Cover image for
Resource Name:
Resource Type:
External Resource
Metadata
Asset Name:
E000748 - Banks, Sir William Mitchell (1842 - 1904)
Title:
Banks, Sir William Mitchell (1842 - 1904)
Author:
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Identifier:
RCS: E000748
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2009-11-11
Description:
Obituary for Banks, Sir William Mitchell (1842 - 1904), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Banks, Sir William Mitchell
Date of Birth:
1 November 1842
Place of Birth:
Edinburgh, Scotland
Date of Death:
9 August 1904
Place of Death:
Aachen
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
Knight Bachelor 1899

MRCS not taken

FRCS December 9th 1869

MD Edin 1864

Hon LLD Edin 1899

JP
Details:
Born at Edinburgh on Nov 1st, 1842, the son of Peter S Banks, Writer to the Signet. He received his early education at Edinburgh Academy and passed from there to the University of Edinburgh. Graduated MD with honours, and won the Gold Medal for his thesis on the Wolffian bodies in 1864. Acted for a time as Prosector to Professor John Goodsir and later as Demonstrator of Anatomy under Professor Allen Thomson at the University of Glasgow. Served as dresser and as House Surgeon to James Syme (qv) at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and visited Paraguay to act as Surgeon to the Republican Government. He became assistant to E R Bickersteth (qv) at Liverpool in 1868 in succession to Reginald Harrison (qv), and joined the staff of the Infirmary School of Medicine, first as Demonstrator and afterwards as Lecturer on Anatomy. This post he retained with the title of Professor when the Infirmary School was merged in University College, Liverpool. He resigned the Chair in 1894 and was then honoured with the title of Emeritus Professor of Anatomy. Meanwhile, having served the offices of Pathologist and Curator of the Museum, he succeeded Reginald Harrison as Assistant Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, Liverpool, in 1875, served as full Surgeon from 1877 till Nov, 1902, when he resigned and was appointed Consulting Surgeon. The Committee of the Infirmary paid him the unique compliment of assigning him ten beds in his former wards. Mitchell Banks was the first representative of the Victoria University on the General Medical Council, and was a Member of the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England from 1890-1896. He was one of the founders of the Liverpool Biological Association and was elected the first President. He was placed on the Commission of the Peace as JP of Liverpool in 1892 and in 1899 he received the honour of knighthood. He was an honorary LLD of Edinburgh. He married in 1874 Elizabeth Rathbone, daughter of John Elliot, a merchant of Liverpool, and by her had two sons, one of whom survived him. He died suddenly at Aix-la-Chapelle on Aug 9th, 1904, whilst travelling home from Homburg, and was buried in the Smithdown Road Cemetery in Liverpool. Mitchell Banks deserves recognition both as a surgeon and as an organizer. The modern operation for removal of the cancerous breast is largely due to his practice and advocacy. He recommended, in the face of strenuous opposition, an extensive operation that should include removal of the axillary glands when most surgeons were contented with local amputation. He drew attention to his method in 1878 and made it the topic of the Lettsomian Lectures at the Medical Society of London in 1900. As an organizer he formed one of the band who built up the fortunes of the Medical School at Liverpool. Finding it a provincial school at a very low ebb, Banks and his associates raised it by dint of hard work first to the rank of a medical college and, finally, to that of a well-equipped medical faculty forming part of a modern university. The plan involved the rebuilding of the infirmary, and Banks was a member of the medical deputation which, with characteristic thoroughness, visited many continental hospitals to study their design and equipment before the foundation stone of the Liverpool building was laid in 1887. Mitchell Banks had a sound knowledge of the history of medicine. His collection of early medical works was sold in seventy-eight lots by Messrs Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge in June, 1906. He wrote good English in a pleasant style, as may be seen in “The Gentle Doctor”, a scholarly address to the students of the Yorkshire College at Leeds in Oct, 1892, and in “Physic and Letters”, the Annual Oration delivered before the Medical Society of London in May, 1893. His portrait, painted by the Hon John Collier, was presented to him by his colleagues and students, when he retired from active duties at University College, Liverpool. “The William Mitchell Banks Lectureship” in the University of Liverpool was founded and endowed by his fellow-citizens in his memory in 1905. Publications:- A paper dealing with a more extensive operation in cases of cancer of the breast appeared in the *Liverpool and Manchester Medical and Surgical Reports*, 1878, 192. *Some Results of the Operative Treatment of Cancer of the Breast*, Edinburgh, 1882. *The Gentle Doctor*, Liverpool, 1893. *Physic and Letters*, Liverpool, 1893.
Sources:
*Dict. Nat. Biog.*, Supplement, sub nomine et auct. ibi cit
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/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
Media Type:
Unknown