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Resource Name:
Resource Type:
External Resource
Metadata
Asset Name:
E002562 - Lockwood, Charles Barrett (1856 - 1914)
Title:
Lockwood, Charles Barrett (1856 - 1914)
Author:
Royal College of Surgeons of England
Identifier:
RCS: E002562
Publisher:
London : Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date:
2012-07-04
Description:
Obituary for Lockwood, Charles Barrett (1856 - 1914), Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
Language:
English
Source:
Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Full Name:
Lockwood, Charles Barrett
Date of Birth:
1856
Place of Birth:
Stockton-on-Tees
Date of Death:
1914
Occupation:
Titles/Qualifications:
MRCS April 17th 1878

FRCS December 8th 1881
Details:
Born at Stockton-on-Tees, the third son of George Lockwood, a shipbuilder. He was educated at the Stockton Grammar School and at Bramham School. After leaving school he spent a short time with a well-known firm of surgeons in Stockton (Richardson & Tarleton), and thus was enabled at an early age to see a considerable amount of operative surgery, and himself to perform minor operations. In 1874 he entered as a student at St Bartholomew's Hospital, to which he remained attached until his death. As a student he was known as a hard worker and an original thinker, and even at that period he seems to have been capable of chastising with his tongue. In 1878 he took the diploma of MRCS, and shortly after became House Surgeon to the Dean Street Lock Hospital, where he had time to spare to work for the FRCS examination, which he passed in 1881. In 1879 he became Assistant Resident Anaesthetist, and in 1880 House Surgeon to Alfred Willett (qv). Immediately after this post he was appointed a Demonstrator of Anatomy, in which he was associated with William Bruce Clarke (qv), and later with W H H Jessop (qv). In 1891 he left the dissecting-rooms on his appointment as Surgical Registrar, and held office until he was elected Assistant Surgeon in 1892. On the death of W J Walsham (qv) in 1903 he became full Surgeon to the hospital. In 1912 he resigned the surgeoncy on account of failing health, and was elected Consulting Surgeon. In the Medical School he lectured on descriptive and surgical anatomy, and on general surgery - lectures which attracted a large audience on account of their originality. It is noteworthy that in the years 1890, 1891, and 1892 he gave, in association with Dr Vincent Harris, the first classes in bacteriology held at St Bartholomew's Hospital. The subject of bacteriology, then in its infancy, attracted Lockwood, and he worked at it by himself in the small museum of the Great Northern Hospital which had been fitted up for him as a laboratory. Here he came to the conclusions which led to what was probably Lockwood's greatest contribution to surgery - those embodied in his book on *Aseptic Surgery*. The phase of surgery through which Lockwood lived was an interesting one, for he saw the change brought about by the introduction of antisepsis, and the gradual awakening to the real truths of asepsis. Lockwood was in the van of this movement and was largely responsible, at any rate at St Bartholomew's Hospital, for initiating the modern methods of aseptic as distinguished from antiseptic surgery. He was the first to use gloves for operating at St Bartholomew's Hospital; these were made of white cotton, but shortly afterwards the rubber gloves were introduced which have remained. Lockwood's life was a strenuous one; starting with only a moderate school education, he educated himself, studying philosophy and history and the lives of great men, such as Napoleon and Caesar. He was a shy man who tried to cover his shyness with an air of cynicism and a sarcastic manner, and in consequence he was often misunderstood. As a surgeon he was careful, neat, and safe, though withal rather slow. In the later years of his life he suffered much from neuritis, and he began to feel the strain of the big operations, so exacting for the surgeon, which just then were beginning to be undertaken, owing to the safety of aseptic surgery. It was to ease this strain of work that he resigned in 1912. In October, 1914, he pricked his finger while operating for appendicular peritonitis, and died of septicaemia after an illness of five weeks' duration. He was buried at Instow, North Devon. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was Hunterian Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology from 1886-1889, when he lectured on "The Development and Transition of the Testicles, Normal and Abnormal", upon "The Development of the Organs of Circulation and Respiration including the Pericardium, Diaphragm, and Great Veins", and upon "The Morbid Anatomy, Pathology and Treatment of Hernia". From 1894-1895 he was Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology and lectured on "Traumatic Infection". He was Examiner in Anatomy at the Fellowship examination, and a Member of Council from 1908 till his death. At the Medical Society of London he delivered the Lettsomian Lecture in 1904 on "Aseptic Surgery in Theory and Practice", and was President in 1908. In 1908 he married Florence Edith, second daughter of W D Wallace, of North Finchley, by whom he had one son and two daughters, all of whom survived him. His widow married Herbert Williamson, MD, Physician-Accoucheur to St Bartholomew's Hospital (d 1924). There is a photograph of Lockwood in the Council Album, and in the Medical Society of London. Publications: "Preliminary Report on Aseptic and Septic Surgical Cases." - *Brit Med Jour*, 1890, ii, 943. *Aseptic Surgery*, 12mo, Edinburgh and London, 1896. *The Radical Cure of Hernia, Hydrocele and Varicocele (Young)*, 12mo, Edinburgh and London, 1898. *Appendicitis: its Pathology and Surgery*, 8vo, London, 1901.
Sources:
*St Bart's Hosp Rep*, 1914, 1, part 2, 101, with portrait and bibliography

*St Bart's Hosp Jour*, 1914-15, xxii, 42, with portrait

*Lancet*, 1914, ii, 1326
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/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
Media Type:
Unknown