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Resource Name:
Resource Type:
External Resource
Metadata
Asset Name:
E005543 - Sheppard, Melvill Digby (1905 - 1958)
Title:
Sheppard, Melvill Digby (1905 - 1958)
Author:
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Identifier:
RCS: E005543
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2014-06-24
Description:
Obituary for Sheppard, Melvill Digby (1905 - 1958), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Sheppard, Melvill Digby
Date of Birth:
3 May 1905
Place of Birth:
Capetown, South Africa
Date of Death:
4 February 1958
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
MRCS 9 May 1929

FRCS 9 June 1932

LRCP 1929

MB BS London 1930
Details:
Born at Capetown on 3 May 1905 son of Walter Bissell Sheppard, an Australian who was a rubber planter in Java, and Irene Melvill his wife, a South African, he was taken by his parents to Java and then to Australia, where he was educated at Scotch College, Perth. He entered University College Hospital medical school in 1924, and after qualifying in 1929 served there as obstetric house surgeon. He was house surgeon at the Royal Surrey County Hospital, Guildford, and resident surgical officer at the Royal Salop Infirmary, Shrewsbury, and then settled in general practice at Chelmsford, after taking the Fellowship in 1932. He joined the partnership of Drs H W Newton and C W Alford, and was elected to the staff of the Chelmsford Hospital, where he became genito-urinary surgeon and finally senior surgeon. He gave up general practice in 1940 to become a surgical consultant, and obtained one of the largest practices in mid-Essex. He was surgeon to St John's Hospital, Chelmsford and to Braintree Hospital, which he him¬self developed from a cottage hospital to an efficient surgical unit, and consulting surgeon to Broomfield (Tuberculosis) Hospital. He was honorary secretary of the mid-Essex division of the British Medical Association 1946-48, and subsequently acted as assistant secretary. He was an indefatigable worker, who trained himself to do with very little sleep. His recreations were squash-rackets and tennis, and he was a skilled photographer doing much of his own clinical photography. Sheppard inaugurated a scholarship fund to provide for travel and postgraduate study for nurses at home and abroad. Immediately after his death the trustees of this very successful scheme renamed it the Melvill Sheppard Memorial Scholarship Fund for Nurses. Sheppard had long been liable to fits of depression which gradually became more prolonged; and in 1957 he underwent a serious internal operation from which he recovered completely; he resumed his active surgical work as efficiently and skilfully as ever. On the morning of 4 February 1958 he was found dead, having killed himself during a fit of depression, aged 52. He had married Barbara Dauncey in 1933, and was survived by his wife and his mother. Publications: Torsion of a pedunculated gastric cyst, with J R Gilmour. *Brit med J* 1945, 1, 874. Sealed drainage of wounds. *Lancet* 1952, 1, 1174. A modified Thompson punch resectoscope. *Brit J Urol* 1952, 24, 146.
Sources:
*Essex Weekly News* 7 February 1958 p 1 with portrait, and 14 February p 1, by Dr W L Yell

*The Times* 10 February 1958 p 5 c

*Brit med J* 1958, 1, 404 with errors of detail and page 527 by WLN

Information from Mrs Sheppard
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/E005000-E005999/E005500-E005599
Media Type:
Unknown