Chavasse, Sir Thomas Frederick (1854 - 1913)
by
 
Royal College of Surgeons of England

Asset Name
E001152 - Chavasse, Sir Thomas Frederick (1854 - 1913)

Title
Chavasse, Sir Thomas Frederick (1854 - 1913)

Author
Royal College of Surgeons of England

Identifier
RCS: E001152

Publisher
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England

Publication Date
2011-04-20

Subject
Medical Obituaries

Description
Obituary for Chavasse, Sir Thomas Frederick (1854 - 1913), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Language
English

Source
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows

Full Name
Chavasse, Sir Thomas Frederick

Date of Birth
1854

Date of Death
17 February 1913

Occupation
General surgeon

Titles/Qualifications
Knight Bachelor, 1905
 
MRCS April 19th, 1876
 
FRCS (elected as a Member of twenty years' standing) April 13th 1899
 
MB CM Edin 1876
 
MD 1878
 
FRCS Edin 1878
 
LSA 1876

Details
Was the sixth son of Thomas Chavasse, FRCS (qv), of Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire. He commenced his medical education at Queen's College and at the General Hospital, Birmingham, and then proceeded to Edinburgh. After graduation he went in September, 1876, to Vienna, attended Billroth's Clinic, and took a course of operative surgery on the dead body. Among his British fellow-students at Vienna were George L Berry, Samuel West, James Reid, Andrew Duncan, Surgeon Major Shepherd, killed at Isandula, Mansell Moullin, and Story, of Dublin, all of whom subsequently became well known. After six months he went on to Berlin and attended Langenbeck. In the summer of 1877 he returned to become House Surgeon under James Spence, in Edinburgh. Spence was opposing Lister, but Chavasse attended the latter's Sunday afternoon clinics. Having qualified by passing the examination for the FRCS Edin, although not yet 25, he was elected Assistant Surgeon to the Birmingham General Hospital, and in 1881 became full Surgeon, a post he held until he was appointed Consulting Surgeon in 1912. It was largely through his influence that the hospital was rebuilt, also that Miss Ryland, a near relative of Lady Chavasse, bequeathed £25,000 to the hospital; Chavasse himself endowed with £1250 a bed in memory of his father. Among other activities he was Consulting Surgeon to the Sutton Coldfield Dispensary and to the Corbett Hospital, Stourbridge. He was County Director for Worcestershire of the British Red Cross Society and of the St John Ambulance Brigade. He acted as President of the Midland Medical Society and was President of the Surgical Section at the British Medical Association, Birmingham Meeting, in 1911. Chavasse took an active interest in politics and was Chairman of the East Worcestershire Liberal Unionist Association, and was a close personal friend of Austen Chamberlain, at whose meetings he often acted as Chairman. On December 13th, 1912, by an accident in the hunting field, he sustained multiple fractures of the right thigh, from which he was beginning to recover, and was walking a little in his bedroom, when death occurred suddenly from pulmonary embolism on February 17th, 1913. Only on the previous January 30th a presentation of his portrait on his retirement from the post of Surgeon had been made to his son in his absence. He was buried in the Broomgrove Cemetery. He married in 1885 Frances Hannah, the only daughter of Arthur Ryland, JP, of Birmingham, founder of Messrs. Ryland, Martineau & Co, who survived him with one son, Dr Arthur Chavasse, and three daughters. The presentation portrait was painted by A T Nowell, and a replica was given to Lady Chavasse. Publications:- "Successful Removal of the Entire Upper Extremity for Osteochondroma." - *Med.-Chir Trans.*, 1890, lxxiii, 8. The operation had been first practised in 1838 in the United States by McClellan, and a table of 44 operations was appended. Paul Berger in 1882 had suggested a systematic method for its performance. *The Operative Treatment of Genu Valgum*, 1879. *The Diagnosis of Cervical Tumours*, 1882. Other contributions, marking the progress of surgery permitted by the adoption of Lister's methods. "On Abdominal Injuries," in Heath's *Dictionary of Surgery*.

Sources
*Birmingham Med. Rev.*, 1913, xiii, 165, with portrait
 
*Brit. Med. Jour.*, 1913, i, 473
 
*Lancet*, 1913, i, 648, with portrait

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/E001000-E001999/E001100-E001199

URL for File
373335

Media Type
Unknown