Born 13 June 1865, the elder son of George Cheatle, a solicitor, and Mary Ann Crafter Allen, his wife. His younger brother, Arthur Cheatle, also distinguished himself as a surgeon. He was educated at Merchant Taylors School and at King's College Hospital, with which he was connected for the rest of his long life. Here he came under the influence of Lister, from whom he derived his superlative surgical standards. He cherished a profound regard for the great master, and was reputed to have acquired certain personal mannerisms from him, no doubt unconsciously, for instance a slight sigh before answering any question. He was also influenced by Lister's assistant, Sir William Watson Cheyne. From both Lister and Cheyne he learnt to combine clinical and research work, and throughout his life made it a habit to carry through his own pathological examination of tumour-tissue removed at operation. Cheatle, who would in any case have been distinguished as a brilliant surgeon, in fact made himself doubly famous by the valuable knowledge of cancer, which his pathological researches brought forward. He advocated the cutting of microscopic sections of the whole of an affected organ; and he devised and employed a special giant microtome, with which his name has been associated. His research work was done partly at the hospital and partly in his house, 149 Harley Street. He was always ready to help a friend by investigating pathological material submitted for his opinion. He was also extremely kind and generous to students and younger colleagues. Cheatle was modest and reserved, and kept himself aloof from matters outside his immediate interests; he affected the manners and dress of a fashionable consultant of late Victorian times, which obscured from those who did not know him well his sterling character and great scientific attainments. He was not a ready speaker nor a voluminous writer, but none the less his views exerted a considerable influence on current investigations of cancer. Though often unorthodox, he was uncom¬promising in his opinions. He was particularly concerned with mammary cancer, and his results were summed up and expressed in his classic book *Tumours of the breast*, written in collaboration with Max Cutler (1931). He was awarded the Walker prize in 1931 by the Royal College of Surgeons for his work on cancer, and was elected an honorary Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1932. During 1936 he was invited to lecture at the Hines Hospital, Chicago, and to act as consulting surgeon there, a position restricted to American citizens; the United States government generously made it possible for him to accept this honour by granting him American citizenship for one week, a privilege probably unique. Cheatle qualified in 1887; and after serving as house surgeon and house physician was appointed Sambrooke surgical registrar at King's College Hospital in 1890, and became assistant surgeon and demonstrator of surgery in 1893. He was subsequently lecturer in surgical pathology, having been for some time director of the hospital's museum. In due course he became surgeon and lecturer in surgery, and senior surgeon in 1923. He retired in 1930, when he was elected consulting surgeon and emeritus lecturer on clinical surgery. He had also been surgeon to the Nightingale Hospital for Gentlewomen, the Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy, Regent's Park, the Italian Hospital, the King Edward VII Hospital, the Surrey Dispensary, and the Sevenoaks Hospital. He was elected a Fellow of King's College, London in 1919. During the South African war Cheatle was a consulting surgeon to the forces, was mentioned in despatches, won the medal with four clasps, and was created CB in 1901. He was promoted KCB in 1918 for his services in the first world war, when he held the rank of surgeon rear-admiral, Royal Naval Medical Service; was in a hospital ship during the Gallipoli campaign in 1915, and later served at Haslar Royal Naval Hospital. He was subsequently a member of the consultative board and of the Naval Medical Service committee at the Admiralty. Cheatle served as a vice-president of King's. College Medical Society in 1889, and in 1920 when it became the "Listerian Society" he addressed the members on his recollections of Lister; he had assisted Lister in the last operation that he performed. At the Royal Society of Medicine he served as president of the surgical section 1925-26. Cheatle was a skilled games-player. He was in the medical school cricket XI 1889-93; was for many years president of the lawn-tennis club, to which he presented the "Cheatle cup" for the students' singles champion; and helped to found the hospital golfing society in 1913. Many well-earned honours came to Cheatle. He was created CVO in 1912, an Officer Cavalier of the Italian Grand Cross in 1910, and Chevalier of the French Legion of Honour in 1935. He was also an Associate of the Order of St John of Jerusalem. Cheatle married in 1902 Clara Denman Jopp, daughter of Colonel Keith Jopp, Royal Engineers, and a cousin of Robert Louis Stevenson, the writer. Lady Cheatle was president of the Ladies Guild of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund from 1930 to 1940. Her histrionic gifts were well known in Britain and America, and she expended herself on behalf of medical and other charities. She died on 24 December 1942, after forty years of devoted married life, at Green Gates, Gordon Avenue, Stanmore, Middlesex, survived by their two sons and one daughter. Sir Lenthal Cheatle subsequently lived with his daughter, Mrs McKenzie, at Lismore Cottage, Sparrows Herne, Bushey Heath, where he died, aged 85, on 2 January 1951. A memorial service was held in King's College Hospital chapel, Denmark Hill, on 25 January 1951. Publications:- Inflammation, and Diseases of the breast, in A J Walton, *Surgical diagnosis*. London: Arnold, 1928, 1, 1 and 2, 652. Suppuration, in C C Choyce *System of surgery*, 3rd ed London: Cassell, 1932, 1, 141. Observations on the incidence and spread of cancer. *Brit med J* 1908, 1, 437. Tetanus antitoxin in treatment of wounds in road or garden or field accidents. *Brit med J* 1910, 1, 1203. Recollections of Lister. *King's College Hosp Gaz* 1920. *Tumours of the breast*, with Max Cutler. London: Arnold, 1931. 596 pages, folio. Orthopaedics of sentry-go. *Brit med J 1943*, 2, 213. A letter criticizing "the fantastic and rather ridiculous performance" of the sentries' march outside Buckingham Palace.