Raphael Chukwudile Okoye Eruchalu was born on 4 March 1926 at Nnobi Village, Eastern Nigeria, the son of a trader, and educated at CMS Central Elementary School, Dennis Memorial Grammar School and Higher College, Lagos. He attended University College, Ibadan and University College Hospital Medical School, London gaining a distinction in medicine when he graduated MB BS London, in 1954, the year he also took the Conjoint Diploma. He became FRCS in 1959, FMCS Nigeria in 1970 and FICS in 1974. He was house physician and house surgeon at University College Hospital, the latter post being on the professorial surgical unit, and he returned to Ibadan in 1956, moving from a succession of junior posts to become a specialist surgeon to the Ministry of Health in Nigeria and senior lecturer in surgery in the University of Nigeria at Nsukka, in 1970. From 1970 to 1974 he was senior consultant to the Ministry of Health; his special interests were gastroenterology, thyroid surgery and general surgery in the rural areas of Africa. He was made an Officer of the Federal Republic of Nigeria by the President, in 1963, in recognition of his distinguished contribution to surgery there. He married on 6 June 1953. His wife, Caroline, was a nurse who later became senior matron at the teaching hospital in Enugu, and they had two sons and three daughters, the elder son being senior surgical resident at Harlem Hospital Centre, New York, and the younger a Bachelor of Law. The eldest daughter is a banker, the next a Bachelor of Arts (Honours English) and the youngest a medical student. Mr Eruchalu is believed to have died in January 1980, survived by his wife and children.