Eric Farquharson was born on 13 December 1905, the only son of William Anderson Farquharson, SSC, and Agnes Ness Cowie. A paternal great-grandfather, grandfather and two uncles were medically qualified. He was educated at Edinburgh Academy and the University of Edinburgh. Postgraduate studies follow

Vrasapillai Gabriel was born on 18 December 1885 in the town of Mannar in Northern Ceylon. He came from a well known Northern family who were the hereditary administrators in the day of the British Raj. His father was Mudaliyar V Varsapillai JP, UPM, Adigar of Musale. He was born into a family of tw

Vyramji Bharucha was born in India on 21 February 1886 and obtained his medical education at Bombay University, the Middlesex Hospital and King's College, London. In 1910 he joined the Indian Medical Service with the rank of Lieutenant, becoming Captain in 1913, Major in 1922 and Lieutenant-Colonel

Jack Heselson was born on 4 January 1910 in Cape Town, and after his schooling at Wynberg Boys' High School attended the Univesity of Cape Town, where he graduated BA in 1929 and MB ChB in 1933, obtaining distinctions in the final examination and the degree with honours. After his internship at Some

A consultant surgeon in south Teesside, 'Sam' Mottershead was a colourful, amusing and forthright person who contributed much to surgery and was a great exponent of clinical anatomy. He was born in Stockport on 5 December 1914, and received his medical education in Manchester, gaining the Tom Jones

Harold George Alexander had a distinguished career in the Indian Medical Service. He was first in the entrance examination following appointments as house surgeon, casualty surgical officer and senior demonstrator of anatomy at Middlesex Hospital. He entered the Indian Medical Service as Lieutenant

Albert Ernest Coates was born on 28 January 1895 at Ballarat, Victoria. His father was a minor postal official and his grandparents had emigrated from Suffolk and Cornwall, attracted by the news of the gold discovery. Leaving school at the age of eleven he decided early to become a doctor and he

Douglas Harold Barnbrook, known as 'Barney', was a consultant general surgeon and professor of anatomy at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He studied medicine at Birmingham University, gaining his MRCS LRCP in 1946. He passed his FRCS in 1951 and in the same year emigrated to H

Jacques ('Jack') Loeb was chief of surgery at the Oakville-Trafalgar Memorial Hospital in Oakville, Ontario, Canada, and also an author and anatomist. He was born in Berlin on 31 August 1925, the son of Joseph Loeb, founder of Loeb and Sutheim, one of the most prominent furriers in Europe, and Else

Victor Coppleson was born in 1893 in the small town of Wee Waa in the central part of New South Wales; he was educated there and at Sydney Grammar School. He then entered St Andrew's College in the University of Sydney, and graduated in 1915. After a period of resident appointments at the Royal Prin

Percival Templeton Crymble was born on 21 March 1880 and graduated at the Royal University of Ireland in 1904. After acting as demonstrator of anatomy in Belfast he took his Fellowship in 1908 and then studied in London and Vienna. When he returned to Ireland in 1910 he was appointed assistant surge

Hughlings Jackson, a distant cousin of the great neurologist, was born on 3 October 1912, the youngest of the five children of William Herbert Jackson, a former master mariner who owned a stevedoring business in London and later worked for the Mission to Seamen. His mother was Beatrice née Walker. F