Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Naturalist

First Title value, for Searching Bynoe, Benjamin (1803 - 1865)

2024-05-02T08:33:03Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2010-11-11 2018-07-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373282373282
Occupation Botanist General surgeon Naturalist Naval surgeon
Details Entered the Royal Navy and retired with the rank of Staff Surgeon. He died at Old Kent Road, SE, on November 15th, 1865. See below for an expanded version of the published obituary uploaded 4 July 2018: Benjamin Bynoe was a Royal Navy surgeon, botanist and naturalist who served aboard the *Beagle* during Charles Darwin's epic five-year voyage. He was born in Barbados on 25 July 1803, the son of Samuel and Elizabeth Bynoe, and was baptised on 26 December 1803 at Christ Church, Barbados. There are no records of his medical education, but on 20 May 1825 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and on 26 September 1825 joined the Royal Navy as an assistant surgeon. He joined the maiden voyage of HMS *Beagle*, tasked with surveying the coasts of South America south of the Rio Plata. In July 1828, the ship's surgeon Evan Brown was invalided home and Bynoe was made acting surgeon in his place. The *Beagle* surveyed Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego and the channels adjoining the Straits of Magellan and the island of Chiloe. During the voyage, Bynoe collected geological and other specimens, and two landmarks were named after him - Cape Bynoe and Bynoe Island. By October 1830 the *Beagle* had returned to England and Bynoe was living on half-pay in the New Kent Road area, London. He studied through the winter and on 5 July 1831 passed his examination as a surgeon in the Royal Navy, but promotion was slow, and two days later he rejoined the *Beagle* with the rank of assistant surgeon, serving under the surgeon Robert McCormick. Also on board was Charles Darwin, then just 22, a guest of the captain, Robert FitzRoy. The rest of the year 1831 was spent preparing the ship for the voyage; Bynoe made sure the medical supplies included foods to prevent scurvy, including 'pickles, dried apples, and lemon juice - of the best quality'. On 27 December 1831, the *Beagle* set sail and passed via the Canaries to the Cape Verde Islands. Towards the end of April 1832, McCormick invalided himself home, disgruntled that Darwin had in effect been made the ship's naturalist, a role he assumed, as surgeon, was his own. Bynoe was made acting surgeon, in which role he continued for the rest of the long voyage. The ship sailed across the Atlantic and then coasted South America, visiting Bahia, Rio, Monte Video, Buenos Aires, Bahia Blanca and Teirra del Feugo. Bynoe found himself dealing with unknown fevers among the crew (probably yellow fever), together with the more familiar pulmonary tuberculosis. In the autumn of 1834, the *Beagle* had reached Valparaiso, Chile. After visiting Santiago and the Andes, Darwin became ill at the end of September; Bynoe attended him ashore for a month while the ship was being repaired and restocked with supplies. After further cruises off the Chilean coast, they reached Callao, the port of Lima, Peru, then headed to the Galapagos Islands, where Darwin made the observations which led to his theory of natural selection. For nine days Bynoe and Darwin were ashore with just three seamen with them, studying the rocks, lizards, tortoises and vegetation. The *Beagle* then sailed west to Polynesia, Tahiti and New Zealand, before heading home via Sydney, Keeling Island, Mauritius, the Cape, St Helena, Brazil and then the Azores and home, setting anchor at Falmouth on 2 October 1836. Once again, Bynoe returned to London on half-pay. In December 1836, he married Charlotte Ollard and in the same month, after many years as an acting surgeon he was, on the recommendation of FitzRoy, officially confirmed in his post as surgeon. He rejoined the *Beagle*, this time commissioned to survey Australian waters. The ship left Plymouth in July 1837. After investigating western Australia, the *Beagle* continued eastwards, visiting Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), Sydney and the Great Barrier Reef. They then turned south, to the Adelaide River and then north to the Timor Sea, where a bay in what is now the Northern Territory was named Bynoe Harbour. In August 1841, the ship was in the Gulf of Carpentaria in northern Australia, when one of the officers, Fitzmaurice, who was surveying onshore, was accidentally shot in the foot by a musket. Bynoe attended the injured man and saved his foot; the river Fitzmaurice had been investigating was named Bynoe River in his honour. During the voyage, Bynoe collected numerous specimens and wrote several papers, including one on marsupial gestation and on geological formations in Queensland. The ship eventually sailed back to England via Mauritius and Cape Verde, arriving back in 1843. In February 1844, he was appointed surgeon superintendent of the convict ship *Blundell*, which was sailing to Norfolk Island with prisoners from Millbank prison. The journal he wrote during the first part of the journey has survived, listing the case he treated, including patients with diarrhoea, rheumatism, an injured finger (which required amputation) and a case of pulmonary tuberculosis. On 26 August 1844, Bynoe was made a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. Bynoe left the *Blundell* in April 1845. His next appointment was on the *Lord Auckland*, another convict ship, this time bound for Hobart, which left England in March 1846. With him was his long-suffering wife; the couple may have been planning to emigrate to New South Wales. But in July, the ship landed in Simon's Bay, in southern Africa, so Bynoe, who was ill with pneumonia, could be transferred to Cape Town Hospital. Once he recovered, the Bynoes boarded the *Maria Soames* and returned back to England in October 1846. His next appointment was to Ireland, then facing serious famine after the failure of successive potato crops. At the end of February 1847, he was directed to go to Cork 'to aid in carrying out measures for the relief of the Distressed Irish'. A relief centre was set up at Belmullet, which Bynoe joined in April, to help with outbreaks of typhus and dysentery. But the promised medical supplies were slow to arrive and Bynoe himself became sick with dysentery. By September his appointment had ended and in October he was back in London and on half-pay. He then had two short appointments, to the *Ocean* and the *Ganges*, and then in February 1848, joined the *Wellington*, where he remained for nearly three years. He was subsequently appointed to the *Monarch*, on which he served until March 1851. In November 1851, he was appointed to the *Aboukir*, another prison vessel taking convicts to Van Diemen's Land. His journal of the voyage survives and describes treating a prisoner for advanced tuberculosis (and carrying out a post mortem), treating catarrh, constipation and diarrhoea, and directing that the woodwork of the living quarters be washed down with the antiseptic chloride of zinc. On 22 March 1852 Bynoe arrived in Hobart, and a few weeks later sailed homeward. After almost a year on half-pay in London, in the autumn of 1853 he was appointed to the *Madagascar*, a receiving ship at Rio, where he spent almost six gruelling years, returning on the *Industry* in the spring of 1859. In the autumn of 1860, Bynoe was promoted to staff surgeon, but was not appointed to any further voyages and on 23 January 1863 was placed on the retired list by the Admiralty. Benjamin Bynoe died in the Old Kent Road, London on 13 November 1865 and was buried at Norwood Cemetery, Lambeth. Despite taking part in several important surveying voyages, aiding Darwin with his ground-breaking work and collecting a large number of specimens in his own right, his name had been largely forgotten. Even during his lifetime, he arguably failed to get the credit he was due; only one species (of acacia) was named after him - *Acacia bynoeana*. But, perhaps just as importantly, he was remembered as a kind and caring surgeon by his colleagues and crew: Robert FitzRoy, his long-standing captain on board the *Beagle*, noted movingly of the 'affectionate kindness of Mr Bynoe…which…will never be forgotten by any of his shipmates'. Sarah Gillam
Resource Identifier RCS: E001099
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Huxley, Thomas Henry (1825 - 1895)

2024-05-02T08:33:03Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-05-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002300-E002399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374497374497
Occupation General surgeon Naturalist
Details Born at Ealing on May 4th, 1825, the seventh surviving and youngest child of George Huxley and Rachel Withers. His father was senior assistant master in a private school of good standing kept by Dr Nicholas, of Wadham College, Oxford. The school numbered Cardinal Newman and his brother Francis William among 'old boys'. Huxley believed himself to be mentally and physically his mother's son, but deriving from his father some hot temper and tenacity of purpose. He had little systematic education until 1839, but two sisters having married doctors, one brother-in-law, Dr Cooke, of Coventry, excited his interest in anatomy, and the other, John Scott, in Camden Town, took him as apprentice in 1841 after he had served for a year with Thomas Chandler, the parish doctor at Rotherhithe. Somehow he got poisoned at the first post-mortem examination he attended, from which there started a lifelong dyspepsia. He matriculated in 1842, and having begun to learn German through Carlyle's books, he read about Schleiden's discoveries whilst attending Lindley's lectures on botany at Chelsea and gained a silver medal at the Society of Apothecaries. In the autumn of 1842 he and his elder brother James gained entrance scholarships at Charing Cross Hospital. This brought him under Wharton Jones (qv), Lecturer on Physiology, concerning whom Huxley said: "I do not know that I have ever felt so much respect for anybody as a teacher before or since." He worked very hard at all subjects during the next three years, and graduated MB in 1845, with the Gold Medal in Anatomy and Physiology. He then applied for appointment in the Royal Navy, and was sent to Haslar Hospital on the books of HMS *Victory*. There followed a Commission as Assistant Surgeon to HMS *Rattlesnake* (Captain Owen Stanley), just sailing to survey the seas between Australia and the Great Barrier Reef. The *Rattlesnake* left Chatham on December 8th, 1846, and was paid off on her return to Chatham on November 9th, 1850. During the voyage Huxley devoted himself to the examination of the perishable objects which could not then be adequately preserved and await examination at home. He initiated the working principle of giving attention to the structural characters common to the members of the particular group of animals, as well in the embyronic as in the adult state - observations admitting of being tested and corrected. Owen was then advocating a morphological, predetermined archetype, following Oken. Until the publication of Darwin's *Origin of Species*, Huxley, in agreement with Johannes Muller and von Baer, regarded as premature, hypotheses as to the connection between various groups. He sent Memoirs to the Royal Society, in particular concerning the Medusa:, was elected FRS in 1851, and awarded the Royal Society Medal in 1852. The Admiralty continued his appointment as Assistant Surgeon to a ship stationed at Woolwich, which left him free to pursue research into the material which had been collected, especially on the Mollusca. The School of Mines had opened in November, 1851, and Edward Forbes, naturalist (1815-1854) (*Dict Nat Biog*), was lecturing there when he was elected Professor of Natural History at Edinburgh. Huxley undertook to finish the course, and in July, 1854, was himself elected Lecturer, the small salary being supplemented by another small one as Naturalist to the Geological Survey. During the visit of the *Rattlesnake* to Sydney, Huxley had become engaged to Miss H A Heathorne. She with her parents had arrived in London, and the marriage took place in July, 1854. In this same year he began his career as a reformer of education by the lecture "On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences" (*Collected Essays*, iii, 38). The lecture, and others later, concerned the fundamental unity of method in all sciences, the value of that method in the affairs of daily life, and its importance as a moral and intellectual discipline. Physiological science, the knowledge of nature, he said, should be a part of the curriculum of education. He developed the model, which future teachers of biology have imitated, of a careful selection of a small series of animals, so that the student could himself test a general statement concerning structure by learning to know one member of a group. Meanwhile he arranged a Museum of Palaeontology, which, begun by the Geological Society in Jermyn Street, was the forerunner of the Natural History Museum. The publication of Darwin's *Origin of Species* in 1859 was a great event. Teaching had necessarily concentrated itself upon structure; Darwin set out a rational hypothesis on transmutation which raised the study of function to the level of that of structure. Huxley followed with a series of lectures at the South London Working Men's College "On the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature", 1863, also "On a Liberal Education and where to Find it" (*Collected Essays*, iii). At the London Institution in 1869 he gave a course of lectures on physiography, published in book form. In general he upheld the ancient sceptics and the modern Descartes, in placing doubt at a high level - healthy, active doubt, tireless in pursuit of further knowledge, freedom of thought combined with advancement of knowledge. From 1863-1869 he was Hunterian Professor at the Royal College of Surgeons and, simultaneously between 1863 and 1867, he was Fullerian Professor at the Royal Institution. At the College of Surgeons he elaborated the "Theory of the Vertebrate Skull" which had been the subject of his Croonian Lecture in 1858, the classification of animals, the comparative anatomy of vertebrates, largely based upon specimens in the Collections of the College, upon which he spent a long time in dissecting and making notes and drawings. In 1867 he lectured on ornithology, the classification of birds, and their relation to fossil reptiles, making the great advance upon that subject since the days of Buffon. His *Manual of the Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrates* (1871) is a condensed summary of his lectures at the College. The *Manual of the Comparative Anatomy of Invertebrated Animals* (1877) is likewise a condensed summary of lectures, but is not nearly so good. In 1870 the School Board for London was instituted, and Huxley became one of the first members. He advocated the study of the Bible "with such grammatical, geographical, and historical explanations by a lay teacher as may be needful"; and he held that the elements of physical science, with drawing, modelling, and singing, afforded the best means of intellectual training in schools. At later stages education should supply a theory of life based on clear knowledge alike of its possibilities and of its limitations. On the other hand, an acquaintance restricted to the useful results of scientific work was not of general educational value. He classed medicine along with law and theology among technical specialties. In medicine Huxley's influence may be noted in the institution, preceding the study of anatomy and physiology, of a preliminary scientific examination by the universities, as well as under the supervision of the General Medical Council; also in the examination of the Conjoint Board of the Royal Colleges in elementary chemistry, physics, anatomy, and physiology (1884), in elementary chemistry, physics, and biology (1892). Huxley acted as one of the two secretaries of the Royal Society from 1871, and also served upon Royal Commissions: upon the administration of the Contagious Diseases Acts, 1870-1871; on scientific instruction and the advancement of sciences, 1870-1871; on the practice of subjecting live animals to experiments for scientific progress, 1870; and on the Medical Acts, 1881-1882. Digestive difficulties increased so as to impair his health, and, elected President of the Royal Society in 1881, he was forced to retire in 1885. Sedentary occupation, aggravated by an attack of pleurisy, induced cardiac mischief; he was obliged to reduce work and take holidays. In 1890 he left London and lived at Eastbourne, but in 1892 and 1893 he was able to concern himself with the affairs of the University of London, and in 1893 he gave the Romanes Lecture at Oxford on "Evolution and Ethics". Influenza in the winter of 1894 induced further trouble in the kidneys. He died at Eastbourne on June 29th, 1895, and was buried at Finchley. There are several good portraits, paintings, engravings, prints, and photographs in the College Collection. The best portrait was painted in 1883 by his son-in-law, the Hon John Collier, and is in the National Portrait Gallery. The bust in the Museum by Forsyth and Monti was presented by Sir William Flower. He was survived by his widow, by two sons - Leonard, author of the *Life and Letters of T H Huxley* (2 vols, 1900), and Henry, MRCS, who practised at Porchester Terrace - and by four daughters. Of his grandsons, Julian Sorel (b1887) achieved distinction as a biologist and Aldous Leonard (b1894) as an essayist. In addition to the *Life and Letters* by his son, there are his *Collected Essays* in six volumes, and the article by Professor W F R Weldon, FRS, in vol xxii (supplement) of the *Dictionary of National Biography*. Huxley, like Darwin, Hooker, and Tyndall, was outstanding in science during the middle of the Victorian period in England. He was facile princeps as a teacher and as an expositor. As a teacher he founded a school of which the most brilliant members were Francis Balfour, H N Moseley, E Ray Lankester, and H N Martin. From this school came biology as a science, taught by dissection and observation, dealing little if at all with theory. A clear and absolutely honest thinker, Huxley carried his ideas to a logical conclusion expressed in such simple terms that it was impossible to confute or get round them. He was aggressive in the pursuit of truth, and those who thought confusedly or were shifty received little consideration at his hands. But he was more than a scientific teacher of scientific men, he was a great exponent of biology and physiology explained in such plain and easy language as could be understood by all who had received the rudiments of a liberal education. Huxley received many honours in addition to those already mentioned. He was awarded the Copley Medal by the Royal Society in 1888 and the Darwin Medal in 1894. He was Lord Rector of the University of Aberdeen from 1872-1875; LLD of Edinburgh, Dublin, and Cambridge; DCL Oxford; and Corresponding Member of the French Academy of Sciences. Breslau, Würzburg, Erlangen, and Bologna also conferred upon him their honorary degrees. Publications: Amongst Huxley's many contributions to literature perhaps the one best known to the students of medicine and science was the *Elementary Lessons in Physiology*. It first appeared in 1886 and was reprinted at least thirty times.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002314
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset