Fisher, Frederic Richard (1844 - 1932)
by
 
Royal College of Surgeons of England

Asset Name
E004049 - Fisher, Frederic Richard (1844 - 1932)

Title
Fisher, Frederic Richard (1844 - 1932)

Author
Royal College of Surgeons of England

Identifier
RCS: E004049

Publisher
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England

Publication Date
2013-06-05

Subject
Medical Obituaries

Description
Obituary for Fisher, Frederic Richard (1844 - 1932), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Language
English

Source
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows

Full Name
Fisher, Frederic Richard

Date of Birth
1844

Place of Birth
Salisbury

Date of Death
18 January 1932

Place of Death
Salisbury

Occupation
Orthopaedic surgeon

Titles/Qualifications
MRCS 26 April 1867
 
FRCS 14 December 1876
 
LSA 1868

Details
Fisher was born at Salisbury in 1844, and entered St George's Hospital in 1863. After serving the usual term of a year as house surgeon and an additional three months owing to a death vacancy, he was asked in 1871 to take the post of house physician for six months. The post was additional to the normal staff and was created to take the place of "Apothecary", which had just been abolished. These offices, including a house surgeoncy at the Salisbury Infirmary in 1869, occupied him from 1867 to 1871. He then held various appointments as resident surgeon to distinguished people, until he settled in London and was appointed surgeon to out-patients at the Victoria Hospital for Children, Chelsea, in 1874, and surgeon to the National Orthopaedic Hospital in 1875 on the appointment of a fourth surgeon. In 1879 he became surgeon to the Surgical Aid Society. Increasing deafness obliged him to relinquish these posts: the Victoria Hospital in 1879, the National Orthopaedic Hospital in 1906, and the Surgical Aid Society in 1910. He retired to Salisbury in 1910 and was given an annuity from the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund in 1929. He died unmarried at 95 Crane Street, Salisbury, on 18 January 1932, aged 87. Fisher was one of the last pupils of W J Little, physician to the London Hospital, who performed the first subcutaneous tenotomy in London in 1837 (see the memoir of Louis Stromeyer Little). Like his teacher he was an exponent of subcutaneous surgery and gradual methods of correcting deformity. He did good work on the aetiology of paralytic deformities of the foot, and was the first to explain clearly the mode of development of pes cavus. He classified it into two types: talipes arcuatus and talipes plantaris. He was particularly successful in the treatment of clubfoot. His method was that of gradually unfolding the foot and correcting first the varus and then the equinus, spending several weeks or even months in the process. His favourite splint was the Scarpa's shoe, the use of which has long been abandoned. He also devoted much time to the study of spinal curvature, and was amongst the first to observe that a severe total scoliosis could occur without rotation. Fisher was a keen and skilful fly-fisher. When the bromide dry plate was popularized he took up photography as a means of clinical record, and also became a very skilful photographer of landscapes. Publications:- Essays on the treatment of deformities of the body. Lectures on clubfoot: (i) Lateral deviation of the spine. *Lancet*, 1885, 1, 378. (ii) Paralytic deformity of the spine. *Ibid*. 1889, 1, 112, 165, 214, 505. (iii) The contracted muscles of infantile paralysis. *Ibid*. 1905, 2, 585. Orthopaedic surgery, in Ashurst's *Encyclopaedia of Surgery*, 1886, 6.

Sources
*Brit med J*. 1932, 1, 218
 
Information given by Dr R C Monnington, of Salisbury

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

URL for File
376232

Media Type
Unknown