Born at Colne Engaine, Essex, the second son of a gentleman farming his own land; his mother was a daughter of the Rev James Boyer, well known as Head Master and rigid disciplinarian of Christ’s Hospital – the Blue Coat School – when S T Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and Leigh Hunt were pupils. Baker Brown was educated under William Eve and was apprenticed to Benjamin Gibson, a surgeon practising at Halstead, Essex. He entered Guy’s Hospital in 1830 as a house pupil of John Hilton (qv), and at the end of the session of 1831 won the anatomical prize given by Bransby Cooper (qv) in memory of his uncle Sir Astley Cooper. From this time until 1833 he devoted himself more particularly to midwifery under the guidance of Dr James Blundell, who was then Lecturer on Obstetrics to the hospital. He also studied at Lane’s School, adjoining St George’s Hospital, in 1833, and as soon as he had qualified he settled in Connaught Square, and entered into partnership with Samuel Griffith, who practised in the Edgware Road, and remained with him until 1840. He gave up general practice in 1847, and, devoting himself entirely to the diseases of women, was appointed Consulting Physician to the Paddington Lying-in Charity. Impressed with the want of hospital accommodation in the west and the north-west of London, he took a leading part in the foundation of St Mary’s Hospital in 1848. The first committee met in his dining-room and he was appointed Surgeon-Accoucheur, and, on the opening of the medical school, Co-lecturer in Midwifery and Diseases of Women. His later title was Surgeon-Accoucheur to the hospital, Dr Tyler Smith being Physician-Accoucheur. He retired from St Mary’s in 1858, when he established the London Surgical Home, at which his subsequent operations were performed. During the ten years of its existence he operated upon nearly twelve hundred patients, and it was here that Nélaton, who resided with him as his guest for a few days in 1861, watched his ovariotomies, afterwards giving his celebrated clinical lecture in Paris. In 1865 he was President of the Medical Society of London, and in 1866 he published *Curability of some Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, and Hysteria*, for which he was arraigned before the Obstetrical Society of London in 1867. From this time onwards he was a ruined man, and during the last few years of his life was helpless from several paralytic seizures. He was twice married. Lennox Browne, FRCS Edin, a distinguished laryngologist, was a son by his first wife; by his second wife he left three young children, one of whom was educated at Epsom College. He died, almost destitute, at 2 Osnaburgh Place, Regent’s Park, NW, on February 3rd, 1873. Baker Brown filled an important place in the early history of ovariotomy in England. He found a disease called ‘ovarian dropsy’; he left it as ‘ovarian cyst’. He appears to have proceeded by the method of trial and error, for he made repeated attempts to cure the condition by tapping and pressure, by injection of iodine, by excision of a portion of the cyst wall, and by the formation of a fistulous opening. It was only after these methods failed that he advanced to complete removal of the cyst and undertook his first operation in 1851. The initial mortality aroused fierce opposition in the profession, not so much against himself and his fellow-pioneers as against the operation as an operation. Baker Brown met it by showing his own sister, his fourth, and first successful, ovariotomy; she had afterwards married and had several children. Then came the battle of the pedicle; Baker Brown used a clamp and cautery, which was in general use until a ligature free from sepsis was obtained. In the end he left ovariotomy a recognized operation, but still susceptible of great improvement with the growth of abdominal surgery. In addition to his work in connection with ovariotomy he made considerable advances in the repair of ruptured perineum. In later life he became obsessed with the idea that removal of the clitoris was a panacea for many mental troubles occurring in women. The hypothesis was fundamentally wrong and was based on imperfect physiological knowledge, so that the operation was unjustifiable. Baker Brown is described as a man of middle height and of a spare figure, his face being of the Jewish type, his eyes sagacious, his nose prominent, and his mouth indicating sagacity. He dressed always in black with a white tie. He was spruce in his attire, and on every day in the year had a flower in his buttonhole. He was a skilful operator, but was rash and impetuous, being deficient in reflection and jumping too hastily to conclusions. Publications: *On Rupture of the Perinoeum and its Treatment*, Illustrated by Cases, 8vo, London, 1852. *On Scarlatina and its Successful Treatment by the Acidum Aceticum Dilutum of the Pharmacopoeia*, London, 1846; 2nd ed., 1857. *On Vesico-vaginal Fistula, and its Successful Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1858 *Sull’ idrope ovarico, sua natura, diagnosi: e cura, risultato di trent anni d’ esperienza.* Traduzione sulla 2a edizione Inglese con note e aggiunte sulla ed una memorial intitolata l’ovariotomia in Italia fino al giugno, 1865, 8vo, Sinigaglia, 1865. *On some Diseases of Women admitting of Surgical Treatment*, 8vo, plates, London, 1854. *On Surgical Diseases of Women*, 8vo, 15 plates, 3rd ed., London, 1866. *On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy and Hysteria in Females*, 8vo, London, 1866. *On Ovarian Dropsy: its Nature, Diagnosis and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1862. *On Sterility: its Causes and Treatment* (read before the Medical Society of London), 16mo, London, 1871 (?). “Ovarian Dropsy Treated by Pressure.” – *Lancet*, 1844-9. “Clinical Lectures on Uterine Haemorrhage, Retroversions, Retroflexion and Ante version of Uterus, Remediable by Operation, etc.” – *Ibid.*, 1864, ii, 5, 34.