Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Mountaineer

First Title value, for Searching Teichelmann, Ebenezer (1859 - 1939)

2024-05-08T17:20:54Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-11-20
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Occupation General surgeon Medical Officer Mountaineer
Details Born in South Australia in 1859 he was educated at Hahndorf College and graduated from the University of Adelaide. He then came to England, entered Queen's College, Birmingham, and acted as demonstrator of physiology at Mason's Science College in that city. After taking out postgraduate courses in Dublin and at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, he was appointed assistant physician and resident pathologist at the Birmingham General Hospital, assistant surgeon at the Jaffray Hospital, Birmingham, and resident medical officer to the Birmingham Workhouse. Returning to South Australia, he acted as health officer at Port Adelaide, 1895-97. He then settled in general practice at Hamilton Street, Hokitika, on the west coast of the South Island, New Zealand, and was surgical superintendent at the Westland County Hospital, 1897-1914. He served with the New Zealand Medical Corps 1914-17, and was torpedoed in the troopship *Marquette* in the Ægean Sea. He went back to Hokitika after the war, and died there sometime before February 1939. Teichelmann was a mountaineer. He was elected a member of the London Alpine Club in 1903, was president of the New Zealand Alpine Club in 1936-37, and Mount Teichelmann is named after him. Publications: Case of peritonitis after parturition. *Lancet*, 1891, 2, 1276. Notes of case of gonorrhoeal salpingitis. *Austral med Gaz* 1892, 11, 259. Notes of a case of (?) ectopic gestation. *Intercolon quart J Med Surg*, Melbourne, 1895, 2, 151.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004668
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First Title value, for Searching Hoyte, Frank Christopher (1926 - 1958)

2024-05-08T17:20:54Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-03-03
Unknown
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377248377248
Occupation General surgeon Mountaineer
Details Born on 28 May 1926 in the Belgian Congo where his father Henry Julyan Hoyte MB BS was a medical missionary, he was educated at Sakeji School, Northern Rhodesia, Monckton Combe School, Somerset, King's College, London, and the Westminster Hospital, where his father and uncle had been students and where two of his sisters were nurses. He won the Hanbury prize and the Frederick Bird medal in 1949, and was vice-captain of the Rugby football club 1947-8. After serving as house surgeon at the Westminster and the Royal Northern hospitals, he performed his compulsory military service as a medical officer in the Royal Air Force. He was posted to Southern Rhodesia and made several expeditions into the wild country. On coming back to civil work in London he was house surgeon at Great Ormond Street and then registrar to Sir Clement Price Thomas at Westminster Hospital. After a year as resident surgical officer at Brompton Hospital, he was appointed thoracic surgical registrar at the Rathbone Hospital, Liverpool. Hoyte was a man of abounding energy and spirit, fond of acting and athletic games, travel and mountaineering, but withal religious, musical, and interested in the science as well as the practice of surgery. He had already climbed much in North Wales, the Alps, and Corsica, when he joined an expedition to Kashmir in 1958. He undertook for the Medical Research Council the search for the occurrence of abnormal haemoglobins among the inhabitants of Sind, and reported the first example of the sickle-cell trait found in West Pakistan. He had promised to extend his search among the Hunza race in north Kashmir, but was lost on Mount Minapin on 7 July 1958 aged 32. He was last seen with his leader Edward Warr on an ice-ridge only 300 ft from the summit; mist came down and the two men never reappeared. He was survived by his parents. Publication: Afferent loop strangulation after partial gastrectomy, with W H W Jayne and W K Pallister. *Lancet* 1957, 1, 193.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005065
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First Title value, for Searching Dawson, James (1898 - 1987)

2024-05-08T17:20:54Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-08
Unknown
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URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379396379396
Occupation General surgeon Mountaineer
Details James Dawson was born at Kilsyth, Glasgow, on 2 August 1898. No details of his early education are available, but after his first year as a medical student at Glasgow he volunteered for the Army. Having been in the Officer's Training Corps he was commissioned into the Lancashire Regiment and was in France by about the time of his 18th birthday. Thenceforward he was on active service on the western front until the end of the war. During that time he was awarded the Military Cross, with the later addition of a bar, and was demobilised with the rank of Captain. He then returned to his studies in Glasgow and graduated in 1922. After various resident appointments he was resident surgical officer at the Bradford Royal Infirmary from 1929 to 1932 when he became the first resident medical superintendent to St Luke's Hospital, Halifax. Reputedly not over-keen on medical administration he gradually developed St Luke's, working on the lines of the then voluntary hospitals, and built up a good relationship with the General Infirmary at Leeds which then appointed a part-time physician and a part-time surgeon from its staff. In 1934 Dawson returned to the Bradford Royal Infirmary as honorary assistant surgeon and shortly after also became honorary surgeon to Bradford Children's Hospital. In 1942, when he was 44, he again volunteered for army service and became a surgical specialist in the RAMC, serving in North Africa and India before demobilisation with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. In 1946 he became honorary surgeon to the Bradford Royal Infirmary and consultant surgeon to St Luke's Hospital, Bradford, while continuing to work at the Children's Hospital. He also built up a considerable private practice and, shortly before retirement from his hospitals, he was appointed to the medical appeals tribunal in Leeds until 1970. James Dawson had a life-long interest in mountaineering, dating from the late 1920s. In the early '30s he became a member of the Alpine Club and later, of the Swiss Alpine Club. He undertook many original and dangerous climbs in the Alps. At home, as a member of the Gritstone Club, of which he was later vice-president, he taught many younger men the skills of rock-climbing. Although he stopped rock-climbing after his retirement, within a few years he had climbed all the Munros in Scotland - hills over 3000 feet (564 in all). He then climbed all the equivalent hills in England, Ireland and Wales. At the age of 73, and again at 75, he travelled to Nepal and went with a climbing party to the 19000 feet base camp of Mount Everest, which meant walking for 31 days. At the age of 82 he did the circuit of the three peaks in Yorkshire. He remained a bachelor and was aged 88 when he died on 6 February 1987.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007213
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First Title value, for Searching Kirkman, Noel Fereday (1911 - 1995)

2024-05-08T17:20:54Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-15
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Occupation General surgeon Mountaineer
Details Noel Kirkman was born in Boothroydon, near Blackpool, on 11 March 1911, the son of William Harold Kirkman, the owner of a small wrought iron works, and Lavinia, née Fereday, one of whose ancestors was Samuel Day Fereday, a general surgeon in Dudley, Worcestershire (1800-1874). He was educated at Wesbourne House School, Baines's Grammar School in Poulton-le-Fylde, Lancashire, and Manchester University Medical School, where he won the clinical prize as well as the BMA clinical prize in 1934. He was house surgeon and house physician at Manchester Royal Infirmary, and later house surgeon at Ancoats Hospital to Peter McEvedy, who stimulated his interest in surgery, but he was also much influenced by James MacAlpine, H T Cox and Alan Nicholson. He became a lecturer in applied anatomy and was later resident surgical officer at Salford Royal Hospital. He joined the RAF in 1942 and served until 1946, reaching the rank of squadron leader. Later he held appointments at University College London , the Research and Education Hospital, University of Illinois, Chicago, and Guy's Hospital. He was appointed consultant surgeon to the Withington Hospital and the Duchess of York Hospital, Manchester from 1955 to 1976. He was President of the Section of Surgery of Manchester Medical Society in 1944 and Chairman of the Northwest Section of Surgeons. With a life-long interest in mountaineering, he became one of the leading figures in the post-war development of the Mountain Rescue Service in Britain, having been invited to join the Mountain Rescue Committee by Wilson Hey. During the period from 1950 to 1985 he converted this informal committee into a charitable trust, and developed it into a countrywide organisation, of which he was to become chairman from 1972 until 1985. During this time he organised and coordinated the services of the various official Mountain Rescue Teams in England and Wales, and negotiated with official and Government bodies such as the Sports Council. He married first in 1958 Patricia Mary, née Billington, by whom he had a daughter, Julia Ruth, and a son, William Robert, a ski guide for the Ski Club of Great Britain. Patricia died in 1980 and he married Marian Mary Kerr, a widow, in 1986. His great interests were climbing and organising the Mountain Rescue Service, for which he was awarded the OBE in 1989. He was also a water colourist of distinction and a member of the RSWA. He died following a stroke on 13 November 1995.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008130
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First Title value, for Searching Hey, Wilson Harold (1882 - 1956)

2024-05-08T17:20:54Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-02-26
Unknown
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Occupation General surgeon Mountaineer Radiologist
Details Born on 1 September 1882, son of Thomas Hey JP of Colne and his wife Martha Jane Tatham, whose father was a solicitor there, Wilson Hey was educated at Burnley Grammar School and the University of Manchester, winning scholarships and prizes. He took his clinical training at the London Hospital, and qualified in 1905. At the Royal Infirmary, Manchester he served as house surgeon and resident surgical officer, and was awarded the Tom Jones memorial fellowship. He was elected to the honorary staff early in 1914, but on the outbreak of war joined the RAMC and served as a surgical specialist in France, reaching the rank of Major. After the war he resumed his practice in Manchester, joined the Royal Infirmary again, and was appointed to the Staff of Ancoats, the Christie, and the Children's Hospitals, and the Hartley Hospital, Colne. He was a pioneer in using radium for treatment of cancer, and later devised an operation for prostatectomy which was widely accepted. He was a good teacher, enlivening his lectures with anecdotes. He lectured on clinical surgery at Manchester University and examined at Cambridge. He was the first president of the Manchester Medical Society when it was reconstituted in 1950 by the amalgamation of five societies, having already been president of the old Medical Society and of the Surgical and Pathological Societies. Wilson Hey was a skilled mountaineer; he served on the Council of the Alpine Club, and was founder and president of the Manchester University Mountaineering Club. As chairman of the Mountain Rescue Committee he organised rescue equipment posts, wherever rock climbing is practised in Great Britain. He insisted that morphine be kept at each post, in case of painful injury, but the Home Office refused permission for the drug to be available without control. Hey deliberately flouted their orders, and was summoned in 1949 for failing to notify the inspector about his stock of morphine. He was fined £10 but gained the necessary publicity to extort an agreed arrangement from the authorities. Hey married in 1916 Elsie Brown (MB ChB Manchester 1909), who survived him with two sons and two daughters, one a doctor. He died at his country house, Fernilee Hall, Whaley Bridge, near Stockport, on Sunday 15 January 1956, aged 73. He had practised at 16 St John Street, Manchester. He was of strong and cheerful personality with a quiet manner. Publications: Early closure of gunshot wounds. *Brit med J* 1917, 2, 445. Benign enlargement of the prostate. *Trans Med Soc Lond* 1943/46, 64, 271. Asepsis in prostatectomy. *Brit J Surg* 1945, 33, 41. The catheter and the prostate. *Brit med J* 1946, 1, 757, and correspondence at p 997 and 2, 241 and 624. Prostatectomy, in H P Winsbury White's *Textbook of genito-urinary surgery*, Edinburgh 1948, pp 477-481, and Cancer of the prostate, in the same, pp 522-525.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005049
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First Title value, for Searching Ward, Michael Phelps (1925 - 2005)

2024-05-08T17:20:54Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-02-01
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
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Occupation General surgeon Mountaineer
Details Mike Ward, a pioneering climber and expert on altitude medicine and physiology, and a member of the 1953 expedition team which made the first ascent of Everest, was a consultant surgeon in London’s East End. He was born in London on 26 March 1925, the son of Wilfred Arthur Ward, a civil servant in Malaya, and Norah Anne Phelps, a former nurse. He was educated at Marlborough, where his housemaster was a veteran of two Everest expeditions, and went on to win the Ironmonger’s Company exhibition to read medicine at Peterhouse, Cambridge. There he climbed with the university club in France and sustained a fractured skull. He completed his clinical training at the London Hospital and, after house jobs, did his National Service in the RAMC, during which time he was able to study aerial photographs taken by the RAF of the south face of Mount Everest and plan a new route to the summit through the treacherous ice cliffs of the Khumbu glacier. He took his ideas to the Himalayan committee of the Alpine Club and the Royal Geographical Society, who backed his scheme, and so launched the 1951 expedition, which paved the way for the successful 1953 ascent. After the Everest expedition, Ward joined in the ensuing lecture tour, but did not care for its razzmatazz, and returned to train as a surgeon, as a registrar at the London, passed the FRCS, experienced the misery of thoracic surgery under Vernon Thompson, and the exhilaration of Hal Morton’s exchange residency at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, and was finally appointed consultant surgeon to two East London hospitals, Poplar and St Andrew’s, Bow. There he gave a first rate service to his poor patients, eschewed private practice, and carried on a mostly successful campaign against the administrators who got in the way of his work. Whenever he could he went off to take part in mountaineering expeditions in the Himalayas and Pamirs, carried out important research into high altitude physiology, and wrote many papers and the classic textbook *High altitude medicine and physiology* (London, Chapman and Hall Medical, 1989), which ran to three editions. For this work he was widely honoured, receiving the Cuthbert Peek award and the Founder’s gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society, and the Cullum medal of the American Geographical Society. He was president of the Cambridge Alpine Club, vice-president of the Alpine Club and master of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. Superbly fit and lean, Mike Ward was not always easy to get to know: seemingly aloof, if not sardonic, he was always gentle and kind to his patients, continuing as his own locum after he retired. He married Felicity Jane Ewbank in 1957, by whom he had one son, Mark William. In 2002 he suffered a dislocation of the neck in a collision, which was successfully operated upon. Then, to much surprise, this superb athlete was found to have a cardiac valvular defect. He died as the result of an aortic aneurysm on 7 October 2005.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000325
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First Title value, for Searching Stewart, Richard John (1942 - 1991)

2024-05-08T17:20:54Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-02
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008300-E008399
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Occupation General surgeon Mountaineer
Details Richard Stewart's career reminds us that in spite of all the advances in medical science the lives of the most dedicated doctors can still be cut short by disabling disease. He was born in Invercargill, New Zealand, on 17 November 1942, the son of Dr Lindsay Rutherford Stewart, a general practitioner-surgeon and his wife, Hilary Stanford, née Hyndman. He was educated locally and then at Otago Medical School where he qualified in 1965. His inclinations were surgical and he came to England in 1968, taking posts at the Royal Marsden and the Gordon Hospitals. He passed the FRCS in 1970 and went on to become senior registrar with Professor Harold Ellis at Westminster and with Mr Pendower at Charing Cross. He returned to New Zealand in 1974 and was appointed senior lecturer at the Christchurch Medical School and consultant surgeon to the Hospital. He soon acquired the FRACS and the ChM. In 1980 he moved to the Wellington School of Medicine where he became Associate Professor and had important opportunities for research. He was particularly interested in fine needle aspiration of the acute abdomen and he won the Jacksonian Prize of the College for an essay on this subject. He was the New Zealand delegate to the World Association of Hepatic, Pancreatic and Biliary Surgeons. In addition to his researches he was a tireless worker for the Royal Australasian College. As Chairman of the New Zealand Committee he had the critical task of assessing surgical standards at the smaller hospitals and he was honoured by presentation of the College medal as an acknowledgement of his services. His research interests were wide-ranging and not always the most fashionable, as witnessed by his concern for the morbidly obese. His final publication, the definitive chapter on the acute abdomen for *Baillière's clinical gastroenterology* was completed two weeks before his death and published posthumously. As a young man he was introduced to mountaineering by his father and with three friends made the first ascent of the South Face of Mount Cook. After this he was invited by Sir Edmund Hillary to join the Himalayan Schoolhouse Expedition in 1964. The group constructed two schools, two bridges and an airstrip at Lukla. A party of four, including Richard, made the first ascent of the 21,370 ft mountain Thamserku. Writing to Richard in December 1990 Sir Edmund reminisced 'it was a great effort and in fact one of our most successful expeditions, with its combination of climbing and an extensive building programme'. While still a student he married Christine Mora on 19 September 1964 and by her had a daughter, Polly, and a son, James. Tragically Richard suffered from motor neurone disease, the progress of which compelled him to give up surgery in 1989. He continued to work as Associate Postgraduate Dean and embarked on a degree course in philosophy but he died of his disease on 1 January 1991.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008331
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First Title value, for Searching Somervell, Theodore Howard (1890 - 1975)

2024-05-08T17:20:54Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006900-E006999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379146379146
Occupation General surgeon Mountaineer
Details Francis Younghusband (1938) summarised this life as follows: 'Somervell is no mean mountaineer: he is one of five who have reached the 28,000 feet level. He is no mean painter: his picture of Everest adorns the walls of the Royal Geographical Society's House. He is no mean musician: he has transcribed Tibetan songs and played them in England. He is no mean surgeon: he served as a surgeon in the Great War. He is no mean lover of men: he has given up a lucrative practice and devoted his life to alleviating the bodily sufferings of Indians and putting new spirit into them.' This adventurous spirit in a man began in the Lake District. Howard Somervell was born on 16 April 1890, the eldest child of William, a well-known footwear manufacturer in Kendal, and his wife Florence (Howard). The Lake District instilled in him an enthusiasm for hill walking and his mother inspired him by her love of music. It was a passion which impelled him to break bounds at Rugby and later, when on holiday in Rye, Sussex, to bicycle repeatedly to the Queen's Hall, London, to hear Beethoven at the Promenade concerts, each time a round distance of 130 miles! He was head of science at school and showed considerable ability on the rugger field. He went to Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he took a double first class honours in the Natural Science Tripos. It was here that he began as a lay preacher. He already showed promise on Swiss and British mountains while he completed his medical years at University College Hospital, London. When war broke out he enlisted immediately, serving as a Captain 1914-1919. He found himself in a Casualty Clearing Station in France and experienced the carnage of the battle of the Somme, July 1916. For two days the procession of nearly 10,000 wounded, streams of motor ambulances a mile long, a field of 5 to 6 acres covered with stretchers made a lasting impression on him. He was mentioned in despatches. In 1919-20 he was trained as an orthopaedic specialist in Liverpool under Sir Robert Jones and then returned to UCH to become Wilfred Trotter's house surgeon, registrar and assistant. Somervell's ability as a mountaineer lay in his immense strength (he once climbed 32 Alpine peaks in a six weeks' holiday) and poise, and he thought of mountaineering as the essence of all the arts he practised. In 1922, General Bruce chose him to be a member of the Everest expedition and two years later, of the 1924 attempt. It was in the 1924 expedition that Somervell earned fame for his courageous rescue of four Sherpa porters marooned on the North Col. The anxious men had to be persuaded to cross a steep slope of snow above a great crevasse. Somervell climbed obliquely up the slope, secured on the rope by Norton and Mallory. Twenty feet from the top, the rope gave out. Somervell untied, went on unsecured and grabbed each porter in turn, bringing him to safety. On 2 June, 1924, Somervell and Norton began their assault up the north face reaching 28,000 feet, 'a couple of crocks' (Somervell afterward wrote) 'slowly and breathlessly struggling up, with frequent rests and a lot of puffing and blowing and coughing. Most of the coughing and probably most of the delay, came from me'. Half a mile from the summit Somervell's throat became so painful and obstructed that he was obliged to stop. Indeed he felt he was going to die and with one almighty shove with his arms around his chest he expelled a bloody slough of mucous membrane (predating the Heinlich manoeuver by some 50 years). Norton was left to continue for a short distance until he too was defeated. The two had a terrible descent, with Norton half snowblind. On the expeditions Somervell executed some fine paintings and in between the two composed music for the film *Everest*. It was also after the first expedition that he volunteered to be a surgeon in the London Missionary Society's Neyyoor hospitals. He was appalled by the physical suffering and misery in rural India and his simple Christian faith and the need of India's people turned him from his contemplated career as a London consultant at UCH. The growth of the Neyyoor Medical Mission was a monument to his leadership, both in surgery and organisation. He and his colleagues dealt with 200,000 cases a year performing more than 15,000 operations. In Southern India, where gastroduodenal ulceration was so prevalent, he became a real master in the field of abdominal surgery. He became noted for a particular operation in the treatment of haematemesis and with the prevalence of broken spines and multiple fractures from falls from toddy palm trees he became an outstanding orthopaedic surgeon. Somervell retired from his medical missionary service in 1949 and was greatly in demand as a speaker to university students. He was President of the Alpine Club from 1961 to 1964. He was appointed OBE in 1953. In 1925 he married Margaret Hope Simpson, daughter of Sir James Hope Simpson, a Liverpool banker. Together they formed a great team for the work in the medical mission field working at Neyyoor until 1949 and thereafter at Vellore until 1961. They had three sons, two of whom became medical missionaries in South India before returning to the UK, one as consultant surgeon, the other as general practitioner. Somervell died at Ambleside, on 23 January 1975, aged 84 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006963
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First Title value, for Searching Evans, Sir Charles Robert (1918 - 1995)

2024-05-08T17:20:54Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-07
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007900-E007999
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Occupation General surgeon Mountaineer Neurosurgeon
Details Charles Evans was born in Liverpool on 19 October 1918, the only child of Robert Charles Evans, a solicitor, and his wife Edith, née Lloyd Williams, a farmer's daughter. He was brought up largely by his mother in North Wales as his father was unfortunately killed in the closing stages of the first world war, and did not learn to speak English until he was six years old. Three of his uncles and four of his cousins were also members of the medical profession. Evans was educated initially at Rhewl then at Kingsland Grange preparatory school, whence he obtained a scholarship to Shrewsbury Public School. Subsequently he entered University College Oxford as a Kitchener scholar and after gaining his BA in 1936 commenced his clinical studies at the Radcliffe Infirmary, where he was impressed by the teachings of Sir Hugh Cairns and Joe Pennybacker in the neurosurgical department. He qualified BM BCh in 1942 and after a period as house physician in the Nuffield Professorial Unit returned to Liverpool as house surgeon to the Northern Hospital. Evans served in the RAMC from 1943 to 1946 mainly in South East Asia as a regimental medical officer in the 20th Indian Division and was mentioned in despatches. Almost since childhood he had evinced an interest in the hills and mountains and by the time he went up to Oxford in 1939 had already climbed extensively in Wales, Ireland and Scotland and experienced his first Alpine season. He was thus at an early age a talented and courageous rock climber and sustained a severe fracture of the skull during an attempt to rescue a fellow climber in Tryfan in 1942. Whilst in India he learnt Hindi, visited the Himalayas and climbed Mount Kinabulu in Borneo. Following his return to the UK Evans recommenced his training by becoming surgical registrar at the Royal Southern Hospital in Liverpool, where he was especially influenced by the teaching of J B Oldham, a well-known Liverpool surgeon. Evans gained his FRCS in 1949, and, having decided on a career in neurosurgery, was appointed senior registrar to the neurosurgical centre in Liverpool. His professional competence must have been highly regarded as it was said that he subsequently spent as much time in Nepal as he did in the operating theatres of Merseyside. Nevertheless he became a Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1953. Evans' first Himalayan expedition was with H W Tilman to Annapurna in 1950, and although he reached an altitude of 24,000 feet the attempt failed because of bad weather; similar fates befell attempts at Kulu in 1951 and Cho Oyu with Eric Shipton in 1952. This latter expedition was regarded as preliminary training for the projected attempt on Everest in 1953 for which Shipton had already been appointed leader, with Evans as his deputy leader. However, Shipton was subsequently deposed by what Evans considered unworthy tactics and therefore tendered his resignation but was persuaded by both Shipton and the new leader, Sir John Hunt, to withdraw it, which he consented to do. With Tom Bourdillon, Evans reached the South Peak of Everest on 26 May 1953, at 28,750 feet the highest summit ever attained but they were forced to turn back because of failure of the oxygen supply. It is probable that this frozen valve prevented Evans and Bourdillon from making the first successful ascent of Mount Everest. Their altitude record was surpassed three days later when the main summit, 300 feet higher, was reached by Hillary and Tenzing on 29 May. Despite this disappointment Evans' reputation among the climbing community remained paramount and his qualities of integrity, persistence and dedication to the task in hand coupled with outstanding leadership were universally recognised. These were all very evident during his subsequent successful climbs in Nepal, including the supposed reconnaissance of the world's third highest peak, Kanchenjunga, in 1955, a climb generally recognised to be more difficult that Everest. The reconnaissance in fact resulted in a successful ascent of the mountain but, as was typical of him, Evans had given strict instructions that the last five feet should not be climbed since the peak was regarded as holy ground and he had promised the ruler of Sikkim that it would not be violated. He was associated with other Himalayan expeditions between 1951 and 1957 but as a result his professional career progress had been seriously impaired so Evans decided to abandon neurosurgery and returned for a short period to general surgery. In 1957 he married Denise Morin, also a very accomplished climber, but their climbing partnership was tragically short because Evans developed multiple sclerosis which deteriorated so rapidly that within five years he was confined to a wheelchair. In 1958 he gave up surgery completely, having decided to follow an administrative career for which his talents were well suited and he was appointed Principal of the University College of North Wales in Bangor. This was a great success and under his stewardship the College's size increased threefold, and established an international reputation in the fields of oceanography, marine biology, electronics and forestry. Evans was awarded the Founder's medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1955, an honorary DSc of the University of Wales in 1956 and was knighted for his services in 1969. He was president of the Alpine Club from 1967 to 1970 and published several articles and books describing his experiences, including *Eye on Everest* in 1955 and *Kanchenjunga - the untrodden peak* in 1956. Despite progressive disabilities due to his illness, he bore these affronts with patience and forbearance. One of his biographers said of him 'the dignity of his acceptance and the calm depth and recall of his mind with the animation of his face, even when every limb had ceased to function, alerted you to the presence of wisdom and made you glad for once to be part of the human race'. There can be few, if any, better eulogies than that. Charles Evans died on 5 December 1995, aged 77.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007924
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First Title value, for Searching Dent, Clinton Thomas (1850 - 1912)

2024-05-08T17:20:54Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-09-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001400-E001499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373597373597
Occupation General surgeon Mountaineer
Details Born at Sandgate, Kent, on Dec 7th, 1850, the eighth child and fifth son of Thomas Dent. He was educated at Eton (1863-1869) and at Trinity College, Cambridge (1869-1873), where he took a 'poll' degree in 1873. He was made Magister Chirurgiae in 1899 in recognition of his eminence as a surgeon; he had long been an Examiner in Surgery at the University. He entered the Medical School of St George's Hospital in 1872 at the age of 21, and in 1876 was House Surgeon. Between 1877 and 1897 he held the teaching appointments of Demonstrator of Anatomy, Surgical Registrar, Joint Lecturer in Physiology, Lecturer in Practical Surgery, and Demonstrator of Operative Surgery. He was elected Assistant Surgeon in 1880, and in 1895 became full Surgeon. At the time of his death he was Senior Surgeon and Chairman of the Medical School Committee. For many years he was Surgeon to the Belgrave Hospital for Children, which owed much to his constant guidance and to his generosity. In 1904 he became Chief Surgeon to the Metropolitan Police. Ample private means, which sometimes interfere with professional activity, had no such paralysing influence on Dent, and merely enabled him to concentrate his energies on worthy objects. He was active in the life of the London Medical Societies, serving as Secretary to the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society from 1901-1904, and at the time of his death President of the Surgical Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He read valuable papers between 1890 and 1903 before the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and in 1908 delivered the Annual Oration before the Medical Society of London, of which he was Secretary and Vice-President. At the Royal College of Surgeons his record was one of great distinction. He was Hunterian Professor in 1905, a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1902-1911, Member of the Council from 1903 to the time of his death, and Senior Vice-President in 1912. In 1899 Dent went out to the South African War on his own initiative and acted as Correspondent to the *British Medical Journal*. On his return he delivered an address before the Royal Medico-Chirurgical Society on "The Wounded in the Transvaal War". As a surgeon he was conscientious, careful, and at times, especially in the face of unexpected difficulties, extremely brilliant. He was not inclined to operate unless he was convinced of the need and that benefit would result; and he was always anxious to make a diagnosis before rather than at the operation. Dent was widely acquainted with various forms of athletics, and as an Alpine climber had so long been famous that the world at large thought of him in this, rather than in his professional, capacity. He made the first ascent of the Aiguille du Dru after eighteen unsuccessful attempts, the first ascent of the Rothorn from Zermatt, and of other Alpine peaks, but his greatest achievements were in the Caucasus, where he not only climbed the peaks, but explored the range. He undertook in 1889 the sad duty of searching for the bodies of W Donkin and H Fox, who were killed on Koshtantan in 1888; he had gone out with them and would have shared their fate had it not been that he was prostrated by illness. He joined the Alpine Club in 1872, was elected to the Committee in 1874, was Secretary from 1878-1880, Vice-President in 1884, and President in 1887. Dent was also the first President of the Association of British Members of the Swiss Alpine Club. He was an expert photographer, and often exhibited the fine effects which he had obtained in the Alps and Caucasus, especially at the Graphic Society of St George's Hospital, of which he was at one time President. He had an extensive collection of photographs of patients, and in 1911 gave a cinematograph demonstration of gastric peristalsis in hypertrophic stenosis of the pylorus before the Section for Diseases of Children of the Royal Society of Medicine. He lectured in a manner peculiar to himself, but stimulating to thoughtful hearers, especially at St George's. In 1895 he gave a Friday evening lecture at the Royal Institution "On the Influence of Science on Mountaineering". Two juvenile lectures on "How Mountains are Made and Destroyed" were delivered before the Society of Arts in 1897. As a colleague, Dent showed many fine qualities. At St George's he has been described as a staunch and generous friend of the School, a wise leader, an excellent chairman of committees, sound in judgement, weighty in counsel. He read voluminously, and what he read he digested. He spoke rapidly, as 'a very full man', to quote Dr Johnson's phrase, and shone at his dinner parties, where he displayed conversational command of many subjects. He was an art collector, a connoisseur in old plate, furniture, embroidery, etc. In early life he was fond of amateur acting, wrote a number of farces, and adapted Pailleron's *Étincelle* under the title of *Fruit and Blossom*. He was a member of many social clubs and was on the executive committee of the Athenaeum. His death was little expected by his many friends, who saw him in his usual health at the beginning of his summer holiday in 1912. He died unmarried on August 26th, 1912, of septic poisoning originating in pyorrhoea, after an illness lasting little more than a fortnight. He was buried at Kensal Green, the coffin being carried by members of the Metropolitan Police Force, hundreds of constables following. Interesting portraits accompany his biographies in the *Lancet*, *British Medical Journal*, and the *St George's Hospital Gazette*, 1902 and 1912. In the *St George's Hospital Gazette* for 1912 "L S" contributes a verse, "Ave atque Vale". In the *Lancet* and *British Medical Journal* are several eulogies, containing much valuable detail, from colleagues and friends. The following tribute was circulated throughout the Metropolitan Police District the day after his death: "It is with deep regret that the Commissioner acquaints the Force of the death of the Chief Surgeon. A singularly able man, he devoted to the Metropolitan Police Force, from the time of his appointment in 1904, his whole-hearted efforts. The Police Medical Service has been greatly improved under his care and guidance, and those who have been brought in touch with him by sickness will long remember the personal and kindly interest he took in every case. The Commissioner feels that he has lost an able and fearless counsellor in all medical questions affecting the well-being of the Force." He left estate to the net value of £116,263, and directed that a sum of £1500 should be offered to the Belgrave Hospital. His address was 61 Brook Street, W. Publications: *Insanity following Surgical Operations*, 8vo, Lewes, 1889. "Four Hundred Cases of Amputation" (with W C Bull.) - *Med.-Chir. Trans.*, 1890, lxxiii, 359. "The Behaviour of a Tendon Ligature" (with S DELÉPINE) - *Ibid*, 1891, lxxiv, 369. "Amputation of the Entire Upper Extremity for Recurrent Carcinoma." - *Ibid.*, 1898, lxxxi, 221. "The Wounded in the Transvaal War." - *Ibid*, 1900, lxxxiii, 297. "Congenital Hypertrophic Stenosis of the Pylorus and its Treatment by Pyloroplasty" (with E CAUTLEY) - *Ibid.*, 1903, lxxxvi, 471. "The After-results of Injuries." - Annual Oration, Medical Society, 1908. *Med. Soc. Trans.*, 1908. In this he embodied experience he derived from work among the police in connection with the difficult subject of 'traumatic neurasthenia'. "*John Hunter leaves St George's Hospital, Oct 16th, 1793." An Explanatory Notice of the Picture bearing this Title, painted by A D McCormick, RBA*, portrait of Hunter with Dog, 8vo, London, 1901. The picture was in the Royal Academy Exhibition. "Henry Gray," with portrait and facsimile of a letter by Sir Benjamin Brodie, 8vo, London, 1908; reprinted from *St George's Hosp. Gaz.*, 1908, xvi, 49. "The Nature and Significance of Pain," 1887; reprint of the Introductory Address St George's Hospital; delivered without a note. He translated and edited Billroth's *Clinical Surgery* for the New Sydenham Society, 1881. "Ankylosis," "Ligatures," etc. (jointly), in Heath's *Dictionary of Practical Surgery*. "Traumatism and Insanity" in Tuke's *Dictionary of Psychological Medicine*, 1892, ii. "Insanity and Surgical Operations" in Allbutt's *System of Medicine*. "The Surgery of the Heart" in Musser and Kelly's *System of Treatment*, 1911. "Intestinal Obstruction" in Latham and Kelly's *System of Treatment*, 1912, ii. "The Development of London Hospitals during the Nineteenth Century." - *Lancet*, 1898, ii, 1381. *Above the Snow Line*, 8vo, London, 1885. He edited and wrote a large part of *Mountaineering*, Badminton Series, 1892, 3rd ed, 1900, and contributed many articles in the *Alpine Journal*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001414
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset