Born at Copenhagen on July 19th, 1818, the eldest son of Eric Erichsen, banker at Copenhagen by his wife, who belonged to the Govett family of Somerset. The Erichsens are a well-known Danish family and the 'Palais Erichsen' in Copenhagen perpetuates the name. Eric Erichsen received his early education at the Mansion House School, Hammersmith, and studied medicine first at University College, London, where he was a pupil of Robert Liston (q.v.), and afterwards in Paris, where Amussat invited him to witness his first colotomy. He then returned to London and served as House Surgeon at University College Hospital. He bought on July 9th, 1843, a half-share in the lectureship on anatomy at the Westminster Hospital Medical School, his colleague being Dr. Robert Hunter, of Glasgow, who had paid £100 for the post in 1841. The lectures, which dealt with physiology as well as with anatomy, were given conjointly until 1846, when Erichsen bought out Hunter. The result was unsuccessful financially, as the Westminster authorities obtained the premises by compulsory purchase for city improvements and the school was discontinued from October, 1847, till 1849. In 1844 he acted as Secretary of the Physiological Section of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and was afterwards appointed a member of a small committee to undertake an experimental inquiry into the mechanism and effects of asphyxia and to suggest methods for its prevention and cure. He drew up a report published in 1845 under the title "An Essay on Asphyxia", and was rewarded, on the recommendation of Sir Benjamin Brodie, by the Royal Humane Society with its Fothergillian Gold Medal. Erichsen was appointed Assistant Surgeon to University College Hospital in 1848 in succession to John Phillips Potter (q.v.), the promising young surgeon who died of pyæmia contracted in dissecting a pelvis for Robert Liston, whose House Surgeon he had been. John Marshall (q.v.) was elected Assistant Surgeon on the same day to a vacancy arising by Syme's return to Edinburgh disgusted with life in London. Moncrieff Arnott succeeded Syme but quickly resigned, and in 1850 Erichsen became full Surgeon to the hospital at the age of 32. The appointment carried with it the Chair of Surgery at University College. Erichsen resigned the professorship on his becoming Holme Professor of Clinical Surgery in 1866. The office of Surgeon he retained until 1875, when he was elected Consulting Surgeon. At the College of Surgeons he served as a member of the Council from 1869-1885, a member of the Court of Examiners from 1875-1879, Vice-President 1878-1879, and President in 1880. He was a busy reformer at first in College politics, but later he opposed the democratic demands of the Members on the ground that the Fellows, as an aristocracy of intellect, should have a monopoly of the College franchise. He put forward this view in a pamphlet, but it was on his motion that the first meeting of the Fellows and Members was called in 1870. Erichsen was President of the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society from 1879-1881, and in 1881 he was President of the Surgical Section at the meeting in London of the International Medical Congress. As a Liberal he contested unsuccessfully in 1885 the parliamentary representation of the United Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews. He was elected F.R.S. in 1876, and the honorary degree of LL.D. was conferred upon him by the University of Edinburgh in 1884. The Royal University of Ireland elected him an honorary M.Ch. in 1887 and in the same year he was made an honorary F.R.C.S.I. In 1887 he was appointed the first Inspector under the Vivisection Act (39 & 40 Vic., c. 77), and in the same year he was appointed Surgeon Extraordinary to the Queen. He was created a baronet in January, 1895 - but the honour which he chiefly prized was his election in 1887 to the important and dignified post of President of the Council of University College, an office he held until his death. He married in 1842 Mary Elizabeth, the eldest daughter of Captain Thomas Cole, R.N.; she died in 1893. There were no children. He died at Folkestone on Sept. 23rd, 1896, and was buried in Hampstead Cemetery. As a surgeon Sir John Erichsen's reputation was world-wide. His strong faculty was his sound judgement ripened by a vast experience which gave him an almost unrivalled clinical insight. There was no man in the profession whose opinion in a difficult case was more justly held to be of great weight. He was especially interested in the results of railway accidents, and wrote a treatise on Concussion of the Spine which caused him to be a principal witness in cases brought against railway companies at a time when less was known about malingering and obscure nervous conditions than at present. He had, in his earlier days at least, no English superior as a clinical teacher. Lord Lister, Sir Henry Thompson, and Marcus Beck were amongst his house surgeons, and he may be looked upon as one of the makers of modern surgery. As a man he possessed a most attractive character. He was honourable and candid in all the relations of life, a generous friend, a gentleman in every sense of the word, of peculiar affability and courtliness of manner. Richard Quain had long refused to speak to him on the ground that he, although senior, had been passed over in favour of Erichsen, a junior, in the appointment to the Chair of Surgery at University College, but Sir John Erichsen's patience and conduct at length convinced Quain of the injustice of his attitude, To everyone's surprise the two men one day entered the hospital arm-in-arm. He was very successful in his profession and he owed much of this to a happy combination of good qualities. His work occupied a high place in surgical literature, and he was always ready to accept the surgical advances of younger men. He was a distinguished teacher in a school where many distinguished surgeons had preceded him. If he did not strike out any new path in the field of surgery, he possessed a sound judgement enlightened by a long experience, had much administrative talent, a wise eloquence, dignity of presence, and elevation of view. A bust by Hamo Thornycroft, R.A., presented to Erichsen on his retirement from the hospital stands in the Museum of University College. A replica is in the hall of the Royal College of Surgeons. It is a good likeness. He appears in Brookes's portrait group of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons and there is a lithograph portrait dated 1853 by Hullmandel and Walton after Baugnut. PUBLICATIONS: - Erichsen wrote a widely read and very excellent text-book on *The Science and Art of Surgery*. The 1st edition was published in 1853 in one volume of 950 pages with 250 illustrations. The 5th edition was issued in 1869 in two volumes. The 8th and 9th editions were edited by MARCUS BECK (q.v.), who brought it up to date as regards Listerian surgery; the 10th edition appeared under the supervision of RAYMOND JOHNSON. Editions from the 2nd London edition were published by Blanchard & Lea, of Philadelphia, in 1859, and again in 1860, and a copy was issued by the American Government to every medical officer in the Federal Army during the American Civil War. *The Science and Art of Surgery* was translated into German by Dr. Thudicum, of Halle; into Italian by Dr. Longhi, of Milan; and into Spanish by Drs. Benavente and Ribera. Parts of it also appeared in Chinese.