Born in London in 1841 or 1842, the second son of Henry Bruce, of London, and grandson of the Rev W Bruce, DD, of Belfast. He received his medical education at University College and Hospital, where he greatly distinguished himself from 1858 onwards, gaining the Atkinson-Morley Surgical Scholarship in 1864. In his graduation in the University of London he took high honours at each successive step. After a short period of residence in Berlin, where he studied pathology, he was appointed Assistant Curator to the Museum at University College. Ever desirous of improving his professional knowledge, Bruce in 1866 visited the seat of war in Bohemia, and on his return published a graphic account of the arrangements for the relief of the sick and wounded in Dresden and of the effects of the newly introduced conical bullets. He was appointed Surgeon to the Islington Dispensary in 1866, and shortly afterwards distinguished himself by the invention of the blow-pipe gas cautery. He contributed frequently to the Pathological Society, and did excellent painstaking work as a member of its Committee for the Investigation of Morbid Growths. In 1867 he was appointed Lecturer on Anatomy and Assistant Surgeon to Westminster Hospital, and became a successful teacher. He contracted typhus (? typhoid) fever, sickened on March 27th, 1869, developed remarkably severe symptoms, and died on Sunday, April 11th, 1869. At the time of his death he was a Fellow of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical and Pathological Societies. His residence was at 8 Old Cavendish Street, W. Publications: "Observations in the Military Hospitals of Dresden," 8vo, London, 1866; reprinted from the *Lancet*. *An Epitome of the Venereal Diseases*, 12mo, London, 1868. Contributions to the Pathological Society's *Transactions*, *Lancet*, and *Med. Times and Gaz*. Bruce also dealt with the portion relating to Pathological Anatomy in a new edition of Erichsen's *Surgery*.