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Resource Name:
Resource Type:
External Resource
Metadata
Asset Name:
E008270 - Ritchie, Horace David (1920 - 1993)
Title:
Ritchie, Horace David (1920 - 1993)
Author:
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Identifier:
RCS: E008270
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2015-10-01

2018-02-14
Description:
Obituary for Ritchie, Horace David (1920 - 1993), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Ritchie, Horace David
Date of Birth:
24 September 1920
Place of Birth:
Falkirk
Date of Death:
21 December 1993
Place of Death:
Tenterden, Kent
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
MRCS and FRCS 1966

MA Glasgow, MB BCh Cambridge 1947

ChM Edinburgh 1959

FRCS Edinburgh 1951
Details:
David Ritchie was born on 24 September 1920 in Falkirk, one of the four children of George Ritchie, a licensed grocer. At first he seemed destined for the Presbyterian ministry, and graduated MA with honours in theology and classics from Glasgow, but then changed his vocation and read medicine at Magdalene College, Cambridge. He did his clinical studies in Edinburgh, qualified in 1947, worked for Professors Learmonth and Bruce, passed the Edinburgh FRCS in 1951 and won the Crichton Research Scholarship, during which he tried to build an artificial heart. In 1953 he won an MRC scholarship to Liverpool where he performed a cardiac transplant on a pig named *Lively Lady* which he kept on the hospital roof; the pig survived for 30 days. Later Ritchie became lecturer in surgery in Dundee, and in 1955 went to work with John Grindlay and Charles Code at the Mayo Clinic, later returning to Sir Charles Illingworth's department in Glasgow. In 1959 he won a gold medal for his mastership thesis on surgical jaundice, based on the work he had done at the Mayo Clinic. In 1958 he was invited to the London Hospital as a senior lecturer, where he rapidly built up a school of experimental surgery with special expertise in perfusion, at first in support of the cardiac surgeons, and later in perfusion of isolated organs to maintain their viability but more importantly to study their physiology. This work was sufficiently well thought of to attract Code and his team to make one of their rare excursions from Minnesota. He was made reader in surgery in 1960 and on the retirement of Victor Dix in 1964 Ritchie was appointed Professor. He now threw all his energies into building up a surgical team that was second to none in all the disciplines of surgery. He established academic departments in urology, neurosurgery, immunology and gastroenterology, inviting distinguished surgeons from outside to take up these posts. He did not always succeed, notably failing to attract one particular person to head a unit in open heart surgery. Ritchie was a pioneer in the use of hyperbaric oxygen, whereby he was able to save the frostbitten fingers of the climbers Chris Bonington and Dougal Haston, who at one stage managed to climb out of the tank and were discovered in a nearby pub. In 1982 he was elected dean, but found the machinations of that office uncongenial and was asked to give up after a year. This was an unhappy episode which coincided with the break-up of his first marriage. For his juniors David Ritchie was a great friend and stimulus; he demanded the best, and would move heaven and earth to see that his protegés got what they needed to produce it. He was an outstanding teacher. A keen golfer from the age of eight, Ritchie taught himself to play the piano, to speak French, to sail and to ski. He married Jennifer Prentice in 1953, by whom he had three sons, Gordon, Andrew and Bruce, none of whom went into medicine. The marriage was dissolved in 1983, and he married Elizabeth Thompson in 1990. He published numerous papers and was for many years co-editor of Bailey and Love's *A short practice of surgery*. He died in Tenterden, Kent, on 21 December 1993.
Sources:
*Daily Telegraph* 20 January 1994
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/E008000-E008999/E008200-E008299
Media Type:
Unknown