Born in London 29 July 1867, the eighth child and sixth son of John Edward Drew and his wife, *née* Wyer. He received his early education at Amersham Hall near Reading, and at University College Hospital, London. Here he gained the Atkinson-Morley scholarship in surgery, and in 1890 was appointed house surgeon to Matthew Berkeley Hill. He then acted as resident medical officer at the Stoke-on-Trent Infirmary, but returning to London he became assistant demonstrator of anatomy when George Dancer Thane was head of the department, was surgical registrar at University College Hospital in 1894, and acted as private assistant to Victor Horsley. He was elected assistant surgeon to the North Eastern (now the Queen's) Hospital for Children and surgeon to the Hospital for Women, in Soho Square in 1899, becoming consulting surgeon in 1927. On the outbreak of the South African war he was offered and accepted the post of surgeon to the Imperial Yeomanry Hospital at Pretoria and as a result of his experience published a case of "Extraction of a bullet from the motor region of the brain" (*Brit med J*. 1902, 1, 1387), indicative of the work he had done with Victor Horsley. In 1901 he contested unsuccessfully the vacancy for an assistant surgeon at University College Hospital which was filled by the appointment of Rupert Bucknall, but continued to practise in London devoting himself more especially to the surgical diseases of children, to cancer of the breast, and to proctology, advocating a special method for the cure of piles. Drew had long been troubled with symptoms of a duodenal ulcer, and in 1914 it was found necessary to perform a gastro-enterostomy. The operation was followed by various complications for the relief of which more operations were done, and he became a chronic invalid in almost constant pain. He was unable to continue surgical practice in London and retired to Cooden, near Bexhill, in Sussex, where he continued a useful life by helping his medical friends in the neighbourhood both by advice and by his operative skill. He married on 12 December 1906 Mabel Lee of Harrogate, Yorks, who survived him with one son and one daughter. He died at Cooden on 25 February 1931. Fortune dealt hardly with Douglas Drew. His early career seemed to make it certain that he would become a leading surgeon in London. But he was brought into competition with an even more brilliant man than himself, Rupert Bucknall, of his own school; and a few years afterwards he was struck down by the illness which spoilt the whole of the rest of his life. In spite of this he continued to take an interest in his profession and, when the London County Council was arranging in 1919 with the voluntary hospitals for the treatment of school children, he did good service to the cause of child welfare by insisting that the operation for the removal of tonsils and adenoids was not a trivial procedure to be undertaken lightly. During the first world war he carried out a considerable amount of work at King George's Hospital in London, as well as in the local war hospital at Cooden. He was president of the Medical Defence Union in 1904, and in the same year took an active part in the defence of Dr Mary Thorne. Drew was a man of great personal charm; his outstanding characteristics were a sturdy independence which made him fear no man, transparent honesty which made all men trust him, and unlimited modesty which made him conceal from all but his most intimate friends his professional and intellectual gifts which were of the highest order.