Born 3 August 1867 in Bombay, India, eldest son of William Soltau Eccles (1843-1919), MRCS, LSA, who later practised at Norwood, and his wife Annie Selina Campbell McAdam, a descendant of John Loudon McAdam, the road builder. The Eccles family had a long medical tradition and a close connexion with St Bartholomew's Hospital. One member, Alfred Eccles, FRCS, practised in New Zealand during the sixties and did much to promote the development of medical education and practice there. McAdam Eccles was educated at University College School and University College, London. He entered St Bartholomew's as a student in 1885 and was connected with it for the rest of his long life. He took honours in medicine, obstetrics, and surgery at the London MB and BS examination, and won the University gold medal at the MS examination in 1894. He served as house surgeon to John Langton in 1891, and resident obstetric assistant to Sir Francis Champneys, Bt, MD, FRCP, in 1892. He was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in 1894, and demonstrator of surgery in 1897; and was elected an assistant surgeon, with charge of the orthopaedic department, in 1903. Previous holders of this office were Bruce Clark, W J Walsham, and Howard Marsh; Eccles held it until the appointment of R C Elmslie as the first orthopaedic surgeon. He was appointed surgeon in 1912, and elected a consulting surgeon and a governor on his retirement in 1927; in 1942 he became senior consulting surgeon. Eccles took an active part in all hospital activities, for he was an excellent and popular teacher and a most conscientious man of business. He lectured in the Hospital's medical college on anatomy, surgery, and orthopaedics. He was a member of many special committees and honorary secretary to the Medical Council of the Hospital 1905 to 1910, edited the *Reports*, and was president of the Paget Club. Eccles served as house surgeon at the West London Hospital in 1890 and became assistant surgeon in 1892, resigning in 1903. Here he was a colleague of Stephen Paget and C B Keetley. He took a part in founding the West London Postgraduate School in 1896, and maintained a lifelong interest in the West London Medico-chirurgical Society, of which he was president in 1911-12, as his uncle, Arthur Symons Eccles (1855-1900), had been in 1895-96. He was also surgeon to the Marylebone General Dispensary, the Mildmay Mission Hospital, the City of London Truss Society, and for a time to the National Temperance Hospital. He was chairman and a trustee of St Columba's Hospital, Hampstead. At the Royal College of Surgeons Eccles won the Jacksonian prize of 1900 with his essay on *Imperfect descent of the testicle*, and was a Hunterian Professor 1902-03, lecturing on the same subject. He was a member of Council from 1924 to 1932, and Arris and Gale lecturer 1930. He examined in anatomy for the Fellowship in 1904, and was later an examiner in surgery at Cambridge and Glasgow universities and for the Society of Apothecaries. Eccles took an active part in many medical societies. He promoted the foundation of the University of London Medical Graduates Society in 1928 (see also the life of Sir StClair Thomson), and was its president in 1935. At the British Medical Association he was annually elected a member of the Council by the Representative Meeting 1919-43, and was appointed a vice-president in 1944. He was president of the Metropolitan Counties branch, and vice-president of the section of surgery at the Centenary meeting in London 1932, and went to Australia for the Melbourne meeting 1935. He represented the British Medical Association on the International Hospitals Association from 1937, and became chairman of its British section. He was largely responsible for drafting the report of the British Medical Association's committee on fractures 1933-35. Eccles held a commission as lieutenant-colonel in the RAMC(T) and served throughout the war of 1914-18 as surgeon to the 1st London (City of London) General Hospital. In the second world war he organized and was medical officer in charge of the Borough of Marylebone's No 2 Aid Post at the National Heart Hospital, Westmoreland Street, and did much to promote public interest in the running and use of such aid-posts before the beginning of the severe air-raids of 1940-41. Eccles shared in the work of King Edward's Hospital Fund for London, the Hospital Saving Association, and the British Provident Association. He was chief medical officer for many years to the Eagle Star and the Employers' Liability Assurance Companies, and was surgical consultant to the London Passenger Transport Board. He took a close interest in social and temperance work, for he was himself an ardent teetotaller. He was president of the Society for the Study of Inebriety and of the Medical Abstainers Association, and an active member of the British Social Hygiene Council. Eccles was a devout christian, a pillar of the Presbyterian Church in London, with a special interest in medical missions. He worshipped at the Marylebone Presbyterian Church, of which he became an Elder. He was president of the London Medical Mission for several years, and as president of the Medical Prayer Union organized missionary breakfasts for medical students in London and for practitioners at the annual meetings of the British Medical Association. He was president of the Society for the Visitation of the Sick in Hospitals. He was much interested in the application of photography to medical work, and at the end of his life promoted the production of medical-teaching moving-picture films. He was chairman of the medical section of the Scientific Film Association. Eccles was a voluminous writer in the professional journals, and wrote a useful manual on hernia; he was an excellent talker, ready to speak his mind and give the benefit of his wide knowledge on any occasion; and was in request as an expert witness. He married Coralie, second daughter of E B Anstie, JP, of Devizes; Mrs Eccles died in 1930. Their daughter and two of their four sons died before them; one son being killed in the first world war and another dying as the result of it. McAdam Eccles died in St Bartholomew's Hospital on 30 May 1946, aged 79. The funeral service was at Marylebone Presbyterian Church, George Street, W1 on 4 June. He had lived latterly at 104 Bryanston Court, W1, but had decided to retire to the country and live with his sister at Glebelands, Bidborough, Tunbridge Wells, a change which his last illness prevented. He was survived by two sons, Philip Campbell Eccles and David McAdam Eccles. Mr David Eccles married in 1928 Sybil Frances, eldest daughter of Bertrand, Lord Dawson of Penn, MD; he was elected conservative MP for the Chippenham division of Wiltshire at the bye-election caused by the death in an air accident of Captain Victor Cazalet during the war of 1939-45, and held the seat at the conservative "land-slide" in the general election of 1945. He subsequently became a Cabinet Minister. McAdam Eccles bequeathed his instruments to the Regions Beyond Missionary Union and his books to the West London Medico-chirurgical Society. He was a characteristic Londoner of the best type, efficient, approachable, conservative and, in spite of his puritanical convictions, sociable and popular. Fairly tall and of solid build, his stern features relaxed with a whimsical smile as he talked. He bore the tragedies of his middle-age stoically and worked hard through the last two decades of his life, when he had retired from active surgery. Select bibliography:- An analysis of twenty-eight cases of intussusception. *St Bart's Hosp Rep*. 1892, 28, 97. On some important facts concerning head injuries. *Practitioner*, 1894, 52, 417. The diagnosis of strangulated hernia. *St Bart's Hosp J*. 1895-6, 3, 116, 133, 151. *Elementary anatomy and surgery for nurses*. Lectures at West London Hospital, London, 1896. On hernia of the vermiform appendix. *St Bart's Hosp Rep*. 1896, 32, 93. The treatment of scrotal hydroceles. *Treatment*, 1900, 3, 697. The treatment of enlarged glands in the neck. *Ibid*. 1900, 4, 385. *Hernia: etiology, symptoms and treatment*. London, 1900; 2nd edition, 1902; 3rd edition, 1908. On the anatomy, physiology, and pathology of the imperfectly descended testis. (Hunterian lectures, RCS) *Lancet*, 1902, 1, 569 and 722; *Brit med J*. 1902, 1, 503 and 570. *The imperfectly descended testis; its anatomy, physiology and pathology*. (Jacksonian prize, RCS, 1900.) London, 1903. Alcohol as a factor in the causation of deterioration in the individual and the race. *Brit J Inebriety*, 1904-05, 2, 146. *Clinical applied anatomy*, with C R Box. London, 1906. A case of primary carcinoma of the vermiform appendix. *Amer J med Sci*. 1906, 131, 966. The relationship of the National Insurance Act to the voluntary hospitals, especially those with attached medical schools. *St Bart's Hosp J*. 1912, 19, 144. The operative treatment of fractures of long bones. *Clin J*. 1912, 40, 241. A clinical lecture on aneurysms of war wounds. *St Bart's Hosp J*. 1915-6, 23, 41; *J roy Army med Cps*. 1916, 26, 405; *Amer J Surg*. 1916, 30, 33. War and alcohol. (7th Norman Kerr Memorial lecture.) *Brit J Inebriety*, 1917-18, 15, 89. Scheme to finance the voluntary hospitals of London. *Lancet*, 1921, 1, 1057. Anatomy, orthodox and heterodox, in relation to surgery. Arris and Gale lecture, RCS, 19 February 1930. *Brit med J*. 1930, 1, 373. Surgery of the blood vessels; Injuries and diseases of the mammary gland; Imperfect migration of the testicle; in Gask and Wilson: *Surgery*, 1920.