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Resource Name:
Resource Type:
External Resource
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Asset Name:
E004050 - Fisher, John Herbert (1867 - 1933)
Title:
Fisher, John Herbert (1867 - 1933)
Author:
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Identifier:
RCS: E004050
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2013-06-05
Description:
Obituary for Fisher, John Herbert (1867 - 1933), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Fisher, John Herbert
Date of Birth:
1 October 1867
Place of Birth:
Hillingdon, Middlesex
Date of Death:
4 April 1933
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
MRCS 12 November 1891

FRCS 8 June 1893

MB BS London 1894

LRCP 1891
Details:
Born at Hillingdon, Middlesex, on 1 October 1867, the second child and second son of Ben James Fisher, MICE and Sarah Veale, his wife. Soon after his birth the family moved into Devonshire, and Fisher was educated at Exeter School, where he gained an exhibition and was a scholar. In 1887 he entered St Thomas's Hospital as Tite scholar and became afterwards Musgrave scholar and prizeman, so that in later life he used to say that it had cost his father nothing to educate him. He twice obtained the first College prize as the head of his year, and at the end of the curriculum he won the Treasurer's gold medal which was looked upon as the blue ribbon of the school. At London University he graduated MB in 1894, being placed in the first-class honours list at the MD examination, and winning the gold medal and scholarship in surgery at the BS. He was equally good at football, playing forward at "rugger" for his county as well as for the Hospital. At St Thomas's Hospital he filled the posts of obstetric house physician, house surgeon, clinical assistant in the aural department, and ophthalmic house surgeon to Edward Nettleship. In 1895 he was appointed ophthalmic surgeon to out-patients in the Hospital on the resignation of Nettleship, and in 1915 he became surgeon and lecturer on ophthalmic surgery, positions he resigned in 1924. In the medical school of St Thomas's Hospital he was demonstrator of anatomy 1895-1903, dean 1904-7, chairman of the committee of medical and surgical officers, president of the Medical and Physical Society, and president of the Rugby Football Club. At the Royal London Ophthalmic Hospital, Moorfields, after acting as clinical assistant to Edward Nettleship and William Lang, he was appointed surgeon in 1900. He resigned in 1927 on reaching the age limit, and was then invited to join the Committee of Management. At the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom he was elected a member in 1915, was secretary 1907-10, vice-president 1918-20, an4i president 1920-22. He delivered a remarkable presidential address of "The personal equation". At the Royal College of Surgeons he lectured; in 1930 as Hunterian professor of surgery and pathology upon; "Perforating wounds of the eyeball, and the localization of foreign bodies, in the eye by X-ray examination", and in the same year he delivered the Bradshaw lecture, when he took as his subject "Ocular movements and judgements". He served as a Member of Council from 1923 to 1931. During the war he was gazetted captain RAMC(T) on 18 August, 1915, and served with the 5th London General Hospital, a unit which was stationed at St Thomas's Hospital. He retired from practice in 1928 but retained the posts of ophthalmic referee to the Civil Service Commission and to the Ministry of Pensions. For some years he had charge of one of the trachoma schools in London, and was a member of the Prevention of Blindness Committee and of the editorial committee of the *British Journal of Ophthalmology*. He had also been president of the Council of British Ophthalmologists. He married in 1899 Euphemia Helen, daughter of Samuel Dinwoodie, of Dumfries, who survived him with a son and daughter. He died on 4 April 1933; Mrs Fisher died on 13 June 1944, at Arrochar, Dumbartonshire. Fisher throughout his life was an influence for good, on account of his sterling character and high principles. Both in writing and speech he gave his views clearly and concisely. He was a fluent and decisive lecturer, and an impressive clinical teacher. As a chairman or member of committee he was almost ideal, for he was firm and judicial, quick to sift the essential from the non-essential, and well able to express his judgement lucidly and on occasion emphatically. As an ophthalmic surgeon he was noted for his exceptional knowledge of all the structures appertaining to the eye. In any discussion that might arise upon some obscure case he was able to give an immediate and detailed account of the anatomical bearings of the symptoms. His love of anatomy was shown in his chief publication, his textbook of *Ophthalmological anatomy*. Publications:- *Ophthalmological Anatomy with some illustrative cases*. London, 1904. *British Journal of Ophthalmology*, 1933, 17, 381, gives a bibliography of his writings.
Sources:
*The Times*, 5 April 1933, p 16c

*Lancet*, 1933, 1, 831, with portrait

*Brit med J*. 1933, 1, 679, with portrait

*Med Pr*. 1933, 186, 301

*St Thos Hosp Gaz*. 1933, 34, 65, with portrait

*Brit J Ophthal*. 1933, 17, 377, with portrait, an excellent likeness

Information given by his daughter

Personal knowledge
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/E004000-E004999/E004000-E004099
Media Type:
Unknown