Born on 4 July 1856 at Fort St George, Scotland, eldest of the three sons and four daughters of Benjamin Lane, assistant surgeon 80th Regiment of Foot, and his wife Caroline Arbuthnot Ewing, daughter of Joseph Ewing (1790-1868), surgeon 80th and 95th Foot. Benjamin Lane was born at Limavady, Co Derry, Ireland, where his father William Lane, MD, was in practice, on 5 June 1827, rose to the rank of brigade surgeon, and died at Cheltenham on 12 June 1907, when his son was at the height of his fame; his wife also came of Ulster stock. (Johnston's *Roll of the Army Medical Service*, Nos 3029: Ewing, and 5105: Lane.) He was educated at Stanley House, Bridge of Allan, and entered Guy's Hospital in May 1873. He qualified MRCS 1877 at the age of twenty-one and won the gold medals in anatomy and medicine at the London MB 1881. He served as house surgeon at the Victoria Hospital for Children, Chelsea, and went back to Guy's as demonstrator of anatomy. He proceeded to the Fellowship 1882 and the MS London 1883, and was appointed assistant surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, where he eventually became consulting surgeon. In 1884 he married (see below) and settled in St Thomas's Street to be near his work at Guy's, where he was elected assistant surgeon 1888, becoming surgeon in 1903, and consulting surgeon in 1920. He was also consulting surgeon to the French Hospital, Shaftesbury Avenue. At the Royal College of Surgeons he served as an examiner in elementary anatomy for the Conjoint Board 1887-90 and on the Council from 1908 to 1916. He joined the RAMC, Territorial Force, on its formation, being commissioned captain *à la suite* on 23 December 1908, and during the war of 1914-18 he served in the Aldershot command and was gazetted colonel, AMS, on 29 September 1917. He organized the Queen's Hospital at Sidcup for the treatment of facial injuries. Here with Sir Harold Gillies and Henry Tonks, FRCS, professor of Fine Art at the Slade School, London University, he laid the foundations of modem plastic surgery. Erich Lexer was carrying out parallel work in Germany at the same time. Lane was a brilliant surgeon whose manual dexterity was, perhaps, eclipsed only by Moynihan's. As a student he was deeply influenced by Arthur Durham; he was dresser to Thomas Bryant, and was much encouraged in his work by Clement Lucas. He was rigorous in the most scrupulous aseptic methods, which he introduced to Guy's when he attained to the hospital staff. The advances which he made, in a time of great surgical advance, were due not merely to his technical facility but to a profound scientific knowledge of anatomy and to a philosophic conception of the mechanics of the animal organism as a whole. Lane touched many branches of surgery and improved whatever he touched. He made his name by three operational innovations: the removal of a piece of rib when treating empyema in a child (1883); an ingenious operation for cleft palate early in life (1897); and screwing fractured long bones to obtain perfect apposition (1893). This he did on a sudden inspiration in a difficult case, sending for ordinary steel screws from the carpenter's shop. He was early interested in the treatment of fractures and all skeletal deformities. In 1883 he published his first two papers: on Fracture of the sternum, *Trans Path Soc* 1882-83, 34, 223; and on Cases of empyema in children treated by removal of the rib, *Guy's Hosp Rep* 1883, 26, 45; and the following year he published nineteen papers based on his work in the dissecting-room with Sir William Hale-White, MD. His *Manual of Operative Surgery* appeared in 1886, and in 1887-88 his studies in the theory of skeletal change evoked considerable interest, particularly his papers Pressure changes in the skeleton, *J Anat Physiol* 1886-87, 21, 385-406; Causation of deformities during young life, *Guy's Hosp Rep* 1887, 29, 241-333; The anatomy of the charwoman, *Guy's Hosp Rep* 1887, 29, 359-367; and The anatomy of the shoemaker, *J Anat Physiol* 1887-88, 22, 593-628. In 1892 he made an important contribution to aural surgery with his Antrectomy as a treatment for chronic purulent otitis media, *Archives of Otology*, New York, 1892, 21, 118-124; and the following year gave the first indication, of his growing interest in abdominal surgery (Acute inflammation of the gall-bladder simulating closely acute intestinal obstruction, *Lancet*, 1893, 1, 411) and the surgery of cancer (A more effectual method of removing a cancerous breast, *Trans Clin Soc* 1892-93, 26, 85), as well as introducing the screwing of fractures (*Lancet*, 1893, 1, 1500). In 1897 his book on Cleft palate and adenoids was published, and he also reported (*Trans Clin Soc* 1896-97, 30, 154) the successful removal of a tumour of the brain. Writing in *The Lancet*, 1900, 1, 1489, Lane insisted that the surgeon should do as neat a job "when repairing broken bones as a cabinet maker mending the legs of broken chairs". Lane invented the perforated steel plates known by his name, which were screwed to the bones and left embedded. Though this simple procedure met with criticism, after a first welcome, and seemed destined to oblivion, it has survived and been adapted beyond Lane's most sanguine expectations. The neutral metal vitalium introduced to surgery by Venable of San Antonio, USA has been a marked improvement on steel as used by Lane, and Smith-Peterson, also in America, has successfully applied Lane's principles to the age-old problem of fractured neck of the femur. Lane was also a pioneer in jugular ligations to prevent pulmonary metastases from ear infections, and in 1909 he devised an epoch-making operation for excision of a carcinoma of the cervical oesophagus, where the gap was repaired with flaps of skin from the neck (*Brit med J* 1911, 1, 16). He wrote on 'Massage of the heart' in 1902, and next year came the first of many contributions on chronic obstruction of the bowel (*Lancet* 1903, 1, 153). Lane introduced the short-circuiting of the large intestine, which came to be known as "Lane's operation", and he began to be obsessed with the danger to general health of chronic constipation. He derived from the teaching of Elie Mechnikov (1845-1916) his belief that "we suffer and die through the defects that arise in our sewerage drainage system", and, like Victor Pauchet of Paris, he came to believe that many of the ills of civilized life are due to toxaemia by absorption from the colon. In *The Lancet* he wrote (1910, 1, 1193) of "the obstruction of the ileum which develops in chronic intestinal stasis" and (1911, 2, 1540) of "the first and last kink in chronic intestinal stasis". This anchoring of the iliac colon by the formation of thin bands of peritoneum from excessive strain due to accumulation of faecal matter in the pelvic colon was called "Lane's disease", but "Lane's kink" was attributed by his opponents to his own reasoning rather than his patients' bowels. Lane however throve on opposition, declaring that it stimulated him. He resigned from the British Medical Association in later life and took the lead in founding the New Health Society in 1925, exploiting his fame to popularize medical principles and hygienic practice. He started the journal *New Health* in 1926 and wrote a book *New Health for Everyman* in 1932 to further the Society's aims. Lane worked hard to promote friendship between the medical men of France and England, advocating an Inter-Allied Fellowship in 1918 (*Brit med J* 1918, 2, 722). He was also well known in America, where he delivered the Murphy oration (*Internat J Surg* 1925, 38, 436) and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1925. Lane was created a baronet, of Cavendish Square, in 1913 and was made CB in 1917; he was a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. He married, first, on 25 October 1884 Charlotte, daughter of John Briscoe of Tinvane, Co Kilkenny. Lady Lane died on 28 April 1935, six months after their golden wedding. She left three daughters and a son, who succeeded as second baronet. One of Lane's daughters married Harold Chapple, FRCS, and another married Nathan Mutch, MD, FRCP. Lane married secondly, on 26 September 1935, Jane, daughter of Nathan Mutch of Rochdale, his son-in-law's sister; she survived him. He died on 16 January 1943 at 46 Westbourne Terrace, W2, aged 86. A memorial service was held at Guy's on 21 January, when E G Slesinger, FRCS, gave the funeral oration. "Willie" Lane was big of frame and stature, with a soft and musical voice. Though enjoying controversy he was a kindly and genial man, much beloved by his friends. His old house surgeons presented his portrait, by Edward Newling, to Guy's Hospital. He was a great inspirer of able pupils, but not an orthodox teacher and never interested in examining, and a frequenter of societies who went to preach rather than exchange opinions. He was "Chyrurgeon" to the artistic and literary club Ye Sette of Odd Volumes, and contributed an essay "The influence which our surroundings exert upon us" to its publications (No 74) in 1920. He was a keen fisherman and in 1933 bought from the heirs of H H the Jam Sahib ("Ranji") a great part of the famous Ballinahinch salmon waters in Connemara. This property was originally the centre of the vast estates of Richard Martin, MP (see *DNB*) and adjoins the Kylemore estate once belonging to Mitchell Henry, FRCS. Publications: *Bibliography of the published writings* 1883-1938, Bermondsey, privately printed, 1938, contains a portrait-photograph and lists nearly 400 writings. It is a revised edition by G A R Winston of the bibliography by William Wale, librarian to Guy's Hospital, in *Guy's Hosp Gaz* 1919, 33, 84. The more important writings have been mentioned above in the course of the memoir. His books included: *Manual of operative surgery*, 1886. *Cleft palate and adenoids (including reprints of papers on other subjects)*, 1897; 2nd edition, 1900. *Operative treatment of chronic constipation*, 1904; 2nd edition, 1909; 3rd edition: *Operative treatment of chronic intestinal stasis*, 1915. *Cleft palate and hare-lip*, 1905; 2nd edition, 1908; 3rd edition, 1917. *The operative treatment of fractures*, 1905. *New health for everyman*, 1932; 2nd edition, 1935. Accounts of Lane's clinic at Guy's were published in *Brit J Surg* 1913-14, 1, 314 and 1920-21, 8, 219.