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Resource Name:
Resource Type:
External Resource
Metadata
Asset Name:
E001068 - Bulley, Francis Arthur (1808 - 1883)
Title:
Bulley, Francis Arthur (1808 - 1883)
Author:
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Identifier:
RCS: E001068
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2010-11-11
Description:
Obituary for Bulley, Francis Arthur (1808 - 1883), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Bulley, Francis Arthur
Date of Birth:
18 May 1808
Date of Death:
21 April 1883
Place of Death:
Reading, UK
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
MRCS June 4th 1830

FRCS (by election) August 26th 1844

LSA 1829
Details:
Born on May 18th, 1808, the son of J Bulley, who came of an old Berkshire family long connected with Reading. His mother was a Blagrave, another ancient Reading family, which produced a regicide, distinguished mathematicians, and for three centuries the Reading Members of Parliament. Bulley's father and grandfather were well-known Reading medical men. His father, who was in practice there for fifty-five years, was Surgeon to the Gaol and to the Dispensary. After the usual classical school education, Francis Arthur Bulley began the study of the profession under his father, and was then apprenticed for five years to James Stocker, Resident Medical Officer of Guy's Hospital. He was soon elected Assistant Surgeon to the County Prison, Reading, where he succeeded his father as Surgeon in 1850. In 1839 he was elected a Surgeon of the Royal Berkshire Hospital, an institution which he had early promoted and for which he had raised a penny fund amounting to one hundred guineas. In conjunction with Dr Richard Thomas Woodhouse and others he was also the organizer of a Convalescent and a Samaritan Fund for the hospital, which rose to fame, both on account of its staff and of its internal arrangements, design, management, and of the fact that none but the poorest were allowed to benefit by it. Bulley was an inventor, and in Weiss's cabinet which obtained the Gold Medal at the Great Exhibition were many of his instruments. Perhaps the most useful of his additions to practical surgery were: (1) A splint for broken thighs, by which graduated extension is applied both by the foot and by a band around the thigh, just above the knee, the special advantages of which are the easy prevention of deformity and the absence of the looseness of the knee-joint which so frequently follows extension effected by the foot alone; (2) An apparatus for the application of pressure to the femoral artery in cases of popliteal aneurysm, in which, by means of two traversing screw-pads, the instrument may be so applied that there can be a relaxation of the pressure at either of the two points, for the retardation of the arterial stream, without the necessity of having to remove the apparatus when such alteration is desirable; (3) A tourniquet for arresting the flow of blood through the subclavian artery in shoulder-joint operations; (4) A uterine compress for arresting haemorrhage during or after labour, which may be employed either as a simple obstetric bandage or for the purpose of producing firm but at the same time easily regulated pressure upon the walls of the uterus. At the time of his death Bulley was Consulting Surgeon to the Royal Berks Hospital, Surgeon to the Berkshire County Constabulary, and to the Reading District of the Great Western Railway, and had been Surgeon to the Berkshire Dispensary. In appearance he was tall, well over six feet, and stout, but well-proportioned. His biographer notices that he did not neglect exercise as did many of his contemporaries, though he was fond of studying and the pursuit of his professional work. He was popular in Reading, the interests, institutions, and amusements of which he promoted. His death occurred at his residence, 40 London Road, Reading, on April 21st, 1883. There is a good woodcut portrait of him in the *Medical Circular*, 1853. (Bully in the Fellows' *Register*.) Publications: *Account of some Cases of the Epidemic Cholera, Treated by Hot Water Applications*, 8vo, London, 1850. "Cases of Urinary Calculus Dissolved in the Bladder by Means of Alkaline Internal Remedies." - *Med. Times*, 1849. Bulley published many papers in the *Medical Times*, most of which evince research, acuteness of perception, and practical knowledge. Among these may be specified several communications on scrofula; an account of malignant scarlet fever treated by diaphoresis produced by means of hot-water packing, the patient becoming convalescent in four days; papers on the nature and treatment of febrile diseases, in which he advocates the employment of the same means, in imitation of the natural efforts of the system, to produce a crisis of the disease by diaphoresis; the treatment of chronic trismus by mechanical dilatation, the instrument, which is peculiar, having been invented by himself; surgical reports from the Royal Berkshire Hospital; an account of a simple means of diminishing the effects of fire in the human body by the application of treacle and water to the burned part.
Sources:
*Med. Circular*, 1853, iii, 11, with portrait
Rights:
Copyright (c) The Royal College of Surgeons of England
Collection:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format:
Obituary
Format:
Asset
Asset Path:
Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
Media Type:
Unknown