Little information is available about John Oliver. After graduating at Trinity College, Dublin, and postgraduate work at the Middlesex Hospital, he was appointed assistant surgeon at the Hospital for Diseases of the Throat, Golden Square; surgeon to Saffron Walden Hospital, and surgeon and aural spe

'Zammy' or 'Zam' as he was known to colleagues and friends was born in Colombia, South America, on 13 January 1887 and came to school in England, to Tonbridge and to Cambridge University. His subsequent medical education was at Guy's Hospital, London, where he qualified in 1912. To his disgust when