgeon, Royal Hospitals of Bridewell and Bethlehem, 1815; Surgeon, St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1824-1865; Professor of Anatomy and Surgery, Royal College of Surgeons of England, 1815; Lecturer on Surgery, St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1829-1862; President, Medical and Chirurgical Society, 1831; Member of the Council, 1828, Examiner, 1840-1867, President 1846 and 1855, Royal College of Surgeons of England; Hunterian Orator, 1834, 1846; Surgeon Extraordinary; Sergeant-Surgeons to Queen Victoria, 1857; created baronet, 1867; died, London, 1867.
Publications include: Description of the Mouth, Nose, Larynx, and Pharynx (1809); A treatise on ruptures, containing an anatomical description of each species second edition (London, J Callow, 1810); An Introduction to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology, being the two introductory lectures delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons (London, 1816); Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man (London, 1819); A Short System of Comparative Anatomy, translated from the German ... by William Lawrence Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (W Simpkin & R Marshall, London, 1827); Lectures on Surgery, medical and operative, as delivered in the theatre of St. Bartholomew's Hospital (F C Westley, London, [1830?]);A treatise on the venereal diseases of the eye (London, 1830); A treatise on the Diseases of the Eye (London, 1833); The Hunterian Oration delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons...1834 (J Churchill, London, 1834); The Hunterian Oration, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons...1846 (London, 1846); Lectures on Surgery delivered in St Bartholomew's Hospital (J Churchill, London, 1863).
Born in Upton, Essex, 1827; educated at London's University College Hospital, graduating with B.A. and M.B. in 1852; Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, London, 1852; moved to Edinburgh to build on his surgical experience, 1853; elected to vacancies at the Royal Infirmary and at the Royal College of Surgeons; Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, 1855; Professor of Surgery at Glasgow University and a surgeon at the city's Royal Infirmary, 1860; Regius Professor of Surgery at Edinburgh University, 1869; Professor of Surgery at King's College, London, 1877; famous for his work on antiseptics in surgery, continuing the research of Louis Pasteur on air-borne organisms. He realised that some organisms could cause post-operative wound infections such as tetanus, blood-poisoning, and gangrene. He countered this by using carbolic acid soaked in lint or calico around the wound and replaced slow-to-absorb silk stitching with cat-gut stitching which absorbed the carbolic acid more easily. He also experimented with gauze swabs and a disinfectant spray for operating theatres; appointed Serjeant-Surgeon to Queen Victoria, 1878; created a Baron, 1897; died, 1912.
Publications include: Amputation. Anæsthetics (1860); Introductory Lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh (Edinburgh, 1869); Observations on ligatures of arteries on the antiseptic system. From the Lancet, April 3, 1869 (Edmonton & Douglas: Edinburgh, 1869); On the effects of the Antiseptic System of Treatment upon the salubrity of a Surgical Hospital (Edinburgh, 1870); New Designs in plans for the internal arrangement of Back to Back Houses (Leeds, 1907); The third Huxley lecture. delivered before the Medical School of Charing Cross Hospital (1907); The Collected Papers of Joseph, Baron Lister. [With plates.] 2 vol. (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1909); Six papers by Lord Lister (London, 1921); Eight Letters ... to William Sharpey Reprinted from The British Journal of Surgery (J Wright & Sons, Bristol, 1933); A List of the Original Writings of Joseph Lord Lister, O.M. William Richard Lefanu (E & S Livingstone, Edinburgh & London, 1965).
The London Lock Hospital was founded in 1746, by William Bromfeild, it was the first voluntary hospital for venereal diseases. It was taken over by the National Health Service in 1948 and closed in 1953.
The original building for the hospital was at Grosvenor Place, near Hyde Park, (1746 - 1841). In 1842 it moved to Harrow Road, Westbourne Grove. A new building was opened in 1862 at Dean Street and Harrow Road became "The Female Hospital." Dean Street was for male, out patients. A new wing was opened at Dean Street in 1867 to make room for all the referrals from the War Office who had no facilities to fulfil their obligations under the Contagious Diseases Act 1864, the number of patients significantly declined after the act was repealed in 1886.
The Female Hospital added a maternity unit in 1917 and at the request of the London County Council a special unit for mentally defective women with venereal disease was opened shortly after. An eye clinic, an electro-therapeutic department and an genito-urinary unit opened in the 1920's. The latter treated a wide range of gynaecological conditions which were not obviously venereal in origin. During the Second World War The Female Hospital was requisitioned by the War Office for use as a Military Isolation Hospital. Clinics continued during the war at Dean Street for both male and female patients.
In 1758 Revd. Martin Madan became the Honorary Chaplain and built a chapel, seating 800, which opened in 1865. The rent of pews provided income for the hospital. Madan, a follower of John Wesley, introduced singing of hymns by the whole congregation and published a book of hymns with music as used in the chapel. Madan was forced to resign in 1780 after publishing "Thelyphthora or Female Ruin" which advocated the solution to prostitution in polygamy. From 1889 the management of the chapel moved to the congregants and it was renamed "Christ's Church".
The Lock Asylum for the Reception of Penitent Female Patients (also known as the Lock Rescue Home) was proposed in 1787 and opened in 1792 with the aim of providing a refuge/reformatory for women with venereal diseases who had been treated at the Lock Hospital, but had no steady life to which to return. The girls were taught needlework and other skills which it was hoped would fit them for service. It originally occupied buildings at Osnaburg Row but moved to a building opposite the Cannon Bewery in Knightsbridge in 1812 and to Lower Eaton Street in 1816. However, Lower Eaton Street was felt to be too far from the chapel at Grosvenor Square. The Asylum moved to the new building in Harrow Road in 1849 and changed its name to "Rescue Home" in 1893. The full name of the London Lock now being the London Lock Hospital and Rescue Home.