Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Neurosurgeon

First Title value, for Searching Hamilton, James Gilmour ( - 2014)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2014-10-17 2016-12-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006100-E006199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378320378320
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details James Hamilton was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Midland Centre for Neurosurgery and Neurology, Smethwick, and the United Birmingham Hospitals. He studied medicine at Guy's and qualified in 1947. He gained his FRCS in 1954. Prior to his consultant appointments he was a house physician in the neurology department at Guy's, a senior neurosurgical registrar, also at Guy's, a senior neurosurgical registrar at the Guy's-Maudsley neurosurgical unit, and a senior resident in neurological surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, USA. James Gilmour Hamilton died on 3 September 2014.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006137
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Rushworth, Robin Geoffrey (1927 - 2017)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2018-02-26 2020-11-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009400-E009499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381828381828
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Robin Geoffrey Rushworth was a neurosurgeon at the Royal North Shore Hospital, New South Wales. Born on 12 August 1927, it is not known where he studied medicine. He passed the fellowship of the college in 1955 and returned to Australia to live in St Ives, New South Wales. He died on 21 July 2017 aged 90.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009424
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Weeks, Robert David (1927 - 2018)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2021-02-10
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009900-E009999
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Robert David Weeks was born on 8 February 1927. He qualified in medicine at Oxford University in 1951 and trained at the London Hospital. After working in London as a senior registrar at the Middlesex Hospital and the Maida Vale Hospital for Nervous Diseases, he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary. He spent his professional career in Cardiff and produced several research publications in association with Cardiff University. After retirement he moved to London and died on 8 December 2018 aged 91.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009935
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Sinh, Gajendra (1921 - 2013)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

First Title value, for Searching Gooding, Michael Rees (1935 - 2021)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2021-09-29
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010000-E010099
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Michael Gooding was a consultant neurosurgeon at Hull Royal Infirmary. This is a draft obituary. If you have any information about this surgeon or are interested in writing this obituary, please email lives@rcseng.ac.uk
Resource Identifier RCS: E010010
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Rice Edwards, John Martin ( - 2022)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2024-03-06
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010500-E010599
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Martin Rice Edwards was a consultant neurosurgeon at Charing Cross Hospital, London. This is a draft obituary. If you have any information about this surgeon or are interested in writing this obituary, please email lives@rcseng.ac.uk
Resource Identifier RCS: E010596
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Olivecrona, Axel Herbert ( - 1980)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

First Title value, for Searching Hay, Rankin Kilgour (1917 - 2013)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2020-10-27
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009800-E009899
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Rankin Hay was a neurosurgeon at the University of Manitoba’s faculty of medicine. This is a draft obituary. If you have any information about this surgeon or are interested in writing this obituary, please email lives@rcseng.ac.uk
Resource Identifier RCS: E009847
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Blundell, John Edward (1920 - 2016)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2020-11-24
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009800-E009899
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Blundell was a neurosurgeon and founding director of neurosurgery at the Montreal Children’s Hospital. This is a draft obituary. If you have any information about this surgeon or are interested in writing this obituary, please email lives@rcseng.ac.uk
Resource Identifier RCS: E009873
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Kellerman, Anthony James (1948 - 2022)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2022-11-10
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010100-E010199
Occupation Neurosurgeon Vascular surgeon
Details Tony Kellerman was a consultant neurosurgeon at Broomfield Hospital, Chelmsford and Southend Hospital. This is a draft obituary. If you have any information about this surgeon or are interested in writing this obituary, please email lives@rcseng.ac.uk
Resource Identifier RCS: E010175
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching King, Thomas Tyrell (1930- 2020)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2020-03-19
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009700-E009799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/383060383060
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Thomas King was a neurosurgeon at the London Hospital. This is a draft obituary. If you have any information about this surgeon or are interested in writing this obituary, please email lives@rcseng.ac.uk
Resource Identifier RCS: E009725
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Robinson, Julian Lawrence ( - 1977)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006800-E006899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379082379082
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Julian Lawrence Robinson qualified in medicine from Cambridge University in 1962 and gained his MS from Toronto. He passed the FRCS in 1967. He was a neurosurgeon on the staff of the Hôtel Dieu de Quebec, St Sacrament and Hôtel Dieu du Levis and a member of the teaching staff of Laval University. He died on 7 November 1977.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006899
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Kirby, Alan Rayner (1924 - 2015)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2016-05-13 2019-04-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009100-E009199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381314381314
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Alan Raynor Kirby was a neurosurgeon at the Royal University Hospital, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. He was born in Gosforth, Northumberland on 2 April 1924, the son of Alger Raynor Kirby, a manufacturer’s agent, and Phyllis Barbara Kirby née Hodgkin. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle upon Tyne and then studied medicine at the University of Durham. He qualified in 1947. He trained in surgery at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, gaining his FRCS in 1957, and later in neurosurgery, at St George’s Hospital and the National Hospital, London. In 1963, he emigrated to Saskatoon. He worked in the Royal University Hospital, at first in the department of neurosurgery and later in the department of rehabilitation. He retired in 1989. Outside medicine, he was interested in music. He was an organist and choirmaster at several Anglican churches. In 1955, he married Margaret Schofield. They had three children – Judith, Jayne and Angus – and 11 grandchildren. Alan Raynor Kirby died on 11 December 2015. He was 91.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009131
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Masson, Andrew Francis (1927 - 2015)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2015-12-10 2018-11-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009000-E009099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381199381199
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Andrew Francis Masson was director of the emergency department and subsequently chairman of ambulatory care at the University of Alberta Hospital, Edmonton, Canada. He was born in Kingston, Jamaica on 27 March 1927, the son of Ethel Mabel Masson née Thwaites and Andrew Francis Masson and grew up in Belize. At the age of 17 he went to the UK to study medicine at St Thomas’ Hospital Medical School. He returned to Jamaica, where he practised neurosurgery at the University of the West Indies and taught medical students. In 1975 he moved with his family to Edmonton, Canada and worked at the University Hospital. He retired in 1992. In retirement, he continued his passions of cooking, reading, listening to music, gardening and growing orchids. Andrew Francis Masson died on 19 August 2015 at the age of 88. He was survived by his widow, Sheila, whom he married in 1955, their children Rebecca, Andrew and Edward, and six grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009016
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Shephard, Reginald Harry (1918 - 2010)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2012-01-12 2014-05-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001800-E001899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374032374032
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Reginald Harry (Dick) Shephard was consultant neurosurgeon to the Derby Royal Infirmary. Born in 1918 he was one of 10 children and spent much of his younger days helping out on the family farm in Hampshire. Enrolling at University College London with a scholarship, he won a Rockefeller scholarship to study at Yale and passed his MD there in 1943. During the second world war he served in the RAMC. Early posts were at University College Hospital, the London Hospital and Maida Vale Hospital for Nervous Diseases. It is said that his interest in neurosurgery was influenced by Sir Hugh Cairns at Oxford and by working under Valentine Logue at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in Queen Square. In 1958 he was appointed to the consultancy at Derby Royal Infirmary, working for a time with George Clark-Maxwell, and he remained there until retirement. He died on 24 December 2010 aged 92 and was survived by his wife of 65 years, Dorothy, whom he met at UCH, five children and 14 grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001849
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Dimant, Stevens (1919 - 2007)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2020-10-19
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009800-E009899
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Stevens Dimant was a neurosurgeon in Washington, USA. He was born on 2 January 1919 in Christchurch, Hampshire, England the son of Cyril Ivan Dimant, an architect who had served as a captain in the 2nd Australian Pioneer Battalion during the First World War and had been awarded a Military Cross, and Violet Alice Dimant née Stevens. Dimant spent his childhood in Melbourne, Australia and attended Melbourne Grammar School. He went to Cambridge, England, for his premedical school studies and then returned to Australia, gaining his medical degree from Melbourne University Medical School in 1943. From 1944 to 1946 he served in the South Pacific as a medical officer in the Royal Australian Air Force. He trained in surgery, orthopaedics and neurology in England, and started his neurosurgical training in Oxford. He then spent five years in the department of neurosurgery in Manchester. He immigrated to the USA and practised neurosurgery in the Seattle-Tacoma area of Washington state from 1957 to 1985. In the early days he covered much of the Pacific Northwest as the primary responder to neurosurgical emergencies and trauma as well as carrying out elective surgery. He introduced several new neurosurgical concepts and procedures to the area. He enjoyed teaching students, both locally and further afield, including in Zimbabwe, Indonesia and China. After he retired from surgery, he developed Tacoma Panel Examiners, in conjunction with the Department of Labor and Industries, to evaluate workmen’s compensation. He enjoyed sailing in the waters of Puget Sound, British Columbia and the Mediterranean and spending time with his family. Vacations included boating and water skiing in the summers and snow skiing in the winters. He loved storytelling and book reading. Stevens Dimant died on 13 May 2005 at the age of 88. He was survived by his wife of almost 56 years, Sheila (née Carmer-Roberts), whom he had met in Oxford, their three children, John, Sally and Martin, and five grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009820
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching MacIntyre, Alexander Grant (1930 - 2009)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-11-03 2014-10-17
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/373675373675
Occupation General practitioner General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Alexander Grant Macintyre was a family medicine specialist and general surgeon in Alliston, Ontario, Canada. He was born in Lucknow, Ontario, in 1930 and grew up on a farm. In 1948 he began studying medicine at the University of Toronto, but moved to England and Oxford University in 1951 on a scholarship. He gained his BA and BM BCh, and was awarded prizes in pathology and surgery. Whilst at Oxford he captained the university hockey team. From 1955 to 1961 he held university postgraduate posts in Oxford, Heidelberg, the Sorbonne in Paris and Harvard, and gained his FRCS from the Edinburgh and English Royal Colleges of Surgeons. From 1961 he was a resident and then consultant neurosurgeon at Walton Hospital, Liverpool, and a postgraduate clinical lecturer at the University of Liverpool. In 1970 he returned to Canada and settled in Alliston, Ontario, where he practised family medicine and general surgery. He retired in 1999. Outside medicine, he enjoyed sports (including skiing, baseball, inline and ice skating), travelling, carpentry and studying history and languages. In 1971 he married Josée van der Schilden in Amsterdam. They had two daughters, Johanna and Ruth-Ann. Alexander Grant Macintyre died on 19 August 2009, aged 79.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001492
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Turner, Eric Anderson (1917 - 2001)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2016-07-28 2020-02-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009200-E009299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381394381394
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Eric Anderson Turner was a neurosurgeon at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham. He was born on 8 January 1917 in Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland. His father, John Anderson, was a teacher; his mother, Margaret Anderson née Galt, was the daughter of a building contractor. He attended St John’s Grammar School in Hamilton, where he was *dux*, and then Hamilton Academy, where he was also *dux*. He went on to study medicine at the University of Glasgow, graduating in 1940 with a commendation, distinctions in physics and physiology, and the pathology medal. He served as a major in a mobile neurosurgical unit. Prior to his consultant appointment at Birmingham, he held posts at the Victoria Infirmary, Glasgow, the Royal Infirmary, also in Glasgow, Killearn Hospital, Stirlingshire and the Central Middlesex Hospital in London. He gained his FRCS in 1949. During his training he was influenced by James Eric Paterson, Sir Hugh Cairns, Illtyd James, Jack Small and Brodie Hughes. He wrote papers on epilepsy and psychosurgery, and a book *Surgery of the mind* (Birmingham, Carmen, c.1982). He enjoyed swimming, writing, photography, travel and camping. In 1942, he married Margaret. They had two daughters and a son, who became a doctor. Eric Anderson Turner died in February 2001. He was 84.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009211
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Woodward, John Michael ( - 1987)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-08-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007700-E007799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379935379935
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Michael Woodward qualified in Melbourne in 1963. He passed his Fellowship of the College in 1968 and the following year became senior registrar to the Bristol Regional Neurosurgical Unit until 1971 when he returned to Australia. He was appointed neurosurgeon to the Austin Hospital, Heidelberg, Victoria in 1971 and Associate Professor to the University of Melbourne department of surgery in 1977. He was a member of the British Medical Association. He was living in Melbourne at the time of his premature death on 7 March 1987, survived by his wife.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007752
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Choudhury, Abdur Rashid (1936 - 2010)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2011-11-10 2022--8-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001500-E001599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373733373733
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Rashid Choudhury was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Riyadh Armed Forces Hospital, Saudi Arabia. He was born in a remote village in the district of Hailakandi, Assam, India, the son of Imran Ali Choudhury and Sumsun Choudhury. He came from a humble background and had to work hard to become a surgeon. He matriculated in 1952 and studied medicine at Assam Medical College, Dibrugarh, qualifying in 1960. He completed a masters degree in surgery and became an assistant professor in the general surgery department at Assam Medical College when, in 1968, he was awarded a scholarship by the government of Assam to train in neurosurgery in the UK. He gained his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1970, and of the Glasgow and Edinburgh Royal Colleges in 1971. In 1973 he was awarded a ChM in neurosurgery by the University of Aberdeen. He worked as a neurosurgeon in Edinburgh, Newcastle and Aberdeen and, from 1973 to 1978, in Derby. In 1973 and 1978 he returned to Assam to set up a neurosurgical centre, but a lack of proper facilities meant these plans had to be abandoned. From 1982 to 1995 he was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Riyadh Armed Forces Hospital Saudi Arabia. His final medical post was as a medical assessor of retired miners receiving benefits in the UK. He was married to Amyna and they had two sons. Rashid Choudhury died on 24 October 2010.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001550
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching De Villiers, Jacquez Charl (1928 - 2018)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2022-03-29
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010000-E010099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/385590385590
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Professor Jacquez Charl ‘Kay’ De Villiers was head of the department of neurosurgery at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town. This is a draft obituary. If you have any information about this surgeon or are interested in writing this obituary, please email lives@rcseng.ac.uk
Resource Identifier RCS: E010097
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First Title value, for Searching Charlton, William Scott ( - 1988)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-04-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007100-E007199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379340379340
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Scott Charlton qualified MB, BS Sydney in 1933 and became resident medical officer to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, in 1934. He served in the second world war as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the RAMC and eventually became honorary neurosurgeon to the Sydney Hospital and the Prince Henry Hospital. He was a member of the AMA and the BMA and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He may have ceased to practise in the early 1970s as his name disappears from the *Australian Medical Directory* between 1972 and 1974. He died on 13 October 1988.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007157
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Newton, Eric Joseph (1919 - 2011)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-01-10 2014-08-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001800-E001899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374019374019
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Eric Newton was a consultant neurosurgeon at North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary. He was born in Surrey in 1919, but was educated in northern India. He gained an Indian Army scholarship to study medicine at Madras Medical School and qualified in 1942, during the Second World War. He immediately became a medical officer in India, the Maldives and then Ceylon. In 1946 he returned to the UK, and four years later became a resident surgical officer at the Royal Salop Infirmary, Shrewsbury. In his free time he travelled to Birmingham to learn more about neurosurgical techniques. Here he was influenced by Brodie Hughes and Jack Small, both leading neurosurgeons. In 1951 Newton was appointed as a neurosurgical registrar at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. He then became a senior neurosurgical registrar at West Midlands Neurosurgical Centre in Smethwick, and in 1959 he was appointed as a consultant there, with responsibility for looking after patients in the north of the region. In 1961 he set up a new neurosurgical unit in the North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary, Stoke-on-Trent, and for about 10 years he was singlehanded - the only neurosurgeon between Birmingham and Manchester. He was awarded a Royal College of Surgeons Hunterian professorship in 1968. He had many other interests outside medicine, including chess. He played for Stafford chess club for 25 years, was captain of the club team for many competitions, became chairman and was later made honorary president. He was married to Eileen, a former nurse, whom he met at the Royal Salop Infirmary. They had two sons, James and John, who both became doctors. Eric Newton died on 10 January 2011 and was survived by his family.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001836
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Robinson, Richard Garwood (1915 - 1997)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2014-06-13 2016-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005400-E005499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377645377645
Occupation Editor Neurosurgeon
Details Richard Garwood Robinson was professor of neurosurgery at Otago University, New Zealand. He was born in Dartford, Kent, on 9 April 1915, the son of William Thomas Robinson, a pharmacist, and Annie Elizabeth Robinson née Garwood, the daughter of a farmer. He was educated at St Dunstan's College in Catford and then studied medicine at Guy's Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1939. He held house posts at the Seaman's Hospital, Addenbrooke's and Guy's, and then in 1941 joined the RAF Bomber Command as a squadron leader, serving until 1946. He was awarded the George Medal for bravery in 1941. Following his demobilisation, he trained in neurosurgery in Sheffield. In 1951 he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon in Dunedin, New Zealand. He was director of neurosurgery there from 1964 to 1981, and a professor at the University of Otago from 1976 to 1981. He pioneered stereotactic surgery for Parkinson's disease in New Zealand. He was president of the Neurological Association of New Zealand from 1963 to 1965. In 1959 he was Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons on hydatid disease affecting the nervous system, and gave a guest lecture at the National Hospital, Queen Square, on temporal lobe agenesis. In 1967 he became editor of the *New Zealand Medical Journal*, a role he continued until a few months before his death on 27 September 1997 from metastatic cancer of the prostate. He was 82. Predeceased by his wife Flo (née Monk), he was survived by his two daughters, Sara and Celia, and five grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005462
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First Title value, for Searching Bennett, Alfred Michael Hastin (1920 - 1996)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

First Title value, for Searching Dowling, John Laidley ( - 1981)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006400-E006499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378636378636
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Laidley Dowling worked as resident medical officer for the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, 1937-39. During the second world war he was with the RAMC and the AAMC and then became student supervisor to St Vincent's Hospital, Sydney. He was a Gordon Craig Travelling Scholar 1945-47 and during this time worked at the Manchester Royal Infirmary as chief assistant neurosurgeon. Returning to Australia he became assistant honorary neurosurgeon to St Vincent's Hospital 1948-60 and held further consultant neurosurgical posts at St Joseph's Hospital, Bankstown District Hospital and Liverpool District Hospital among others. He was honorary consultant neurosurgeon to the Prince Henry and Prince of Wales Hospitals in Sydney 1965-74 and honorary consultant neurosurgeon to the Sutherland District Hospital in Sydney in 1969. He was a member of the AMA. He died on 5 June 1981.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006453
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Bleasel, Kevin Fabian (1924 - 2018)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Noel Dan
Publication Date 2020-11-24 05/01/2022
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009800-E009899
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Kevin Bleasel graduated in Medicine from the University of Sydney in 1946 and was appointed as a Resident at St Vincent’s Hospital to Douglas Miller. In 1951 he achieved his FRCS in General Surgery and after completing general surgical training he undertook training at The National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queens Square, London in 1952. He returned to St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney in 1954 and was also appointed to the Lewisham Hospital at that time. He was Head of Neurosurgery at St Vincent’s Hospital for many years and introduced Neurosurgical training to St Vincent’s. His innovations included introducing carotid endarterectomy to St Vincent’s. He designed a stereotactic frame in conjunction with a physicist at The University of New South Wales which was used successfully to achieve localisation during stereotactic treatment of Parkinson’s disease. After a scholarship in the United States in 1963 he introduced cryogenic surgery for Parkinson’s disease to Australia. He also introduced cryogenic hypophysectomy for malignant bone pain. Amongst other procedures he introduced balloon compression for trigeminal neuralgia. He subsequently introduced transsphenoidal pituitary surgery which had been used in the early 20th Century but was abandoned for open craniotomy. He used cryogenic techniques for the pituitary with great success. He was an outstanding and skilful surgeon who related well to his patients and they admired him greatly as did his colleagues. L’Association Medicale Francophone D’Australie which became a significant organisation was created in 1969 on the initiative of Kevin and a few similarly motivated French speaking and Francophile Australian doctors. The organisation thrived for many decades. Amongst his honours he received The Officer of the Order of Australia in 1990 and in 2002 the Chevalier de L'Order National du Merite of France. His wife, Marianne, predeceased him. They had 5 children – Andrew, Simon (deceased), Virginia, Nicholas and Fabian and eight grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009872
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Briggs, Michael (1937 - 2021)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Michael Poole
Publication Date 2022-12-09
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010100-E010199
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Mike Briggs was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. He grew up in Norfolk and won a scholarship to Norwich School. Because of wartime damage to the school, they were unable to teach science subjects, so Mike had a classical schooling, but it never seemed to put him off. After school he did his National Service in the Navy and enjoyed the sporting aspects of his life there, playing rugby, water polo and, oddly for a future neurosurgeon, boxing. At that time St Thomas’s Hospital Medical School accepted people to train in medicine who had not had a previous science education. Mike gained a place and qualified in 1963. He was appointed as a head injury registrar in Oxford and trained with Joe Pennybacker and John Potter in neurosurgery. After a short time at the South East Neurological Unit, he returned to Oxford in 1975. I first met Mike working at the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1979 and we discussed the relatively new specialty of craniofacial surgery and, with my own interests in head and neck surgery, we decided to assemble a team of appropriate colleagues and set up a unit at Oxford. Craniofacial surgery addresses congenital deformities of the skull, face, skull base and orbits and requires close collaboration by a neurosurgeon and a plastic and reconstructive surgeon, with input from other specialists as required. At Oxford there was a wealth of such people who were keen to be involved. Older patients with trauma injuries and tumours patients also benefitted from the work. A joint respect is required and, with Mike in particular, was easily achieved; his humour and excellent surgical technique made light work of difficult cases. The specialty had developed largely in France, so frequent visits to colleagues there was required and was a great learning experience, along with courses and seminars. We applied for supraregional specialty funding from the NHS, which meant we were not struggling for funding. This was granted to us in Oxford, and to two other craniofacial centres in England. Most of the paediatric cases involved craniosynostosis (early and deforming closure of the cranial sutures), but also a group of less common complex deformities such as Apert syndrome, Crouzon syndrome and related conditions, hypertelorism (eyes, orbits widely spread on the face) etc. Once our work got underway, we documented problems and complications and met with our colleagues from the other two units in England to discuss these. Our published research was mainly clinical rather than lab-based, although some colleagues in Oxford from the genetics unit made strides in describing the genetic causes of many of our patient cohorts from work in their labs. The specialty worldwide was small as many of these cases are rare, so we had a small group of friends from Europe and internationally and met regularly to discuss problems and new ideas and techniques. Mike was forced to retire in 1994 after developing visual problems, and I left Oxford in 1995 and returned to Australia (being a native). I visited Mike regularly in his retirement and we remained great friends. His later retirement was marred by strokes, some not so severe in outcome, but others more troublesome. He sadly died on 27 August 2021 at the age of 84. He was survived by his wife Pauline.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010183
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rudowski, Witold Janusz (1918 - 2001)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008800-E008899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381073381073
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Witold Rudowski was an eminent Polish surgeon. He qualified in medicine in 1943, studying at a secret medical faculty that had been set up during Nazi occupation. He then worked in the Dzieciatka Jesus Hospital in Warsaw until 1947, where the neurosurgery department was run by Jerzego Chorobskiego. He then worked for a year in the neurosurgical clinic of the Przemienienia Panskiego Hospital, where conditions were harsh. Rudowski went on to become a Professor of Surgery. He was a member of the International Association of Endocrine Surgeons. He wrote many texts and edited *Disorders of hemostasis in surgery*, which was published in 1977 in the US by the University Press of New England. He died on 20 September 2001.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008890
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Dhruva, Mukund Nagindas (1934 - 2002)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2016-03-24 2019-04-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009000-E009099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381272381272
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Mukund Nagindas Dhruva was a neurosurgeon in Yakima, Washington, USA. He was born in Pansina in the state of Gujerat, India on 10 February 1934 to Nagindas Dhruva, a businessman, and his wife Champa whose maiden name was Shah. After attending the Sheth NTM High School in Surendrangar, he studied biology at Elphinstone College, Bombay University and medicine at Grant Medical College from 1954, qualifying MB BS in 1960. That year he came to the UK to work as an SHO at West Bromwich and District General Hospital for six months followed by an internship at the Royal Hospital in Chesterfield. From 1962 to 1963 he was a resident at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary and then spent two years as a registrar in neurological surgery at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham until 1966 when he gained his fellowship. After spending two years as a senior registrar at the Institute of Neurological Sciences, Killearn Hospital, Glasgow he moved to the USA. He worked in private practice in Tacoma, Washington from 1970 to 1972 and then moved to Yakima where he joined the staff of the Providence Yakima Medical Center, the Yakima Valley Memorial Hospital and the Yakima Valley Osteopathic Hospital. He passed the fellowship of the American College of Surgeons in 1976. Among other groups, he was a member of the Yakima County Medical Society, the Washington State Neurological Society, the Congress of Neurological Surgeons and the Society of British Neurological Surgeons. Outside medicine he enjoyed cricket, baseball, basketball, swimming, reading and music. He also threw himself into community service and was a member of the Yakima Rotary Club (becoming Paul Harris Fellow) and St Timothy’s Episcopal Church. During his time in West Bromwich he met Maureen Hazel Warden, who was a qualified nurse, and they married some years later on 25 June 1966 in Birmingham. They had two sons; Dileep who became a salesman and Daniel who worked for a finance company in San Francisco. When he died on 1 November 2002 aged 68, he was survived by his wife, sons, daughter-in-law Amy and grandson, Mack.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009089
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McHardy, John Allwood (1926 - 2010)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2017-01-25 2020-07-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009200-E009299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381481381481
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Allwood McHardy was a neurosurgeon and chief medical officer of health in Jamaica. Known as Johnny to his family and friends, he was born in Jamaica, in Montego Bay, St James on 24 August 1926, the only son of Nathan Ralph McHardy, an assistant commissioner of lands, and Melaine Estelle McHardy née Baugh. He grew up in a Christian family, where he learnt his strong commitment to public service. He attended Mount Alvernia and Cornwall College in Montego Bay and, when his family relocated to Kingston, at Jamaica College. After leaving school, he taught for a short time (between 1944 to 1946) at DeCartenet College and Cornwall College, then gained a Government half-scholarship to Selwyn College, Cambridge and qualified as a doctor. On his return to Jamaica, he entered Government service. He served as a medical officer between 1952 and 1959, at the Black River Hospital, Kingston Public Hospital and also in the Turks and Caicos Islands. In 1960, he went back to the UK, where he trained in neurosurgery. He was a registrar at National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Maida Vale, London and the South East Neurosurgical Centre between 1964 and 1966. During the same period, he gained his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and of Edinburgh. In 1967 he returned to Jamaica, as a consultant neurosurgeon to Kingston Public Hospital. He became a senior medical officer there in 1974 and principal medical officer of health in 1977. From 1981 to 1988, he was chief medical officer of health and was subsequently a technical advisor for major public projects in the Ministry of Health until his retirement. He then continued to serve as registrar of the Medical Council until 2006. He received many honours, including, in 1976, the Jamaican Order of Distinction – Commander Class, the Kingston Public Hospital senior medical officer’s award (in 1994), the Association of Surgeons award in 1995, the University of the West Indies’ department of surgery award in 2003 and the Medical Association’s award in 2007. In 2009, he was honoured at the Caribbean Neurosciences Symposium. Outside medicine he enjoyed classic music and playing tennis with his friends on Saturday afternoons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009298
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Watkins, Eric Sidney (1928 - 2012)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-10-17 2014-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003000-E003099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375224375224
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Eric Sidney ('Sid') Watkins, professor of neurosurgery at the London Hospital Medical School, transformed safety standards in Formula One motor racing. He was born in Liverpool on 6 September 1928, and won scholarships to Prescot Grammar School and then Liverpool University, where he read medicine. He qualified with a BSc in physiology in 1949 and with his MB ChB in 1952. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps for his National Service, and was posted to West Africa, where he researched heat exhaustion in a physiological unit. After working in general surgery in Weston-Super-Mare, he trained in neurosurgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, under the American surgeon Joe Pennybaker. In 1962 he was offered his own chair of neurosurgery at Syracuse, New York, USA. Sid Watkins first became involved in motor racing when he was invited to join the medical team at Watkins Glen, then home of the US Grand Prix circuit, located nearby in New York state. He returned to the UK in 1969, becoming professor of neurosurgery at what was then the London Hospital Medical School. In 1978 Bernie Ecclestone, chief executive of Formula One, asked him to develop a medical service for the sport and 'Prof', as he was known to the drivers and race officials, soon became a well-respected presence at Grand Prix across the world. Among other measures, he pushed for stronger seats, collapsible steering columns and safer racing suits for drivers. His lifesaving efforts were often hands-on: on several occasions he pulled drivers from their crashed vehicles. He wrote about his experiences in his book *Life at the limit: triumph and tragedy in Formula One* (London, Macmillan, 1996) and retired from the sport in 2011. At the London Hospital he carried out pioneering work on neurostimulation to relieve the tremor of Parkinsonism. He also co-wrote two atlases, of the anatomy of the thalamus and of the human brainstem (*A stereotaxic atlas of the human thalamus and adjacent structures: a variability study* [Baltimore, Williams and Wilkins Company, 1969], *Stereotaxic atlas of the human brainstem and cerebellar nuclei: a variability study* [New York, Raven Press, c.1978]). In 1992 he co-founded the Brain and Spine Foundation, a charity for people affected by brain and spine disorders. Sid Watkins died from a heart attack on 12 September 2012 in London. He was 84. He was survived by his wife Susan, four sons and two daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003041
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Crawshaw, George Reginald (1916 - 1979)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006400-E006499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378599378599
Occupation Cardiothoracic surgeon General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details George Reginald Crawshaw was born on 9 July 1916. He studied medicine at Manchester University and qualified MB ChB in 1939. He was OC No 2 (Brit) Mobile Neurosurgical Unit of the RAMC and then became a civilian medical practitioner with the Military Hospital, Colchester. After gaining his FRCS in 1947 he was appointed junior assistant surgeon to the Johannesburg General Hospital from March 1948 to June 1949 when he became principal surgeon. He was consultant surgeon (cardio-thoracic) to the Bulawayo Group of Hospitals and published various papers on cardiac, thoracic and oesophageal surgery. He returned to England on his retirement and was living in Dedham, Essex at the time of his death on 2 February 1979.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006416
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Ommaya, Ayub Khan (1930 - 2008)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2012-01-09 2014-11-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001800-E001899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374012374012
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Ayub Khan Ommaya was an internationally-known expert on brain injury and the inventor of the Ommaya reservoir, which is used to administer chemotherapy to the site of brain tumours. He was born in Mian Chanuu, in what was then British India, on 14 April 1930, the youngest son of Nadir Khan, of the British Indian Calvary, and his wife Ida, who was a French Catholic. Ommaya studied at Gordon College, Rawalpindi, and then at King Edward Medical College in Lahore. While at medical school he won the Harper Nelson gold medal for outstanding academic achievement. He was also a champion debater, boxer and swimmer. After qualifying, he was awarded a Rhodes scholarship to study at Balliol College, Oxford. At Oxford he developed his interest in mechanisms of brain injury and worked with the distinguished American neurosurgeon Joe Pennybacker. He also rowed for Balliol. He then moved to the United States and began working as a researcher and clinician at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, where he eventually became chief of neurosurgery. From 1980 he was a clinical professor at George Washington University. He was also chief medical adviser to the US Department of Transportation (from 1980 to 1985). Early in his career at the National Institute he developed the first coma scale, although it was never used beyond the Institute. He also invented the Ommaya reservoir, a silicone dome with a catheter designed to run via a small hole in the skull into the brain, meaning chemotherapy could be effectively directed straight into the site of brain tumours. The reservoir is now used across the world. Ommaya published more than 150 articles, chapters and books. He developed the centripetal theory of traumatic brain injury, which allowed researchers to model how brains are affected by force. He also worked with Sir Godfrey Hounsfield on early computed tomography (CT) scanning, determining the spatial resolution of the scanner, effectively leading the way to its use in stereotactic surgery. With Congressman William Lehman, chair of the House Appropriations Committee responsible for the Department of Transportation, he developed the US Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, focusing on traumatic brain injury. Outside medicine, he was known as having a fine operatic voice, and often sang before and after surgery. He was married three times. His first two marriages, to Parvaneh Modaber and Wendy Preece, ended in divorce. He retired from George Washington University in 2003, and he and his third wife, Ghazala, returned to Pakistan. He died on 11 July 2008 in Islamabad of complications of Alzheimer's disease. He was 78. He was survived by Ghazala, his three children from his second marriage (David, Alexander and Shana), his three children from his third marriage (Asha, Iman and Sinan) and five grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001829
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Arthurs, Gaston Napoleon (1917 - 2010)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2012-01-27 2013-08-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001900-E001999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374109374109
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Gaston Arthurs was a consultant neurosurgeon and general surgeon who worked in Australia and Zambia. He was born on 10 March 1917 in Fulham, the son of an Italian father, Guiseppe Nunzio Artuso (the family name was anglicised to Arthurs in 1926) and a mother with a French background, Lilian Blanch Baker. His father was a rubber engineer; a researcher and pioneer who developed ebonite. The young Gaston was fluent in Italian. He attended Brentwood School as a boarder from 1926-1934, excelled in gymnastics and mathematics and played the violin, continuing with a local orchestra. He was awarded the Brentwood School Leaving Scholarship and the Essex County Exhibition. He studied medicine at London University and worked at the Royal National Ear Nose and Throat Hospital. During the second world war he served in the navy, firstly on the cruiser HMS Caradoc for three years from 1940 and then on a submarine depot ship based in Ceylon. After this he served for a month at sea in submarines and later in a "small ship". Honourably discharged in 1945 he returned to England to complete his surgical training, passed his FRCS in 1950 and continued his neurosurgical training in England and Wales. Returning to Australia in 1953 he took up specialist posts at the Sydney Hospital (1953-1971) and St George Hospital (1959-1976). He lectured at the University of New South Wales in Sydney (1960-1965) and at the University of Sydney (1971-1975). He decided to study for his B Ed "in order to become a more effective teacher" and enrolled at the University of New England in Armidale NSW at the same time as his daughter, Patricia, began university. He retired from St George Hospital at the age of 60 and moved to Zambia where he worked as a general surgeon at the University Teaching Hospital in Lusaka (observing that there was very little elective neurosurgery during a time of great unrest) and lectured in anatomy and surgery at the University. Due to his wife's ill health, they returned to Australia in 1979/80 and he assisted in various branches of surgery at Darwin Hospital in the Northern Territory for seven years before returning to Sylvania, New South Wales to teach at the University of Sydney. During his time in London, Gaston married Mary Breda Roche (always known as "Maureen") on 6 July 1940 at Guardian Angels Roman Catholic Church in Stepney. They had three children Paul, Ann and Patricia. Maureen predeceased him and he married Violet becoming stepfather to her sons, Simon and Mathew. He died on 8 June 2010 aged 93, survived by Violet, his children and stepchildren, seven grandchildren and a great grandson.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001926
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bookallil, Anthony Joseph (1940 - 2013)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by John Christie
Publication Date 2013-06-12 2013-08-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004000-E004099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376262376262
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Anthony Joseph 'Tony' Bookallil was a neurosurgeon at Newcastle, New South Wales. He studied medicine at Sydney University, after completing a pharmacy degree, graduating with honours in 1967. He then completed two years residency at St Vincent's Hospital, Melbourne, before heading to England, where he gained his FRCS and, in 1973, commenced on his neurosurgery training at Oxford. At about the same time, it was decided that there was a need for a neurosurgery service in Newcastle. Advice as to a suitable candidate was sought, and Richard Gye suggested Tony. Tony was duly recruited and arrived in Newcastle in 1975, fresh from his training, where he was faced with the task of setting up a new specialty with no trained ward or theatre staff, no infrastructure, and the prospect of being almost constantly on call for an indefinite period of time (this lasted for 13 years, until a second neurosurgeon arrived in 1988). Luckily for the population of Newcastle, they had been blessed with a man with an enormously strong constitution, who could be up all night dealing with a head injury, and then come home, wake his children and take them to their swimming lessons. At that time the concept of safe working hours was still many years off. Over 25 years he performed an estimated 6,000 operations, including back operations, disc removals, spina bifida corrections, brain tumour resections and head injury repairs. Not content with a clinical workload far greater than any of his colleagues, Tony also became very involved in hospital life, serving in many positions on the medical staff council and division of surgery, including stints as chair of both. He was also involved with the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia, being on the organising committee for an extremely successful World Congress of Neurosurgery in Sydney in 2001. Tony had an unswerving commitment to public medicine that continued well beyond his attempted retirement in 2002. After the best-attended retirement dinner that Newcastle had seen, he still came back whenever he was asked, to fill gaps in both the clinical roster and in administration. Outside medicine, Tony's great loves were his family and his music. He was involved with choral singing in Newcastle and was president of the Newcastle Musica Viva committee. In his retirement he studied music at the University of Newcastle. Tony died on 21 February 2013, aged 72, after a short illness. He was survived by his wife, Gay, children Marianne, Tom and Anthony, and his four grandchildren. His funeral was at Newcastle's Sacred Heart Cathedral, where he had been a member of the choir. As well as family, friends and colleagues, the service was notable for the large number of his patients who came to pay their respects. He left behind a very grateful city.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004079
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Gardner, Brian Patrick (1948 - 2019)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2019-12-18
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Brian Patrick Gardner was born in Fort Jameson, Zambia on 17 July 1948. He was the first son, and third child, of Trevelyn Codrington Gardner CBE and his wife Briege Therese née Feehan. His father was a distinguished Colonial administrator who went on to have a second career in university administration and eventually became treasurer of Cambridge University. Brian was initially educated at St George’s College in Salisbury, Rhodesia and then attended Beaumont College in Old Windsor, Berkshire. He read medicine at the Queen’s College, Oxford and trained at the London Hospital, graduating BM, BCh in 1973. After a year at the London, he spent another at Whipps Cross Hospital and then moved to Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge in various house jobs from 1976 to 1979, with a period at Bedford District General from 1977 to 1978. After a spell at Stoke Mandeville and at the Royal Victoria in Belfast, where, at both hospitals, he worked on spinal injuries, he spent four years at Merseyside Regional Centre, Southport during which time he undertook a travelling fellowship to the USA for nine months and continued his research. During his training he acknowledged the influence of John Hadfield, and, at Addenbrookes, William Smellie, Sir Roy Calne and the neurosurgeon Walpole Lewin. Appointed a consultant in spinal injuries at Stoke Mandeville Hospital in 1985, he spent 30 years working as a consultant including five as a clinical lead. An advocate of the holistic approach to the treatment of spinal injuries, he initiated many research projects in fields as varied as artificial ventilation, sexual dysfunction and life expectancy. He taught, lectured and travelled widely and was an advisor to many influential bodies in the field. Among numerous professional organisations, he was a member of the BMA and treasurer and member of the executive council of the International Medical Society of Paraplegia (founded 1961), which is now known as the International Spinal Cord Society. He was known for having a great deal of empathy for his patients and their problems. Only too well aware of the shattering effect a spinal cord injury could have on a person’s life, he worked hard to ensure that his patients got all the support they needed after their time in hospital. He also became famous as an expert witness in cases of damage to the spine and continued this work throughout his life. During the Iran/Iraq war, two years after his appointment at Stoke Mandeville, he visited Baghdad to offer his help and share expertise in the spinal unit there. He enjoyed playing tennis and listening to music. A family man, his religion was important to him and he was prominent in church activities. On 18 October 1980 he married Stephanie Catherine née Fuller and they had nine children, some of whom followed him into the medical profession. After a strong fight against it, he died of cancer on 15 November 2019 aged 71, survived by his wife and children, Catherine, Paul, Laura, Martin, Annabelle, Edel, Benedict and Liam.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009684
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Shaw, John Fraser (1922 - 2015)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Roderick Shaw
Publication Date 2015-09-15 2015-12-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008000-E008099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380265380265
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Fraser Shaw was a neurosurgeon who trained under, and then assisted, Norman Dott with his pioneering work. He was, in his own words, 'fortunate' to arrive at this position - 'lucky' to serve under Dott at the neurosurgical department of the Edinburgh Western General. John was born in Calcutta in 1922 to an English mother and a Scottish father, and here he spent his earliest years. His father, Roderick, was commissioned into the 52nd Sikhs, although he also managed to find time to captain the Calcutta Scottish Football Club. Colonial friends were to help determine John's later life - a Mr Russell in particular. This 'Old Alleynian' convinced Roderick that he must send his boy to school at Dulwich: John regretted never being able to thank Mr Russell. With the outbreak of the Second World War, John began his medical training at Guy's Hospital, playing rugby and boxing for the hospital, before becoming house surgeon to (later Sir) Russell Brock. Formal teaching was soon interrupted and he joined the Home Guard and then the Royal Air Force as a medical officer from 1946 to 1948, a period away from the classroom, which he regarded as equally informative and valuable. He then returned to Guy's Hospital as a demonstrator in anatomy working under James Whillis. After completing various general surgical registrar appointments in the south east of England, John obtained the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1954. It was at this time that he was introduced to neurosurgery as registrar to Geoffrey Knight. 1957 would perhaps mark his most 'fortunate' moment in medicine, as he came to serve under Norman Dott, from whom he received full neurosurgical training at Dott's pioneering Edinburgh unit. Assisting the distinguished Dott for three years, he took up a position as a consultant neurosurgeon upon his mentor's retirement. While in this role, John became increasingly dedicated to paediatric neurosurgery and was a founder member and past president of the European Society for Paediatric Neurosurgery. He travelled widely, gathering experience and insight from various paediatric surgical centres, which would help him whilst serving on the editorial boards of *Child's Brain* and *Neuro-Paediatriae*. He contributed to *A companion to medical studies* (Oxford, Blackwell Scientific), *Forfar and Arneill's textbook of paediatrics* (Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone) and was co-editor of *Progress in paediatric neurosurgery: proceedings of the 3rd European Congress of Paediatric Neurosurgery in Göttingen, September 3-7, 1972* (Stuttgart, Hippokrates Verlag, 1974). His interests included the countryside around Loch Tay and Scottish painters of the Victorian era. He was the first to admit that he never progressed beyond the 'duffer' stage at golf. John married Sheila (née Wilson) in 1957 after they met when she was anaesthetising for his operating list. He died at home on 22 August 2015. His widow survived him, as did a son, Roderick, a GP, and a daughter, Kirsty, a charge nurse in paediatrics.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008082
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Gortvai, Peter (1927 - 1995)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007900-E007999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380149380149
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Peter Gortvai, the only son of William, an obstetric surgeon and his wife Elizabeth, née Foldi, LDSRCS, was born on 1 December 1927. He attended Trinity College, Cambridge, where he completed his Natural Sciences Tripos in 1951 and won the Tripos prize. He then went to the London Hospital from 1951 to 1954 where he won the George Riddoch Prize in Neurology. After various junior posts, including that of registrar at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, he went to Harvard as a Fulbright fellow, and research and clinical fellow. He was appointed consultant neurosurgeon at the NE Thames regional centre, Oldchurch, Romford, and at Bart's, and from 1984 to 1991 was lecturer in surgery at St Bart's Medical College, where in 1992 he was appointed a governor. In 1991 he was appointed visiting professor of neurosurgery to St John's Hospital, Budapest, Hungary. He spoke Hungarian and German, and had some knowledge of French and Italian. He published some thirty articles on neurological surgery and allied sciences. In 1963 he married Professor Dame Rosalinde Hurley, who qualified in both medicine and law, becoming a barrister in the Inner Temple and a consultant pathologist in microbiology. She survived him when he died on 20 February 1995.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007966
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Daws, Reginald Alex (1922 - 2009)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by T T King
Publication Date 2011-02-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001100-E001199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373314373314
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Alec Daws, neurosurgeon at Royal Preston Hospital, was born on 26 July 1922 at Goadby Marwood, Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, the son of Walter Arthur Daws, a severely disabled Canadian war pensioner, and his wife, Ruth Anne. His early school days were spent at the Victoria School, Montreal, but he returned to England with his parents in 1934 and attended the Church of England School, Ashford, Middlesex, and Kingston Technical College. He entered King's College, University of London, in 1941 and the medical faculty in 1942. His medical school was St George's Hospital, London, where he won the Brackenbury prize for medicine. He qualified in 1946, doing his house appointments at St George's and its country branch in Wimbledon. In 1947 he was a resident medical officer at Atkinson Morley's Hospital, Wimbledon, under Sir Wylie McKissock and Valentine Logue, and became a registrar, and later acting first assistant, in the same unit in 1948. His National Service, starting in 1949, was in the Army at the neurosurgical centre at Wheatley, Oxfordshire, under Sir Hugh Cairns and J B Pennybacker. He obtained the fellowship of both the English and Edinburgh Royal Colleges of Surgeons in 1953, before being appointed as a senior neurosurgical registrar to Charles Langmaid at the Cardiff Royal Infirmary and also at Swansea, with Norman Whalley. He was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon to the Royal Preston Hospital in 1958, at a time when it had neither beds nor operating theatre of its own. With his colleague, Kenneth Tutton, he developed the department into a subregional neurosurgical unit. He had a special interest in the treatment of subarachnoid haemorrhage and intracranial aneurysms and wrote on this subject, as well as on intraspinal dermoid cysts, hypopituitarism due to sarcoidosis and carotid thrombosis in head injury. He was a member of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, a founding member of the North of England Neurological Association, an active member of the BMA, and was involved in administrative committees in the National Health Service. He married, in 1954, June Hawkins, a nurse. They had two sons, Christopher Mark and Andrew Peter. His outside interests included music and he was a keen yachtsman. He died on 29 September 2009, having suffered from Alzheimer's disease for some time.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001131
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Yelland, John Douglas Newman (1928 - 2000)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2012-02-17 2013-02-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002000-E002099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374225374225
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Yelland was a neurosurgeon at the Royal Brisbane Hospital, Queensland , Australia. He was born in Roma, Central Queensland on 11th August 1928. After a primary education in State schools he attended All Souls Anglican School, Charters Towers, where he was house captain and dux of the school in 1945. He was awarded a scholarship to the University of Queensland and graduated in medicine in 1951. After a term of residency at the then Brisbane General Hospital, he decided to become a surgeon and travelled to Britain to study for the fellowship of the College. He was awarded the Hallet Prize for highest marks in the primary examination and passed the final in 1955. When he returned to Brisbane in 1957, John joined a neurosurgical unit which had been founded by Kenneth G Jamieson the previous year. They had a heavy workload of operative neurosurgery largely due to road accidents, and their published work on the results of operations for traumatic intracranial haematomas was said by a colleague to 'remain a gold standard some 30 plus years on'. On the premature death of Jamieson in 1976, John became head of department - a position he held for the next 20 years, continuing also to run a private practice. He was chairman of the Medical Staff Association of the Royal Brisbane Hospital from 1985 to 1986. He worked for the Medical Defence Society of Queensland and served as a Council member, president and secretary. A long serving member of the Neurosurgical Society of Australia, he was awarded their Jamieson medal in 1992. Having passed the fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1961 he served on the state committee and was a member of the court of examiners from 1976 to1986. While studying in the UK he met Dr Margaret Chitty, who was working as a senior house officer in paediatrics, and they married on 26th November 1955. They had five children, Philippa, Catherine, Michael, David and Stephen. John was a dextrous, highly competent surgeon and an excellent clinician. It was said of him that 'his case notes, written with a Mont Blanc fountain pen, were concise, highly relevant to the problem and always legible.' He died unexpectedly of a myocardial infarction, while on holiday in Wales on 1st September 2000, at the age of 72. He was survived by his wife, children and several grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002042
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Clarke, Patrick Reginald Rudland (1921 - 2015)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2015-03-13 2017-07-12
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006900-E006999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379133379133
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Patrick Clarke was a consultant neurological surgeon at Middlesbrough General Hospital. He was born in Cheltenham on 16 April 1921, the son of Edward Rutland Clarke, a headmaster of a grammar school who had gained the Military Cross in 1917, and Edith Frances Clarke née Smith, a housewife. He was educated at St George's School in Windsor and then Felsted School, where he was an exhibitioner. From 1938, he studied medicine at St Mary's Hospital Medical School. He won the junior pathology prize and the hospital prize for medicine and was joint editor of *St Mary's Hospital Gazette*. He qualified in 1944. After resident medical officer and casualty officer posts at Putney and St Mary's, in May 1945 he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a captain. He served until November 1947. From 1948 to 1949 he was a house surgeon at York County Hospital. He then attended the FRCS course at Guy's Hospital. He returned to York in August 1949 as a surgical registrar. In 1951, he became a surgical specialist for the government of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Two years later, he returned to England and began his training in neurosurgery as a senior registrar with George Frederick Rowbotham at Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1957 he was appointed to his consultant post at Middlesbrough General Hospital, a role he held until his retirement in 1986. At Middlesbrough he founded the neurosurgical department and for six years worked single-handed. From 1974, he was also an honorary consultant neurosurgeon for the Yorkshire Regional Health Authority. He was a member of the St Luke's Hospital management committee in Middlesbrough and of the Cleveland Area Health Authority. He was an honorary associate lecturer in neurosurgery at Newcastle University from 1970 and a clinical tutor in postgraduate medicine in the South Tees District from 1971 to 1974. He was president of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, of the North of England Surgical Society and the North of England Neurological Association. He was a member of the advisory council of the European Association of Neurological Societies and of the editorial board of *Acta Neurochirurgica*. Outside medicine he enjoyed reading, music and walking. In 1950, he married Margaret Catherine (Kitty) née Waugh. They had two sons - Michael and Richard. Patrick Reginald Rudland Clarke died on 27 February 2015. He was 93.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006950
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Phillips, Douglas George (1912 - 2009)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Michael J Torrens
Publication Date 2018-11-20 2019-11-05
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009500-E009599
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Douglas Phillips (or Dougie to those fortunate enough to be close to him) was a consultant neurosurgeon and surgeon in charge of the regional neurosurgical unit in Bristol. He was born in New Zealand on 6 May 1912 in Kumara, Westland and obtained his MB ChB in 1935. His house officer appointments were at the Auckland Hospital. He then went to the UK, where he worked as a house officer at the Golden Square Throat Nose and Ear Hospital in London and at the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital. He was awarded a diploma in otorhinolaryngology in 1938 and gained his FRCS in 1939. He spent the Second World War with the Emergency Medical Services and trained in neurosurgery under Douglas Northfield. In 1948, he arrived at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol with George Alexander, appointed as consultant neurosurgeons to set up the Southwestern Regional Neurosurgery Unit. Here Dougie spent the rest of his working life. Dougie’s career exactly spanned the years from when much neurosurgery was done by general surgeons to the advent of super-specialisation. He was indeed a true general neurosurgeon with remarkably wide knowledge and superb technical ability. Despite this generality, he had special interests. One was spinal surgery, where he successfully promoted the new anterior approach to the cervical region (‘Surgical treatment of myelopathy with cervical spondylosis.’ *J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry* 1973 Oct;36[5]:879-84). He also published on the treatment of acute subdural haematoma with craniotomy rather than burr holes (‘Acute intracranial haematoma from head injury. A study in prognosis.’ *Br J Surg* 1965 Mar;52:218-22). But perhaps his greatest academic contribution was in the field of deep brain stimulation. From 1960 to 1975 he, in cooperation with the Burden Neurological Institute, inserted multiple, multipolar gold wire needle electrodes into the cingulate and subfrontal areas of about 60 patients with obsessive compulsive disorder, 18 multipolar electrodes in each patient with remarkable if controversial success (‘Controlled multifocal frontal leucotomy for psychiatric illness.’ *J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry* 1961 Nov;24:353-60; ‘Progressive leucotomy’ *Current Psychiat Ther* 1963;3:98-113). I was very fortunate both to be taught by him and to succeed him. He married his theatre sister, Eileen Jones, in 1953 and they had two sons, John and Paul. He retired in 1977. He died after a long retirement on 6 January 2009 at the age of 96.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009524
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Azariah, Rabindranath Gunasekaran Samuel ( - 1990)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

First Title value, for Searching Roberts, Rev John Gunn ( - 1988)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

First Title value, for Searching Lye, Richard Harold (1947 - 2000)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-11-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008700-E008799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380934380934
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Born in Rochdale, Lancashire, on 19 May 1947, Richard Harold Lye's father Vincent was a technical salesman. His mother was Agnes née Ashurst. He was educated at Rochdale Convent Preparatory School, Bury Grammar School for Boys, and Manchester University. There he completed an honours BSc degree in physiology and won the Sydney Renshaw senior prize in physiology, which he followed with an MSc in neurophysiology, before completing his medical studies. He did house jobs at the Manchester Royal Infirmary and then did a year in general practice, before deciding on a career in surgery. He spent a year as a surgical registrar at Dudley Road Hospital in Birmingham, and a further year in the Birmingham Children's Hospital in 1976, from which he passed the FRCS. He was subsequently based in Manchester, as a neurosurgeon. He married a Miss Archibald, a doctor's daughter, in 1970 and they had two sons. He enjoyed cross-country running and hill walking. He died on 15 May 2000.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008751
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hulme, Allan (1917 - 2008)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by E C Hulme
Publication Date 2010-10-13
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/373213373213
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Allan Hulme was chief of neurosurgery at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol. He was born in June 1917 in Seaton Carew, but spent his childhood in Stockport, Lancashire. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School, where he was in receipt of a scholarship. In 1935, he won an exhibition to St John’s College, Cambridge, to read agricultural science. A year after going to Cambridge, he decided that his true vocation lay in medicine, and the university and college authorities allowed him to switch courses. In 1939, he graduated BA in medicine. Allan Hulme returned to Manchester, to pursue his medical training at the Manchester Royal Infirmary as a house surgeon under the tutelage of Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, newly appointed professor of neurosurgery at the University of Manchester, a mentor for whom he developed the utmost regard and admiration. In 1942, Allan Hulme gained his BChir. He also married Christine Annie Pepper, whom he had met in Cambridge whilst she was nursing at Addenbrooke’s Hospital. Their marriage lasted for 59 years. In 1942, Allan Hulme joined the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving first in East Africa (Nigeria), then being transferred to India, and finally Burma. While in India, his interest in neurosurgery was kindled by having to deal with combat-related traumatic head injuries. During this highly formative period, he was strongly influenced by a second mentor, Gordon Paul, a surgeon from Bristol, who informed him of the possibility of obtaining a position in Bristol after the war finished. After his demobilisation in 1946, Allan returned briefly to Manchester, but influenced by this advice, applied for and obtained a post in neurosurgery at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. This had been developed as an Emergency Medical Services hospital, housed in a series of single-story brick buildings, by the US forces during the Second World War, and it was during this period that neurosurgery was established. After the war, when the hospital was handed back to the newly-formed NHS, Frenchay became the south-western regional centre for the specialty of neurosurgery. In 1947, shortly after starting work at Frenchay, Allan obtained his FRCS. At the time of his appointment, the chief of neurosurgery was George Alexander, another strong influence. He was acknowledged in an important paper which Allan Hulme published in 1960 on the surgical approach to thoracic intervertebral disc protrusions, which is still being cited more than 40 years later (*J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry*. 1960 May;23:133-7). Allan was promoted to senior registrar then full consultant by the early 1960s. The third consultant was Douglas Phillips. Work in the unit was arduous and demanding, with long and frequently unsocial hours. He showed paramount devotion to the welfare of his patients, often making the journey from his home in Long Ashton in the western suburbs of Bristol, even when not on duty, to check on the progress of patients in person. Because of his wide geographical coverage of the Frenchay neurosurgical unit, he also held regular clinics in Taunton and Exeter. On the retirement of Douglas Phillips in the late 1960s, Allan became chief of neurosurgery. Arising from his surgical work, he developed a strong interest in the mechanisms of control of intracranial pressure. He initiated and undertook pioneering research into this with colleagues at the Burden Neurological Institute, particularly Ray Cooper. They studied the control of intracranial pressure during anaesthesia, after traumatic head injury, and before and after surgery for intracranial space-occupying lesions. These studies involved the implantation of miniaturised subdural pressure transducers into the skull, along with other intracranial monitoring devices such as oxygen electrodes and thermistors to monitor local blood flow. Allan retired from his post as chief of neurosurgery in 1979, and retired to Balquhidder in Perthshire, where he passed a long, productive and happy retirement amongst his beloved Scottish hills, which he loved to paint and photograph to the very end of his life. He died on 29 December 2008 and was survived by his three children, Edward, Martin and Catherine.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001030
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Bailey, Ian Campbell (1929 - 2018)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2020-11-24
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009800-E009899
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Born on 5 October 1929, Ian Campbell Bailey came from an eminent Dublin family. He was the eldest son of James Rowland Bailey, a company director, and his wife Hilda Maud née Campbell, the daughter of Ottwell Campbell, a civil servant. Educated initially at Rathgar Boy’s Preparatory School, he then attended St Andrew’s College, Dublin from 1940 to 1947. He studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin University and the Adelaide Hospital, graduating MB, BCh BAO in 1953. While there he was influenced by the work of the neurosurgeon Adams Andrew McConnell and Nigel Kinnear, the regius professor of surgery. He moved on to the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin where he gained his LM in 1954 and then travelled to England to work at the Leicester General and Royal Infirmary Hospitals the following year. After a spell in the University of Dublin’s department of anatomy from 1956 to 1957, he moved to the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in Belfast as neurosurgical registrar and senior registrar working with Alex Taylor. He passed the fellowship of the college in 1963 and commenced work at the Guy’s/ Maudsley/ King’s College neurosurgical unit where he found the head of the unit, Murray Falconer, an inspirational teacher. From there he returned to the RVH for two years. Eventually Valentine Logue, the holder of the first university chair of neurosurgery in the UK, persuaded him to go to Uganda which, along with many other sub-Sahara countries at that time, lacked any serious neurosurgical facilities. Arriving in Kampala in 1969, he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon to Mulago Hospital and senior lecturer at Makere University. Later he wrote that he was pleased to have founded the neurosurgical unit before his work was curtailed by *the behaviour of that notorious dictator, Idi Amin*. Returning to the RVH in 1974 at the height of the troubles in Northern Ireland was, as one colleague put it, swapping one front line for another and he rapidly became very experienced in the treatment of gunshot and blast injuries to the head and spine. In Belfast he pioneered the use of titanium to repair skull fractures, a technique which became a global standard since the metal did not cause an immune reaction with tissue and protected the head from further injury. Continuing to work there until he retired in 1995 (having been head of department for five years), he published widely on his surgical experiences both in Africa and Belfast and gained a reputation for remarkable stamina in the operating theatre. He spent some time working in the Middle East including Saudi Arabia and Iraq and was also an examiner for the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. A member of many professional bodies, he was on the Council of the Society of British Neurosurgeons from 1989 to 1993, a fellow of the Association of Surgeons of East Africa, and president of the Irish Neurological Society from 1989 to 1990. He retired to Boa Island in Fermanagh where he spent 20 years and became deeply involved in local life, joining the local Probus Club and the Fermanagh Knot, serving on the committee of the friends of Fermanagh County Museum and becoming a member of the vestry of the Priory Church, Killadeas. When younger he played tennis, rugby football and cricket, while in retirement he developed his lifelong interest in philately and won many medals for the displays he put on at various stamp exhibitions. On 18 June 1955 he had married Ruth Kathleen née Johnson, a former nurse at the Adelaide Hospital. He died suddenly on 2 January 2018 aged 88, during a Christmas visit to the Canary Islands. Ruth survived him together with their children, Christopher (born 11 May 1957) the Director of Northern Ireland Museums, Michael (born 28 June 1961) Director of Savannah Trails Safaris, Zambia and Caroline (8 February 1966) a marketing manager. He was also survived by his daughters-in-law Frances and Desiree, son-in-law Daniel and grandchildren, Matthew, Alice, Oscar, Freya, Oliver and Hugo.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009870
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lassman, Laurence Philip (1913 - 1994)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008000-E008099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380252380252
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Laurie Lassman was born in London on 21 June 1913, the son of Henry Lassman, an electrical engineer, and Julia, née Abrahams, a Hebrew bookbinder. He was educated at Raine's School and went on to the London Hospital Medical College to study medicine, qualifying with the conjoint diploma in 1937 and taking the London MB in the following year. He joined the RAMC at the outbreak of war, served mainly in Europe, and was mentioned in despatches. After the war he became a surgical registrar at the Middlesex Hospital, where he was influenced by Sir Thomas Holmes Sellors and T G I James. He trained in neurosurgery and was appointed consultant in neurosurgery at the Newcastle General Hospital and the Royal Victoria Infirmary. He became a President of the North of England Neurological Association and was a member of the Council of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons. He married Myra, née Tournoff, in 1939 and they had one son, Jonathan, who did not enter medicine. Laurie was a keen collector of stamps and coins. He died of pneumonia on 11 September 1994, survived by his wife, son and two grandsons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008069
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Schreiber, Marcel Sofer (1910 - 1994)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

First Title value, for Searching Hockley, Anthony David (1943 - 2009)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by T T King
Publication Date 2010-05-20 2012-03-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000900-E000999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373177373177
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Tony Hockley was a neurosurgeon in Birmingham. He was born at Hampton Court on 4 October 1943, the son of Charles Hockley, a businessman, and Freda née Dubovie, a fashion designer. He was educated at Brighton College, where he was an exhibition scholar. He entered the medical college of the London Hospital in 1961, graduating in 1966 proxime accessit in his final year. His house surgeon appointments were to the professorial medical unit at the London Hospital, and to the neurology and neurosurgery departments. He was influenced in the last of these posts by D W C Northfield. Subsequent appointments included posts at the Birmingham Accident Hospital and at St Mary Abbot's Hospital, London. He began his neurosurgical career at the Institute of Neurological Sciences, Glasgow, where he was a senior house officer from 1970 to 1971. From 1972 to 1978, he was a registrar and senior registrar in neurosurgery at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, with a period of one year (in 1974) as a visiting fellow at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto. There he came into contact with the noted neurosurgeons, Hendrick and Hoffman, with whom he remained friends for the rest of his career. He was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, in 1978, doing both adult and paediatric work, but later he devoted himself to the latter specialty, establishing the craniofacial surgery unit in Birmingham, which became one of the four designated units in Britain for that subspecialty. The treatment of intracranial and spinal tumours and the understanding of the cause of raised intracranial pressure in craniosynostosis were other important interests. In 2001, he carried out a successful operation for the separation of Siamese twins. He gained his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons ad eundem in 1999. Hockley was prominent in the International Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery, of which he was president in 1997, the European Society for Pediatric Neurosurgery and the International Society of Craniofacial Surgery. He wrote on craniofacial surgery and a wide variety of other topics and was co-editor of the volume *Paediatric neurosurgery* (London, Churchill Livingstone, 1999), to which he contributed the chapter on tumours. He was interested in medical ethics, and the medieval Jewish physician Maimonides, and he established a West Midland group for the study of Jewish medical ethics. Tony Hockley was a modest, self-effacing man whose quiet, kindly personality and devotion to his subject, his patients and the training and interests of his of junior staff left a strong impression on those who came in contact with him. He and his wife, Heather, an optometrist, had three sons (Nicholas Charles, Andrew James and Richard Mark), none of whom went into medicine. His interests outside medicine were tennis, music and the theatre. He died of heart failure on 21 June 2009, aged 65.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000994
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Kelly, John (1902 - 1973)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-08-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005800-E005899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378047378047
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details John Kelly was born in Bombay in 1902, the son of an army officer. He was educated in Ireland, proceeding to the University College Cork for the medical course and graduating with the MB of the National University of Ireland in 1925, having won a clinical prize in surgery and the Blayney Scholarship. He then spent ten years in England, first in house appointments which gave him a wide experience in general surgery and enabled him to obtain the Fellowship in 1931, and later, having developed a special interest in neurosurgery, he spent two years at the London Hospital with Hugh Cairns. In 1935 Kelly returned to Cork, hoping to practise neurosurgery there, but as this was not then possible he worked as a general surgeon to St Finbarr's Hospital, the Mercy Hospital, and the Bon Secours Nursing Home. He was also appointed lecturer in surgery at University College Cork in 1955 and continued in that post till he retired in 1970, gaining a great reputation as a stimulating teacher of both undergraduate and postgraduate students. His surgical skill, his teaching ability, and his sterling character were all deeply appreciated by his colleagues and his patients. John Kelly enjoyed sport, especially cricket, and as he married Dr Alice Glanville who was a keen gardener, he became interested with her in developing a beautiful garden, with many special shrubs and trees. It was unfortunate that after his retirement at the age of 65 a long illness prevented the full enjoyment of these interests, and he died on 5 December 1973 at the age of 71. His wife and their eight children, three of them doctors, survived him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005864
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Subramaniam, Navaratnam (1934 - 1991)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-02
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008300-E008399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380510380510
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Navaratnam Subramaniam was the son of Shanmugam Navaratnam, an official of the Malaysian Railways, and of Achchimuthu, née Sinnathamby. He was born on 4 April 1934 in Jaffna, Ceylon, and was educated at Victoria College and Jaffna College, where he matriculated in 1953. He studied medicine at the University of Ceylon, where he qualified MB BS in 1959. Subsequently he held appointments as an intern and then as a house officer at the General Hospital in Kandy, as house surgeon at Trincomalee and then neurosurgical house surgeon in the General Hospital, Colombo. He then spent two years as surgical registrar to Professor Kirthi Singha FRCS in the University of Ceylon, followed by a year in orthopaedics at the Colombo General Hospital. In 1968 he came to England for two years to study for the FRCS, with attachments to regional neurosurgical centres at the Atkinson Morley and Middlesbrough Hospitals and the Preston Royal Infirmary. After obtaining the FRCS in 1970 he returned home as consultant neurosurgeon to establish a neurosurgical unit at the General Hospital in Jaffna; he subsequently moved to the General Hospital, Kandy, in 1975 and to the General Hospital, Colombo, in 1981. He contributed two articles to the *Ceylon Medical Journal* between 1962 and 1963 on aneurysm of the internal carotid artery and extradural haematoma. In his youth he enjoyed tennis and athletics, and he also wrote articles, poetry and books, usually about Tamil literature and Hinduism. He married Kamalawathie, a State Registered Nurse, on 29 June 1962 and they had two daughters, Kumudhini, and Padmini, who became a doctor. He died on 14 January 1991, aged 56.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008327
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Miles, John Ballard (1936 - 2019)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Paul Eldridge
Publication Date 2019-05-03 2019-09-02
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009500-E009599
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Miles was a professor of neurosurgery at the Walton Centre, Liverpool. He was born in Mountain Ash, a mining village in south Wales, on 30 May 1936, one of five children of Benjamin Miles and Helena Miles née Owen. His father, a miner and a socialist, was blacklisted by mine owners and unemployed until the Second World War, when all miners were needed to man the pits. Tragically, he was killed in a pit accident when John was just six. Following this, John was effectively brought up with his eldest brother, Don, who became a father figure. John attended Mountain Ash Grammar School, where he was captain of rugby and cricket. He also excelled academically, developed a particular interest in biology and gained a scholarship to read medicine at Cardiff. He held junior posts in Cardiff and then did a locum job in neurosurgery in London and was hooked. In 1966, he moved to Oxford and trained under Joe Pennybacker. During this period, he had a head injury whilst playing rugby and had to admit himself under his own care as he was on duty that evening. At Oxford, he worked with Ted Buckley and Brian Cummins, who remained lifelong friends. Together they founded the Senior Registrars’ Travelling Club, with John organising the inaugural meeting in 1969 when he was a senior registrar in Birmingham. In 1971, he became a consultant in Liverpool, the fourth neurosurgeon appointed to the Mersey regional department of surgical neurology. When he joined the department, subspecialisation was still some years off, but he developed an interest in functional neurosurgery – epilepsy, movement disorders and particularly the surgical treatment of pain. In 1979, with Sam Lipton and David Bowsher, he established the Pain Relief Foundation at Walton Hospital and, in 1981, the Pain Research Institute, with dedicated premises built in 1985. By 1989 there were five neurosurgeons in the department, covering a population of over three million and considerable progress had been made towards subspecialisation. John was also instrumental in the creation of the department of neuroscience at Liverpool University. John did much to promote neuromodulation for pain – principally spinal cord stimulation including the development of the technology required – as well as maintaining expertise in previous techniques of lesioning, such as open and percutaneous cordotomy, though alcohol ablation of the pituitary gland passed into medical history. He promoted microvascular decompression for trigeminal neuralgia as the first choice surgical procedure for the condition, as well as other neurovascular compression syndromes, notably hemifacial spasm. Neurophysiology research in this area was in his view the most satisfying with which he was involved, along with the development of MRI techniques. He wrote many papers and chapters in major textbooks. An active and excellent neurosurgeon in all areas, he was an inspirational teacher, a great communicator and, above all, a conscientious clinician. Despite being very competitive, he was modest about his talents and generous in his praise of others; those who worked with him acknowledge the huge amount they owe to him. He was always keen to embrace new ideas, which led to the Walton Centre becoming one of the first places in the UK to use robotic surgery. He also had an intolerance of idiocy, negativity and, sometimes, of the opinions of others. Some found this difficult to handle, but to those whom he perceived as being on the side of the angles, he was a kind and loyal friend. He regularly attended and presented at meetings, both nationally and abroad, and made many friends around the world. With his brother-in-law Huw Griffith, he had the idea of starting the *British Journal of Neurosurgery*. In 1980, they approached the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, but the organisation turned down their proposal. Griffith started the journal privately, and, when he died in the early 1990s, John took on the ownership; with clever management, the journal thrived. He maintained an active interest in the journal long into his retirement. With his wife Enyd (née Griffith), a niece of Aneurin Bevan, he retired to Wales, very near to where he grew up. He made a clean break from neurosurgery, but was happy to receive the Society of British Neurological Surgeons’ gold medal in 2010. He became a skilled cabinet maker and restorer, and a keen golfer and gardener. He also continued to sing in a choir. John died on 1 March 2019 aged 82. He was survived by Enyd and their two sons. He will be missed by all those who had the good fortune to know him as a mentor and friend.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009599
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Crymble, Bernard (1928 - 1992)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007800-E007899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380065380065
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Bernard Crymble was born on 6 May 1928, and after early education was admitted to the University of Durham Medical School, qualifying in 1951. After house appointments at the Royal Victoria Infirmary he joined the RAMC for National Service. After demobilisation he returned to Newcastle as demonstrator in anatomy and senior house officer in general surgery. He passed the FRCS in 1959 and then held a series of registrar posts in general, plastic and neurosurgery before being appointed senior neurosurgical registrar at Newcastle Regional Neurological Centre. He moved to London in 1967 to be senior lecturer in neurosurgery and consultant neurosurgeon to the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street. Two years later he moved to Sussex as consultant neurosurgeon to the South East and South West Thames Regional Health Authority and additionally was appointed to the Royal Alexandra Children's Hospital in Brighton. He had a special interest in occipital pain following whiplash injuries of the neck and the surgery of lumbar disc lesions, and had a considerable medicolegal practice which he put to good use in retirement when he became deputy coroner for East Sussex in 1988. He was a big man with a calm, unhurried manner that inspired confidence. He loved music, and was a patron of the Brighton Philharmonic Society and a member of the Glyndebourne Festival Society. His first wife Ann, the mother of his two eldest children Gavin and Jane, died of breast cancer when relatively young. His second wife Pat died of Alzheimer's disease, and he married thirdly Elaine, by whom he had two sons, Charles and James. He died unexpectedly of a ruptured aortic aneurysm on 17 June 1992, survived by his wife and four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007882
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Green, Sydney Isaac (1915 - 2005)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Sarah Green
Publication Date 2006-01-13 2015-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000100-E000199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372362372362
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Sydney Green was a neurosurgeon based in Washington DC and Bethesda. He was born in Glasgow on 10 June 1915 and lived in a one bedroom apartment with his parents and four older siblings, Lionel, Fagah, Mae and Lillah. He often spoke lovingly about his parents Hymen Harry and Sarah Sayetta Green, and told many stories of life at Springhill Gardens. As he played in the courtyard, he would yell up to his mother, 'Ma, throw me a piece!' and his mother would fix him a bread, butter and sugar sandwich and lower it down to him on a pulley which she rigged up on the fourth floor. The family moved to London when Syd was 10. He decided to become a doctor like his brother Lionel and went on to study medicine at Guy's Hospital. He qualified in 1938. During the Second World War, he served as a captain in the RAMC and was aboard the *Dinard* when it was sunk after hitting a mine on D-Day. Later, he crossed the Rhine as surgeon in charge of the Glider Ambulance Unit, 6th Airborne Division, and was one of the first to liberate the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, an experience which profoundly shaped his feeling toward religion and his Jewish heritage. After the war he returned to specialise in neurosurgery under Hugh Cairns and Murray Falconer and in 1958 went to the United States, where he was in practice in Washington and then Bethesda, working mainly at the Sibley Memorial Hospital. He was much appreciated by his patients and admired by his peers, and was meticulous and incredibly thorough. Intensely devoted to each and every patient, he told how, during the war, he insisted on using more and more blood in an attempt to save one soldier. He was disciplined for his commitment to his patient. Throughout his career, his waiting room was often crowded. He simply wouldn't take shortcuts with any person, much less his patients - but he was well worth waiting for. In 1961 he met a widow, Phyllis Leon Brown. The story goes that she took him on a walk on their second date, and before he knew it they were in a jewellery store choosing rings. They married in 1962 and Syd instantly became a father to three boys, Stuart, Myles and Ken. A daughter, Sarah, was born in 1964. His pride in his family was transparent: family defined his life. He always tried to be home for dinner every night, even if it meant he would have to go back to work late into the evening. He didn't have many hobbies that would take him away from home, but he was passionate about his garden. He would drive up the driveway and, before going inside, he would take off his jacket and lie down in a patch of grass, painstakingly picking out the crabgrass. He would sometimes lose his glasses in the garden, only to find them crunched by the lawnmower weeks later or would come in the house frantically looking for them, only to realise that they were still on the top of his head. He loved to sing off key and tell jokes, good and bad, and to play games. He was intensely alive at every moment and took incredible pleasure in food, whether marmite on burnt toast, over ripe bananas and really crusty bread. Syd had the eccentric habit of grading every meal he ate. While his wife learned to accept a solid B with some satisfaction, other hostesses weren't so thrilled to accept that their meal was anything less than an A+. With Syd, there was no such thing as grade inflation. He was thrilled to see each of his children find his or her life partner, and was passionate about his grandchildren. As Sydney's family tree grew, so did his life force, it seemed. He was famous for travelling to new cities, finding phone books in hotel rooms and looking up anyone who had a name that vaguely resembled his mother's maiden name 'Sayetta'. If he found someone, he would call them and invite them for tea. Whether or not they were related, it was a new person to meet with the potential of connecting with them on some intellectual or emotional level: Syd was a people person to the very end. He saw a great deal during his long life, including two world wars and the horrors of the Holocaust. He was also around to see some of the most fantastic advances in technology and he made sure he kept up with the latest medical breakthroughs, even into his eighties. In 1996 he underwent a pneumonectomy and, after a prolonged battle with chest disease, he died on 14 September 2005. He was 90.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000175
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Blaiklock, Christopher Thomas (1936 - 2018)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by David Currie
Publication Date 2006-09-22 2018-05-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372451372451
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Christopher Thomas Blaiklock was a consultant neurosurgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He was born on 27 July 1936 in Newcastle upon Tyne and raised in Northumbria. His parents, Thomas Snowdon Blaiklock and Constance Rebecca Blaiklock, were both doctors. He attended Oundle School, Northampton, and then carried out his National Service (from 1954 to 1956) in the Royal Navy. He went on to study medicine at Durham, qualifying in 1961. Chris was influenced by his medical house officer post with the Newcastle neurologist, Sir John Walton. His original intention was to pursue a career as a physician, but, having passed the MRCP in 1966, he came to the view that, with the resources available at the time, he could achieve more for patients as a surgeon and he did his basic surgical training in Cardiff. He decided on a career in neurosurgery which, at the time, could not be said to be the most successful of surgical specialties, but he was fortunate to be regularly in the right place at the right time. He was a neurosurgical registrar at Atkinson Morley Hospital in London, which was famous (or notorious) for giving a rigorous training. While he was there the first CT (computed tomography) scanner in the world was installed and Chris was among the first neurosurgeons to experience the revolutionary transformation of neurological imaging and the huge improvement that brought to patients' experience of neurological diagnosis. In 1972, he was appointed as a senior registrar in neurosurgery in Glasgow with Bryan Jennett at a time when Glasgow was being recognised as a centre of excellence in neurosurgical research. The first CT scanner in Scotland was installed in Glasgow during his training there. In 1974, he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. He was only the third neurosurgeon in Aberdeen after Martin Nichols and Bob Fraser. The department covered the whole of the North of Scotland, including the Northern and Western isles. In addition to providing a comprehensive neurosurgery service, the department housed, prior to the advent of intensive care units, the only ventilation unit in the region and the two neurosurgeons were responsible for its management along with a single trainee. Chris brought his experience of CT imaging and saw the installation of the first CT scanner in Aberdeen. He introduced the operating microscope and effectively brought neurosurgery in Aberdeen into the modern era. When the world's first MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanner was built and became available for clinical use, Chris was the first neurosurgeon in the world to employ it and gain experience in its use in neurosurgery. Chris was unusual in being a neurosurgeon who was also a member (and subsequently a fellow) of the Royal College of Physicians, and his diagnostic skills were evidence of his broad general knowledge. For many years, the neurosurgeons in Aberdeen also offered the out-of-hours neurology service, handing patients over to the well-rested neurologists in the morning. Chris often remarked that he could just as easily have enjoyed being an engineer. He had a fascination with how things worked. He carried a skill with tools and his manual dexterity into his operative surgery. He was a true craftsman. His operative surgery was calm, precise and quick, and an inspiration to his trainees. He was an NHS partisan. Despite a heavy workload, his waiting times were negligible and he was offended on occasions when it was suggested to him that he might see a patient 'privately'. He was intensely proud of the local service and of the beautiful territory he served. He enjoyed demonstrating the extent of the territory he covered by placing a pair of compasses on Aberdeen and passing it through his most distant centre of habitation - one of the North Sea oil platforms. The circle also passed through Watford. He contributed extensively to NHS administration, both locally and nationally. With the introduction of clinical management, he became director of surgery for Grampian - a post that he accepted without dropping any clinical sessions. He lacked self-importance or pomposity, and was genuinely interested in people and their occupations and he was always available. For a year, while the other consultant post was unfilled, he provided the service single-handedly. Chris Blaiklock died at home on 8 February 2018 at the age of 81 and was survived by his wife Judith, an anaesthetist, and by his son, Ian, and daughter, Fiona. He will be remembered with great affection by former patients, colleagues in all health professions and by his trainees who have occupied consultant posts in Scotland and in other countries.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000264
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Guthkelch, Arthur Norman (1915 - 2016)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Tina Craig
Publication Date 2019-12-18
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Arthur Norman Guthkelch was born in Woodford Green, East London and educated at Christ's Hospital School, Horsham. At first, because of his love of animals, he aimed to become a vet but when his mother enquired if people were not more important he decided to study medicine instead. He won a scholarship to Bailliol College Oxford where he studied under Sir Charles Sherringham and Jack Eccles, both renowned neurophysiologists, and spent a year as a laboratory assistant to Lord Solly Zuckerman. Graduating MB, BCh in 1939, he worked for a time as a registrar at Manchester Royal Infirmary (MRI) where he first encountered the eminent neurosurgeon Sir Geoffrey Jefferson. He passed the fellowship of the college in 1942 before joining the RAMC as an army neurosurgeon. During the Battle of the Bulge, he recalled, he spent 36 hours non-stop in the operating theatre. On demobilisation he returned to Manchester and worked at the MRI, the Salford Royal Hospital and the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital (RMCH). He was again influenced by Jefferson who had learnt his own skills dealing with battlefield injuries sustained in the first world war and eventually, due to his interest in the young and on Jefferson’s recommendation, a post was created for him as the first pediatric neurosurgeon in the UK at the RMCH. From the mid-1940s he researched the field of pediatric neurosurgery which up until then had presented what he called a *dismal picture* in the country. He published papers on spinal bifada, on hydrocephalus and on subdural haematoma. In 1967, frustrated by what he described as the failure of the government to modernise his facilities, he resigned from the MRCH and took up an appointment as a neurosurgeon at the newly built Hull Royal Infirmary where he spent what he referred to as *eight pleasant years*. During his time there he continued working with infants presenting with subdural haematomas and, together with a team of local social workers, realised that these could be caused by the parents. There was little stigma attached at that time to parents shaking their babies and, apparently, several parents were willing to admit that they had done so. In 1971 he published a seminal paper (Infantile subdural haematoma and its relationship to whiplash injuries. BMJ 1971,2,430-431) which dealt with 23 cases in which the children’s injuries (all except one under 18 months) could have been attributed to parental assault. The paper was to have far reaching effects which, at the time, he could not have foreseen. In 1975, as he approached what was then the compulsory retirement age of 60, he left Hull and travelled to Saudi Arabia to run the department of neurosurgery at the newly opened King Faisal Hospital in Riyadh. Although he was well paid there he did not enjoy Saudi Arabia and was delighted to be offered a job in the USA at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh where he remained until 1982. He then moved to the department of neurosurgery at the University Health Services Center in Tucson, Arizona, eventually retiring in 1992, at the age of 77. While he was still in Tucson, still apparently doing some temporary work, he was made aware of the ramifications of his 1971 paper on shaken baby syndrome (SBS). He began reviewing situations were convictions were obtained on the basis of SBS. In 2011 he was asked to review the case of a father who had received a long jail sentence for assaulting his child. Norman examined all the medical records and found that the child had been sickly from birth and there was no justification for the father’s indictment. The charges were dismissed. He was to become very critical of the application of his original thesis and was shocked that it was inappropriately used to convict innocent people. He remarked that * In a case of measles, if you get the diagnosis wrong, in seven days' time it really doesn't matter because it's cleared up anyhow...If you get the diagnosis of fatal shaken baby syndrome wrong, potentially someone's life will be terminated.* His wife died in 2011 and he moved to Chicago for four years and then to Toledo, Ohio. He continued to work on the problems raised by misuse of the SBS and was determined, as he said, to put as much right as he could before he died. In the last two years of his life he worked closely with the director of the National Child Abuse Defence and Resource Center in Toledo to rectify as many of the misrepresentations of his work as possible. He died on 28 July 2016, aged 99.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009686
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Levy, Laurence Fraser (1921 - 2007)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by T T King
Publication Date 2011-02-10
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001100-E001199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373316373316
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Laurence Levy was a pioneering neurosurgeon in Zimbabwe. He was born on 16 November 1921 in London, the son of Hyman Levy, professor of mathematics at Imperial College, and Marion Aitken née Levy, the daughter of a schoolmaster. He was educated at King's School, Wimbledon, and, when his family moved to Hampshire, at Peter Symonds School, Winchester. He qualified in medicine from University College Hospital in 1945, did a house job at the Royal National Hospital for Chest Diseases in Ventnor, and was a house physician and casualty officer at Worthing Hospital His National Service was in the RAF as a flight lieutenant, stationed at Lübeck, where he became involved in the care of overworked pilots on the Berlin airlift. He also became a glider pilot instructor. He then left for North America to enlarge his experience, becoming a demonstrator in anatomy at the University of Toronto in 1950. By 1954, he was a resident in neurosurgery at New York University Hospital and, in 1955, was a senior resident in neurosurgery at Bellevue Hospital, New York. In 1956, as a Dazian fellow, he had an attachment in neurosurgery at the London Hospital. The neurosurgeons whom he considered had influenced him were Wilder Penfield of Montreal and Thomas Hoen of New York University. Unable to find a post in the NHS in Britain at the time, he took a position as a ship's surgeon on a boat to China. Although he enquired about positions as a neurosurgeon in countries visited on the way, he was not satisfied with what was offered and decided upon Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). In 1956, he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon to the Salisbury group of hospitals, where he was said to be the only neurosurgeon between Johannesburg and Cairo. There he spent his professional life, being appointed professor of neurosurgery in 1972. In Zimbabwe, his difficulty was how to provide, with limited resources, good treatment for his patients. The Harare shunt, a cheap but effective device he developed, was a solution to one aspect of the problem. His practice involved much flying, a major interest from his RAF days. Levy published more than 80 articles, starting with an extensive review of spinal and cerebral astrocytomas in the *Journal of Neurosurgery* in 1956, written from the Montreal Neurological Institute with Arthur Elvidge (*J Neurosurg.* 1956 Sep;13[5]:413-43). Later publications, mainly in the *Central African Medical Journal*, reflected the wide range of neurological conditions with which he had to cope, including tuberculoma and abscess of the brain, peripheral nerve injuries, epilepsy and bilharzia, among others. He was a vocal opponent of apartheid, supported independence for Zimbabwe, and was friends with key figures in the independence movement. Later, he was concerned with the loss of locally trained doctors from the Third World to advanced countries and, in an article in the *British Medical Journal* in 2003, made the suggestion that it would be better for countries, such as, presumably, Zimbabwe, to produce graduates whose qualifications were not recognised abroad (*BMJ* 2003 327 170). He received a medal of honour from the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies for outstanding contributions to neurosurgery in the Third World. His wife, whom he married in 1966, Lorraine, was a professor of medicine. They had two sons. Laurence Levy died of a stroke on 29 May 2007.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001133
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hancock, Dudley Owen (1927 - 1990)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007300-E007399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379490379490
Occupation Neurosurgeon Rehabilitation and spinal injury surgeon
Details Dudley Owen Hancock was born in North London on 18 May 1927 and after early education at Haileybury entered the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1952. After early house appointments at Chase Farm Hospital, Enfield and Bristol General Hospital he was appointed orthopaedic house surgeon at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and prosector in the anatomy department of the Royal College of Surgeons. After acquiring the primary Fellowship he was senior house officer in surgery at Manchester Royal Infirmary and passed the final Fellowship in 1958. He decided to pursue a career in neurosurgery and after a period as senior registrar in the department of neurosurgery at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol was appointed consultant neurosurgeon at Morriston Hospital, Swansea, from 1965 to 1968, later becoming consultant in spinal injuries at Stoke Mandeville Hospital from 1968 to 1973. He was then appointed consultant in rehabilitation to Aylesbury Vale Health Authority, the first appointment to this post, until ill-health necessitated premature retirement in 1987. He had a special interest in the problems of the rheumatoid neck and in providing rehabilitation services for the young disabled. After retiring from practice he went to live in Cornwall where he was able to pursue his hobby of gardening. He died on 9 April 1990 aged 62 and is survived by his wife Jane, and two children, one of whom is a doctor and the other a speech therapist.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007307
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Naffziger, Howard Christian (1884 - 1961)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-03-28 2020-08-05
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005100-E005199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377372377372
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Born on 6 May 1884 in Nevada City, he graduated in science and medicine from the University of California, Berkeley, San Francisco. He studied at Johns Hopkins during Harvey Cushing's last year there, 1913, and during the first world war went on active service in Europe. He returned to San Francisco as surgeon to the University Hospital. He was elected Clinical Professor at Berkeley in 1924, Professor of Surgery in 1929, and Professor of Neurological Surgery in 1947, retiring with the rank of Emeritus Professor in 1952. Naffziger was President of the American College of Surgeons in 1939-40, first chairman of the American Board of Neurological Surgery 1940-50, and President of the American Surgical Association 1953-54. During the war of 1939-45 he visited Europe to inspect American service hospitals, and he paid further visits on medical missions after the war. He died on 21 March 1961 aged 74, survived by his wife and three daughters. Naffziger carried on the great tradition of Cushing's school of neurosurgery. Among his notable achievements were an operation to unroof the orbit for decompression in cases of extreme exophthalmos, and a frontal osteoplastic flap which avoided leaving conspicuous scars on the forehead.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005189
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Elrick, William Lindsay (1927 - 1987)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007200-E007299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379442379442
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details William Lindsay Elrick, the son of William Elrick, a public servant, and of Margaret Mary May (née Lindsay), was born on 20 February 1927, in Melbourne, Australia. After early education at Coburn Primary School and University High School, Melbourne, he entered the University of Melbourne, and graduated in 1949 with honours in surgery and obstetrics. After a resident appointment at the Royal Hobart Hospital, and a demonstratorship of anatomy at Melbourne University, he worked at the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, before going to England. His further surgical training was at Cheltenham, the Bristol Royal Infirmary and the Cardiff Royal Infirmary during which period he passed the final FRCS. On returning to Melbourne in 1958 he was appointed assistant neurosurgeon to the Alfred Hospital, and honorary neurosurgeon to the Austin Hospital, before becoming head of the neurosurgical department at the Alfred Hospital from 1966 to 1987. For a slightly longer period he was consultant neurosurgeon to Aston and Northcote Community Hospitals, and during the Vietnam War the Australian Government seconded him to train Vietnamese army surgeons. He was a member of the Neurosurgical Society of Australia and published only a few papers in his specialty. Outside his professional work he was keen on fishing, shooting and golf. In 1953 he married Jill Jeanette Bitton, a nurse, by whom he had two sons and two daughters. When he died suddenly on 18 July 1987, aged 60, he was survived by his wife and children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007259
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Baliga, Anappa Vithal (1905 - 1964)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-01-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004800-E004899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377060377060
Occupation Cardiac surgeon General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Trained at the North Middlesex Hospital during 1930-32 as a general surgeon, he also practised neurosurgery and cardiac surgery. He became a frequent visitor to European and Russian clinics, attending surgical conferences, and was one of the early visitors to Moscow, when brain operations were carried out under local anaesthetics. He was keen to see surgical training in India raised to the standards of the UK or the USA and his efforts in this direction were tireless. He made many generous gifts to some of the medical colleges in Southern India, and many Indian students have cause to feel grateful for his anonymous gifts, which helped to pay their passage money to the UK or the entire expenses of their studies. Nehru, the Prime Minister of India, said of him, "I am deeply grieved to learn of Dr Baliga's death. He was a brilliant surgeon and a good man, devoted to good causes for which he subscribed liberally. As a president of the Indo-Soviet Cultural Society, he laboured for strengthening friendship between India and the Soviet Union. His sudden death has deprived India of a distinguished surgeon and a patriot of great merit and accomplishment." Baliga practised at Patel Chambers, Sandhurst Bridge, Bombay, but died in London on 19 May 1964 after attending a surgical congress in Vienna. He was survived by his wife.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004877
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McCaul, Ian Reay (1916 - 1989)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-06-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007400-E007499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379629379629
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Ian Reay McCaul was born in 1916 and after his early education entered Glasgow University, qualifying in 1941. After early hospital appointments he passed the Fellowship of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow eight years after qualifying and undertook specialist training in neurosurgery under Sir Wylie McKissock at the National Hospital, Queen Square, and at Atkinson Morley's Hospital. He obtained his first consultant post at the Brook Hospital, Woolwich, and in 1952 was invited to establish a neurosurgical department at the Whittington Hospital. In addition to the administrative work involved in developing a purpose built department he maintained his research interests, particularly in the stereotactic surgery of Parkinson's disease and techniques for controlling pain. He continued to work at the Whittington Hospital until 1976 when he moved to the Royal Free Hospital until his retirement in 1981. After his retirement he remained an active member of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons. Apart from his profound interest in neurosurgery he was also a fly fisherman but his humanity was such that he used barbless hooks and returned the fish to the water unharmed. He died peacefully in his sleep on 16 December 1989 while holidaying in Australia and is survived by his wife Elsie and their three sons, John, Tom and Colin.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007446
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Langmaid, Charles (1913 - 1997)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-11-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008700-E008799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380907380907
Occupation General practitioner Neurosurgeon
Details Charles Langmaid was a consultant neurosurgeon in Cardiff from 1951 to 1973. He was born in Cardiff on 29 July 1913, the son of Sidney Langmaid. He attended Cardiff University and did his house jobs at the London Hospital where he qualified in 1935 and won the Hepburn medal for the best student and the John Maclean medal for obstetrics and gynaecology. After passing his FRCS in 1940, Charles spent a year in general practice in Cardiff, followed by a house job at the Royal Infirmary and a trip to the Far East as a ship's doctor. He joined the Royal Navy in 1941 and served at the Royal Naval Hospital, Devonport, and later at Sherborne, practising general surgery and treating a large number of peripheral nerve injuries. In 1973, just before his retirement, when in London for a BMA committee meeting he called at the offices of the Methodist Missionary Society and asked if he could be of any use in the mission field. The result was a year in Dabou in the Ivory Coast, where he operated three days a week and conducted outpatient sessions in between. In later retirement he edited *Neurochirurgia*, translated medical texts from German into English, and attended neurosurgical conferences. He was also well known in the Welsh Methodist movement and was chairman of the United Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs in Wales. With a lifelong love of music, particularly that of Bach, he played organs in churches throughout Britain and Europe and sang regularly in choirs. Predeceased by his wife, Olga, he left a son and two daughters and four grandchildren when he died of carcinoma of the prostate on 4 May 1997.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008724
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Garfield, John Samuel (1930 - 2019)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Steph Garfield
Publication Date 2019-06-06 2019-11-05
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details ‘You can teach a monkey to operate, but you can’t teach a monkey when not to operate.’ Many, especially on the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies’ training courses, will remember John Garfield’s pithy one-liners. That was the epitome of John – serious, but everything had to be fun and worth doing. John Garfield was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Wessex Neurological Centre, Southampton University Hospitals Trust. He was born in Paddington, London on 13 February 1930. His father, Montagu Garfield, was a medical and dental practitioner; his mother was Marguerite Garfield née Elman. He was educated at Claremont Preparatory School and Bradfield College, and then Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where, after of the two years’ pre-clinical course, he went down to London to finish his undergraduate clinical education and embark on his early medical training at St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington. Like many of his generation, there was a stint of National Service, which he thoroughly enjoyed as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps at Tidworth Barracks and Nicosia in Cyprus, where his wicket keeping took precedence over learning to fire a pistol. After qualifying in 1951, house jobs and registrar rotations centred on London, chiefly at St Mary’s, the Royal London Orthopaedic Hospital and St James’ Hospital, Balham. There was also a short time doing obstetrics in Dublin, which he often recalled with great affection, reminiscing about going out to calls on rickety bicycles with his great friend Colin Ruck. Specialist training was undertaken in London, at the National Hospital, Queen Square, the Whittington and St George’s hospitals and at the Wessex Neurological Centre, Southampton, as well as at Atkinson Morley’s Hospital, then on Copse Hill in Wimbledon, where he worked for Wylie McKissock. John was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon at the Wessex Neurological Centre in Southampton in 1968. Along with Jason Brice, John worked tirelessly to put it on the map both in terms of a centre of excellence for training, but also in producing academic output. John’s approach to management was far ahead of its time in many ways, adopting an ethos of trust and mutual respect for all in the team, including all nursing and support staff; he had a deep, innate understanding of the concept of the team but also the importance of making sure trainees were safe for independent practice. It was with this in mind that John, along with Rab Hide and Glenn Neil-Dwyer, developed the Society of British Neurological Surgeons’ *Safe neurosurgery* policy in 1993, which was referred to by the neurosurgical section of the Union Européenne des Médecins Spécialistes. John’s own academic output is reflected in his 52 journal and other publications, including book chapters in the *Northfield’s surgery of central nervous system* (second edition, Edinburgh, Blackwell Scientific, 1987) and on boxing in the *Oxford illustrated companion to medicine* (Oxford, Oxford University Press), as well as articles in *The Lancet*, the *British Medical Journal*, the *Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine* and *Acta Neurochirurgica*. There were also many invited lectures (119 in all), ranging from a lecture on ‘The eye, the brain and the camera’ in Rome in 1993 in recognition of his significant contribution to neurosurgery, to lectures in Cairo, Kuopio, Wroclaw, Chennai, Trivandrum and Karachi. John was fascinated by the processes of the law, and his involvement in the Medical Defence Union provided an intellectually stimulating opportunity to work closely with the profession. He was a member of the council of the Union from 1977 to 1999 and a member of the board of management from 1991 to 1995. He relished the to and fro of negotiation, hunting for the nub of an issue, and giving evidence to the court. This aspect of his neurosurgical career led to the publication of several articles in the *Medico-Legal Journal* as well as two books – *Dilemmas in the management of the neurological patient* (Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1984) and *More dilemmas in the management of the neurological patient* (Edinburgh, Churchill Livingstone, 1987), written with Charles Warlow, professor of medical neurology, Edinburgh. John was president of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons from 1990 to 1992, secretary of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies from 1983 to 1987, an honorary civilian consultant adviser in neurosurgery to the Army Medical Services and an invited member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1990 to 1993. It was whilst at St Mary’s that John’s passion for photography really took hold, having access to an enlarger in the anatomy department for the first time. This other life’s work threaded through his adult life and was the reason for his early retirement in 1992 – to pursue a photographic career properly; and indeed he did, with exhibitions and books, one of which, *The fallen: a photographic journey through the war cemeteries and memorials of the Great War, 1914-18* (London, Leo Cooper, 1990) (now in its fourth edition), was the culmination of his lifelong project to photograph the cemeteries of the First World War. John’s penmanship was given free rein in that endeavour as he also wrote the text and became steeped in the First World War poets and writers. His photographic career was marginally longer than his neurosurgical one with his final exhibition to mark 100 years of Armistice Day at University of Southampton in November 2018. John died on 8 April 2019 at the age of 89 and was survived by Agnes (née Teleki), his wife of 57 years, three daughters – Stephanie, Johanna and Marie-Claire – and six grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009609
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Currie, John Campbell Miraumont (1926 - 2016)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Fary Afshar
Publication Date 2016-07-26 2016-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009100-E009199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381343381343
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Currie was head of the neurosurgical department at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. He was born on 1 July 1926 in Darlington, County Durham. His father was a practising physician in Darlington who had trained at St Bartholomew's Hospital in London and served as a doctor in the First World War. John went to the local grammar school in Darlington and won a scholarship to Queen's College, Cambridge. He was a keen athlete and rowed for his college; later he took up marathon running and regularly ran in the London marathon until shortly before his retirement in 1990. John continued his medical studies at St Bartholomew's Hospital. After qualifying, he joined the RAMC. He was posted to Korea and served between 1952 and 1954, reaching the rank of captain. Three weeks after returning from Korea, John married his first wife Paddy, whom he had met when she was working as a nurse at St Bartholomew's Hospital. They had two sons. Iain, his eldest, followed the family tradition and went into medicine, becoming a GP in Cornwall. Paddy sadly died in 1967. After his general surgical training, John decided on a career in neurosurgery, having obtained his FRCS in 1958. Whilst waiting to get into a specific training programme under John O'Connell at Bart's he practised for a short period as a GP in Sussex. John's neurosurgical training with O'Connell at registrar and senior registrar levels gave him a wide experience of intra cranial and spinal surgery. Together with O'Connell, he was involved in many aspects of pioneering neurosurgery, notably with several cases for the successful separation of Siamese twins who were conjoined at the head. John's first consultant post was at Leeds General Hospital between 1969 and 1971. He then joined Campbell Connolly at Bart's on O'Connell's retirement. In 1984, on Campbell Connolly's retirement, John became head of the neurosurgical department and remained there until his own retirement in 1990. John was a keen and popular teacher; he became an examiner for the FRCS and for the MChir, Cambridge University. He played a major role in St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, becoming sub dean. John was a member of the medical section of the Territorial Army from the 1950's until 1990, and reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. He received the Territorial Decoration. John became the neurosurgical consultant and visiting professor to the island of Malta. This involved several trips each year to deal with difficult neurosurgical problems, the most complex of which involved transferring the patient to London for surgery by him at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He was also on the staff of the London Clinic and King Edward VII Hospital in London. John was a thoughtful and meticulous surgeon, and readily demonstrated his diagnostic and surgical skills to his trainees. He was always approachable and very supportive of his colleagues and junior staff. His ward rounds involved all members of his department, including consultant colleagues, nurses, physiotherapists, social workers and occupational therapists. He recognised the importance of the team approach to solving neurosurgical problems, and welcomed the weekly discussions over tea and biscuits with the whole team. In 1969 John married Ann, they had a daughter, Mary. After John's retirement the family moved to Cornwall. He continued to be a regular visitor and adviser at St Bartholomew's until the last year of his life. He died peacefully on 2 May 2016, just before his 90th birthday.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009160
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Block, Joseph (1921 - 1995)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-02
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007800-E007899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380011380011
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Joseph Block ('Joe') was born on 12 August 1921 in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State, South Africa. Both his parents had emigrated from Switzerland and were graduates of Zurich University; his father became a lawyer and his mother a professor of languages. He was educated at President Brand School, Grey College and the University of Cape Town, graduating in medicine in 1943. His training hospital posts were in Durban and he served as captain in the South African Medical Corps from 1944 to 1946. To specialise, he came to England in 1949, taking the Fellowship in the same year. He worked at several hospitals, including the Crumpsall in Manchester and the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, at the latter working under Professor Norman Dott. On completion of his training in neurosurgery in 1954 he returned to South Africa, and was appointed neurosurgeon to Johannesburg General Hospital and Baragwanath Hospital, Soweto. The latter's renown in treatment of neurological trauma owes much to his pioneer work. For political reasons he returned to Britain in 1961, working first at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. In 1963 he moved to the Dundee Royal Infirmary, where he established the neurological service. He was an ideal choice: a strong inspirational leader and a natural manager, the easy rapport he had with both patients and staff determined the success of the unit. His publications, such as *Stab wounds of the spinal cord* (1962) reflected his experience in the management of trauma. Poor health necessitated early retirement but he retained his interest in sport, particularly bowls; he was a founder member of the Montieth Probus Club and a keen bridge player. He died on 2 January 1995, survived by his wife Sheelah, née Woods,whom he married in 1961, and their two daughters, Rose, an anaesthetist and Jennifer, a lawyer.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007828
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Henderson, William Robert (1904 - 1975)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006500-E006599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378754378754
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details William Robert Henderson was born on 3 February 1904. He graduated in medicine at Edinburgh in 1926. In 1938 he was appointed first specialist neurosurgeon at Leeds but was only there for a year before he was selected as neurosurgeon-in-charge of the No 1 Army mobile neurosurgical unit based at Oxford. The unit worked, largely in general surgery, during the retreat to Dunkirk and was captured intact. His special qualities of determination, calm, surgical skill, and patience were of particular value at such a time and he became famous as one of the surgical team at the POW Hospital at Obermassfeld. During this period he gained a vast experience of peripheral nerve injuries and the effects of amputation and much of the carefully collected data later appeared in print. He was then transferred to Colditz. In 1945 he was appointed OBE for his distinguished services while a prisoner of war. After a few months attached to the military hospital for head injuries at Oxford, he returned to Leeds in 1946 and gradually expanded the neurosurgical service in the region. For 23 years his clinical commonsense and superb operating skills were an inspiration to many generations of trainees. As befitting a pupil of Harvey Cushing he had an abundance of patience at the bedside and in the theatre. He was greatly respected both locally and nationally and was for many years secretary and later President of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons. Among his memorable writings were those on pituitary tumours, basal meningiomas, phantom limbs, trigeminal neuralgia and angiomas. He died on 30 November 1975 leaving his wife, Mary, and a son and daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006571
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Cummins, James Thomas (1934 - 2020)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Peter McNeill
Publication Date 2021-05-04
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009900-E009999
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details When, on the 23rd of February 2020, James Thomas “Jim” Cummins died, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne lost a good and faithful servant. Jim was born in 1934 in Warrnambool. His mother, Anne, was the homemaker and his father, James, was a secondary school teacher. He had 3 siblings, Isobel, Mary and John. To them and his whole family he was always devoted. One of his favourite aphorisms, which he shared with his trainees, was “Family First”, long before it had political overtones. The last 3 years of his secondary schooling were undertaken at Assumption College, Kilmore where he was a boarder with a number of other students who became St Vincent’s Alumni. He began his medical undergraduate course at Melbourne University in 1953. In 1956 he signed up with the RAAF as a cadet which committed him to 4 years’ service with the armed forces after his residency. This was a decision which he never regretted. One of the highlights of his undergraduate years was his being part of the Olympic torch relay team. After graduation in 1958 he became a junior resident at St Vincent’s Hospital and the following year he married the love of his life, Anne, whom he had met while still a student at Assumption College. They had 3 daughters, a son and 10 grandchildren. From 1962 to 1964 Jim was stationed with his enlarging family at the RAAF Butterworth base in Malaysia. This was a very formative and happy time of their lives where Jim built his experience and confidence. When he returned to St Vincent's, he had already decided to pursue a career in neurosurgery having encountered Keith Henderson and Tom King in the Neurosurgical Unit. He continued his neurosurgical training, first at the Repatriation General Hospital in Heidelberg and thence to the United Kingdom at a number of centres but most influentially in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and later at the London Hospital where Tom King had become the Head of Department. He obtained the English FRCS in 1967. Jim returned to St Vincent’s in 1971 and there had an extraordinarily productive career until his retirement in 1999 having become Head of the Department in 1988. In 1982 he was elected FRACS. Jim was an energetic and innovative neurosurgeon. He always rose to a challenge, the bigger the better. He had an individual style of operating with an emphasis on efficiency and minimalism. He had a very wide repertoire of surgery and his diverse experience made him a resource for younger colleagues to seek advice. He embraced new technologies, in particular the adoption of the operating microscope in the 1970’s with the support and encouragement of Keith Henderson. He made the trans-cranial anastomosis procedure his own, having perfected the techniques in the laboratory. He was a very popular teacher. He was generally patient for a man who didn’t like to waste time!! He would teach the most junior of scrub nurses, ward nurses and junior residents with the same ease as an advanced trainee negotiating a difficult operation for the first time. He was enthusiastic, forgiving, encouraging, supportive and practical in his advice. All who trained under his guidance remember him fondly and positively. Most memorably, he was approachable by anyone. Jim’s collaboration with Prof Iain Clarke of Prince Henry’s Medical Research Institute, (as it was known at that time) in researching hormone physiology of the hypothalamic-pituitary axis was a golden era in his career which spanned at least 10 years. Jim devised surgical techniques and animal models to examine this region and the results of this research were world recognised and contributed to scores of publications, many of which continue to be referred to. Jim was multitalented. Not all surgeons are practical with their hands outside the operating theatre but Jim was a home handyman extraordinaire and, like his surgery, no project ever daunted him. In addition, he developed a deep interest in genealogy and the tracing of his family history. The other passion in his life was the North Melbourne Football Club which he followed loyally and supported generously. Jim Cummins was a man who cared deeply and genuinely about other people. His family was first but his patients and those with whom he worked were always aware of his care. He pointed out the importance of knowing about the patient as a whole rather than just their illness and in doing so was well placed to assist them through difficult times frequently evolving into friendships which outlasted the medical episodes. Having such diverse interests, Jim’s life after retirement from neurosurgery was very productive and happy. He and Anne regularly indulged their love of travel and he was very happy to give advice about destinations but what was most important was their spending time together. As his daughter Jillian said in her eulogy, Jim “was always keen to get on with a job and get things done and dusted.” His final illness had the same qualities. It was abrupt in onset but gave him enough time to prepare his family. His last words as he was taken to the operating theatre were to his wife: “Give me another kiss, Anne”. His funeral, which fortunately occurred before COVID restrictions, was attended by a large number of people from all facets of his life. He would have been particularly pleased at the wake in the adjacent Greek Orthodox Church Hall which he would have described happily as a “bun fight”. In the January 2021 Australian Honours Awards his services to medicine, to neurosurgery and professional medical societies was recognised by the granting of a posthumous AM award. A humble man of great accomplishments.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009952
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Henderson, John Keith (1923 - 2017)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Michael A Henderson
Publication Date 2017-11-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009300-E009399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381568381568
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Keith Henderson, universally known as Keith was born and raised in Perth WA. In 1940 he came east to study medicine at the University of Melbourne. He graduated the end of 1945 and started as a resident medical officer at St Vincent's Hospital Melbourne, spending two years as Frank Morgan's registrar in the neurosurgical unit before travelling to the UK in November 1950 with his newly acquired wife Pixie Doyle. They remained devoted to each other for the next 65 years. It was during his time at St Vincent's he came under the influence of Arthur Schuller, the Austrian Jewish refugee radiologist who arrived in Melbourne in 1940. Schuller did much of the early work in neuroradiology and was an urbane, witty and brilliant clinician. The next four years were spent in Oxford as a neurosurgical trainee in the professorial department, initially under the direction of the Adelaide neurosurgeon, Sir Hugh Cairns who was succeeded by Joe Pennybacker after Cairn's untimely death. The intellectual and cultural life of Oxford were a revelation and remained an abiding memory for the rest of his life. In 1955 he returned from the UK to a position as neurosurgeon at St Vincent's Hospital where he remained for the rest of his career. Slowly the intellectual rigour of Oxford was introduced to the hospital albeit in fits and starts. He gradually instituted ward rounds which included nursing and allied health staff followed by coffee and St Vincent's scones with cream in the clinic room of St Francis Ward, becoming a hospital institution. Keith knew exactly what he was doing, this was teambuilding and patient centred care long before these terms became abused. He loved teaching and found an open market to sell his wares. He was head of the unit from 1966 until his retirement at the age of 65 in 1988. During that time he was instrumental in creating an extraordinary teaching environment which is remembered with fondness by students, residents and of course neurosurgical trainees. His enquiring mind drove him to be at the forefront of the dramatic changes that occurred in neurosurgery postwar. He championed aneurysm and pituitary surgery in particular and was among the first to introduce microsurgical techniques to neurosurgery in Australia. He acknowledged the essential multidisciplinary nature of neurosurgery and the importance of good relations across the disciplines. Keith had a great appreciation of pathology which he shared with his long-term neuropathology colleague Dr Ross Anderson. He thrilled at the nuances of neuroradiology from his earliest days with Arthur Schuller, through the era of neurosurgeons carrying out their own invasive investigations and then working with Eric Gilford ensuring St Vincent's was at the vanguard of the CT era by becoming one of the first hospitals in Australia to take up the technology. St Vincent's was truly his home away from home and with the passage of time he became more deeply involved in its affairs. He served on multiple hospital committees and eventually became chairman of the Senior Medical Staff and close contact with Sister Maureen Walters, the Sister Administrator with whom he developed a close personal and working relationship. In 1987 he was awarded the Order of Australia for services to medicine. He retired from active neurosurgery on his 65th birthday in January 1988 when he retired from St Vincent's because he did "not want to be the last person to know he was no good", the prospect of hurting someone was an absolute anathema. He took on the position of Chairman, committee for medical graduate education at St Vincent's from 1989 to 1991. He had time to indulge his love of reading, predominantly non-fiction and especially poetry, the library was his favourite place in the house. This was the time when he started his biography of Schuller, which was all but complete at the time of his death. He is remembered by his friends and family as a shy man but a person of great personal warmth and care for his fellow human particularly those whose welfare had been entrusted to him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009385
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Morley, Thomas Paterson (1920 - 2012)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Fred Gentili
Publication Date 2016-07-27 2017-10-19
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009100-E009199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381354381354
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Thomas Morley was chairman of neurosurgery at the University of Toronto, Canada. He was born on 13 June 1920 in Manchester, England, to John Morley, professor of surgery at the University of Manchester, and Molly Ogilvie Morley née Simon. At the age of seven, Morley was sent to boarding school in Oxford and then to Rugby School in Warwickshire. Soon after his arrival at boarding school, his mother died from an infection, a loss that stayed with him throughout his life and which drew him very close to his older brother, Jim. He studied medicine at Oxford, where he met Helen Mary Currer Briggs, who was only one of two women in his year. Upon his graduation in 1943, they entered into a marriage that would last for nearly seven decades. They honeymooned in the Lake District, a place to which they would return throughout their lives to walk by the lakes and climb the fells. Shortly after their wedding, he obtained the position of junior house surgeon to Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, Manchester's leading neurosurgeon. His appointment with Jefferson was somewhat nepotistic, as the Morley home in Manchester was close to Jefferson's. He knocked on Jefferson's door, and asked for a job, whereupon Jefferson replied 'Nobody wants to come to my service, because it is too much like hard work, and I won't give you any time.' He recalled the six-month internship at the Manchester Royal Infirmary as being extremely difficult with many sleepless nights and challenging cases. In 1944 he enlisted in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve. He was posted first in England and then to Pune, India - and remained enamoured of India for the rest of his life. His younger brother, Dick, a gifted pilot, was killed in the Second World War. After the war, Morley completed residencies in general and orthopaedic surgery, and obtained his FRCS in 1949. He then returned to Jefferson's neurological service to pursue his main interest, specialty training in neurosurgery, where he spent the next three and a half years. There were few job opportunities for neurosurgeons in England at the time of his graduation, however, as fate would decree, during the war Jefferson had met Harry Botterell, who was serving as senior neurosurgeon to the Canadian Neurological Hospital in Basingstoke. In 1952, Botterell succeeded Canada's first neurosurgeon, Kenneth George McKenzie, as the head of neurosurgery in Toronto, Canada. Botterell asked Jefferson to facilitate the recruitment of one of his trainees to Toronto, where he and McKenzie were in dire need of assistance. Accordingly, Botterell wrote to Morley and asked if he would consider going to Toronto to begin a career in neurosurgery. He was very pleased to receive this personal letter from Botterell, not realising that nearly all of his colleagues in Manchester had received the same letter of invitation! Morley jumped at the opportunity, and began a one-year fellowship in neurosurgery at Toronto General Hospital. He lived in the college wing of the hospital and made daily ward rounds with residents William Horsey and William Lougheed, who would also become leaders in the history of Canadian neurosurgery. In 1953, he was hired to the permanent staff in neurosurgery, and Helen and their two young daughters, Jane and Rosamund, immigrated to Canada to join him. Three years later, their third child, David, was born. His practice grew and he began specialising in brain tumour surgery and procedures used to treat trigeminal neuralgia. He quickly became a skilful technical neurosurgeon, demonstrating complete economy of motion in the operating room and speeding his way through the most exacting and difficult procedures, to the great benefit of his patients. As a clinical research niche, he moved forward with a project he had initially started with Jefferson in Manchester on the use of radioactive phosphorus for the intracranial localisation of brain tumours in patients. Another area of great research interest for Morley was in the use of echoencephalography, where ultrasound was used to delineate the presence of midline shift of structures in the case of intracranial tumours or trauma. As for basic science research work, he was encouraged by Botterell to visit the University of Texas at Galveston to learn about tissue culture of human brain tumours. At Galveston, he studied with Charles M Pomerat, who was the only scientist studying *in vitro* models of brain tumours. One of his seminal contributions to this field was his isolation of circulating glioma cells from the jugular vein from patients harbouring intracranial malignant gliomas. In 1962, he succeeded Botterell as head of the division of neurosurgery at Toronto General Hospital. Two years later, he was appointed as the chairman of neurosurgery at the University of Toronto, a position he held until 1979. He expanded the Toronto residency program to two residents per year and helped form the neurosurgery unit at the Wellesley Hospital in Toronto in 1968. In 1977 and 1979, he summarised the state of neurosurgical training programs in Canada for the neurosurgical literature. Throughout his career, he held numerous leadership positions in medicine and neurosurgery, including president of the Canadian Neurosurgical Society, vice president of the Society of Neurological Surgeons and vice president of the Neurosurgical Society of America. He also maintained his membership of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons. Upon his retirement from surgery in 1985, he turned to a career in letters and was the general editor of the 24 volume Canadian Medical Lives Series, comprising scholarly biographies of distinguished Canadian doctors - capped by his own biography of McKenzie. A total of 50 residents finished either all or a significant part of their training under him. All residents who rotated on the neurosurgical service at Toronto General Hospital with him remember the tradition of tea at 4pm during rounds. He is remembered for his encouraging words to the residents in his formal British accent, his self-deprecating ways, his charm and his incredible wit, albeit sometimes quirky. In his name and honour, and for his early devotion to basic science research in neurosurgery, the Morley prize was created in the division of neurosurgery in 1986 to recognise the neurosurgery resident who has presented the best research paper each year. He embraced his adopted homeland and, by canoe and sailboat, became an ardent explorer of Canada's waterways and wilderness. He also planted thousands of trees, many of which have grown to become mature forests in the Oak Ridges Morraine, Ontario. He died on 29 April 2012 aged 91 and was survived by his wife Helen, their children Jane, Rosamund and David, his son, Luke, eight grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. He had an indelible impact on the art and practice of neurosurgery in Canada.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009171
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Neil-Dwyer, Glenn (1938 - 2020)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Dorothy Lang
Publication Date 2021-02-10 2021-07-02
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009900-E009999
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Glenn Neil-Dwyer was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Wessex Neurological Centre, Southampton. He was born in Kingston, Jamaica, where his mother, Violet Agatha Neil-Dwyer née Hussey, was a teacher in the local school. His father, Glen Shamrock Neil-Dwyer, was of the generation who left Jamaica to support the war effort. From May 1947, Glenn attended Kingsmead Preparatory School, Hoylake, Wirral, whilst his father completed his commission in the RAF in Liverpool and flew Mosquito planes whilst attached to RAF Detling, Kent. In 1951, whilst his parents were in Nigeria and Niger doing missionary work, Glenn moved to Ruthin School, North Wales. He became head boy in 1955 and captain of both rugby and cricket first teams. He qualified MB BS in 1963 from St Mary’s Medical School in London. He remains the only person to captain St Mary’s Medical School rugby first team in consecutive years (1961 to 1963), winning the United Hospitals Cup in 1963. He went on to play for London Welsh. The press tipped him to play for England, but he never did. General surgery training followed: he gained his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1967 and of England a year later. He completed his MS thesis in 1974 on ‘The metabolic effects of subarachnoid haemorrhage’ while undergoing neurosurgical training in Cambridge and Southampton, a lifelong interest that led to many scientific papers and presentations at international meetings. He was appointed as an Arris and Gale lecturer to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1983. He returned to Jamaica in 1974 for his first consultant post at the Cornwall Regional and University College hospitals. However, his neurosurgical ambitions for Jamaica were frustrated, at a very difficult time politically and socially, by the lack of resources and infrastructure. He moved back to the UK to begin practice at the Brook Neurosurgical Unit in London (1975 to 1987). In 1987, he returned to the Wessex Neurological Centre in Southampton to join the existing three-man team that served the growing population of Wessex. He combined a busy clinical practice with an active academic career and an ever-expanding list of national and international administrative roles. Neurosurgery had been established in Southampton in 1967. The unit excelled at training future neurosurgeons and a strong academic unit was being developed. However, its physical infrastructure needed redevelopment and expansion. Glenn was the bridge with the administration that facilitated the restructuring. He established many productive collaborations, both academic and clinical. He introduced complex and demanding surgical approaches to the skull base that required team working with ENT, plastic and maxillofacial surgery. Dedication to a busy clinical practice was complimented by an active research career that embraced meticulous audit and clinical trials. He published more than 100 papers broadly focusing on neurosurgical techniques, outcome and quality of life after neurosurgical intervention. He was at the forefront of the movement that recognised the impact of overly ambitious skull base surgery, not only on the patient but also on the family and carers. He continued to contribute papers, book chapters and read papers at academic meetings up until retirement. Glenn was held in the highest regard by his trainees. His philosophy was that trainees had to be responsible for their own training – he rarely dictated solutions to their problems. Wise, patient and focused discussion usually allowed the trainee to find an answer. He emphasised how important it was to become your own man or woman and to be the best you could possibly be. In every aspect of his life, Glenn served as a role model for those aspiring to a career in neurosurgery. He led by example – a successful career would require fairness and honesty, service and sacrifice, effort and diligence, decency and respect – values he manifested in abundance. In sport and in medicine he was able to strike a balance between competition and community, exemplified by his commitment to building organisations that would work with and for others for common benefit and the sheer pleasure that ensued, knowing that service is its own reward. In the operating theatre, always a difficult arena in which to train, he was supportive and intuitive. His dedication to teaching, training, the intercollegiate examination and the UK-wide development of safe neurosurgical services led to productive service for many years on the councils and committees of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons (SBNS) and the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS). Glenn’s dispassionate, evidence-based analysis was invaluable in the movement to develop and rationalise neurosurgical services nationwide through Safe neurosurgery 2000 and Safe neurosurgery 2002, and the Neurosurgical workforce plan. He appreciated the need for early engagement with politicians and planners, and learned their language. He was president of the SBNS from 1998 to 2000, a consultant adviser in neurosurgery to the Army (from 1992 to 2006) and a member of the council and cases committee of the Medical Defence Union (1998-2008). He was subsequently awarded the EANS medal of honour and the SBNS medal in recognition of his outstanding contribution to neurosurgery. Glenn married Sue, an ophthalmologist and his beloved wife of over 50 years, in 1966. Three sons were to follow – Jason, Dominic and Leo. Glenn was a proud and loving father. His love and commitment to medicine did not distract him from taking part and encouraging his sons in his favourite sports – principally rugby, squash and cricket. In addition to rugby, he played cricket at county level and was particularly proud to be an MCC member and wear the unmistakable tie. Retirement in 2002 allowed Glenn to spend more time with family and friends. He loved his frequent long walks in the New Forest, golf at Brockenhurst Manor Golf Club and frequent visits to the theatre and cinema. Perhaps his greatest passion was opera. He rarely missed a production at Covent Garden, unless Wagner was playing. It is something of a surprise that he didn’t persist with Wagner. They shared a somewhat similar philosophy – that of careful synthesis of component parts to produce, in the composer’s case, a total work of art and, in Glenn’s, a comprehensive approach to the design, delivery and organisation of neurosurgical services in the UK. The house in Bank near Lyndhurst was a beautiful, welcoming family home frequently visited by family and friends. Glenn sadly lost Sue in March 2020 after a long struggle with Parkinson’s disease. Glenn’s terminal illness was relatively brief. He died peacefully at home on 30 November 2020 with his three sons at his bedside. He was 82.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009932
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Frazer, Andrew Keith (1927 - 1987)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007200-E007299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379451379451
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Andrew Keith Frazer, the son of William Frazer who had both medical and legal qualifications, and of Gladys (née Gubbins), was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire on 27 August 1927. His father was Professor of Public Health at Liverpool University, and Medical Officer of Health to the City and Port of Liverpool. After education at Braeside Preparatory School, West Kirby, Andrew went to Shrewsbury School and St John's College, Cambridge, before entering Liverpool University Medical School. Following graduation and resident appointments he did National Service in the Royal Navy as a Surgeon-Lieutenant RNVR during the Korean and Malayan campaigns. He then went to Australia as assistant neurosurgeon with Reginald Hooper at the Royal Hospital, Perth, and with an attachment to the Royal Australian Navy. He later left Australia to become consultant neurosurgeon to the University Hospital of Wales, and clinical teacher in neurosurgery to the Welsh National School of Medicine. Frazer took a particular interest in cerebrovascular problems and did virtually all the carotid artery disobliteration operations in the Principality, as well as being engaged in European controlled trials. He published a variety of papers on neurosurgical topics. He was a skilful operator, a good teacher and an expert administrator with the ability to take a long-term view in planning. He continued his naval connection for some years as a Surgeon Lieutenant-Commander in the RNVR, and he served on the General Medical Council as the representative for Wales from 1980 to 1984. Of quiet and compassionate demeanour, he was a modest man who was much appreciated by his patients. Outside his work his main interest was in sailing. He and his wife, Anne Price, married in 1968. They had a daughter and three sons, two of whom are doctors. When he died on 16 September 1987 he was survived by his wife and four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007268
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Trumble, Hugh Compson (1894 - 1962)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005400-E005499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377605377605
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Born at Nhill in the west of Victoria in 1894, he moved to Melbourne with his parents at an early age. He was educated at Brighton Grammar School and the University of Melbourne, qualifying in 1916. He joined the Australian Imperial Force immediately, without serving any resident hospital appointment, and was posted to the 1st Australian General Hospital in Rouen, but after a short time became regimental medical officer of the 14th Battalion. He was gassed and awarded the Military Cross which he could never be bothered to collect so that in the end it had to be sent to him. After the war he worked in England to obtain his Fellowship, in company with his friend Hugh Cairns. Returning to Australia in 1921 he was appointed to the staff of the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, where in 1930 he established the first neurosurgical unit in Australia and in 1939 was able to get a special block constructed for it in the hospital. His surgical interests were wide, however, covering orthopaedics and thoracic surgery, so that for a long time he remained a general surgeon; but from 1939 to 1946 he was a consultant neurosurgeon to the Army with the rank of Major. As befitted the son and nephew of two famous international Australian cricketers, he was himself a good ball-game player, particularly of cricket and golf. He was a skilled mechanic and designed numerous tools and instruments. He did not care for parties, although anyone was welcome to come and talk to him while he was working at his bench in his workshop. In 1930 he married Uira Law by whom he had a son and a daughter. He died on 16 October 1962.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005422
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lekias, John Simon (1921 - 1983)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-06-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007400-E007499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379604379604
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Simon Lekias was born at Northam, Western Australia, on 15 March 1921. His father Sios Lekias, a businessman, had emigrated to Australia from the island of Kastellorizo, near Rhodes. His mother, Despina Marcou, was a refugee of the Russian revolution who came from the Greek colony in Odessa and whose family were ship owners, trading in the Black Sea. He was educated at the Christian Brothers' College at Perth before entering the medical school of the University of Queensland at Brisbane. He graduated MB BS in 1946 and in the same year married Delecia Carlson Narracott, a nurse and private secretary. He was appointed honorary assistant surgeon to the Royal Perth Hospital in 1954 but at an early stage in his career became interested in neurosurgery and spent six months working in this specialty at Manchester Royal Infirmary, having been awarded a travelling surgical fellowship. Returning to Perth he was appointed neurosurgeon to the Royal Perth Hospital and served on the Hospital's board of management and medical advisory committee. He was also on the neurosurgical staff of the Princess Margaret Hospital for Children in Perth. In 1969 he served as a volunteer member of a surgical team sent to Vietnam by the Australian Government for the treatment of war casualties. He was a committee member of the Western Australian State Committee of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and President of the Western Australia Branch of the AMA in 1976. Apart from his professional life, he was a classical pianist and a collector of jade and paintings. He loved travel, especially to Greece and was an excellent cook. He died on 27 November 1983 and is survived by his wife and two sons, one of whom, Roger, is in general practice at Perth.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007421
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Sachdev, Ved Parkash (1932 - 2000)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-04
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008800-E008899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381079381079
Occupation ENT surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Ved Sachdev was born in Mitranwali, India, on 22 February 1932. His father, Gridhari Lal Sachdev, was a headmaster, and his mother, Amar Rawla, a housewife. During the riots that followed the partition of India he lost his eldest sister, and his family was obliged to flee to Amritsar, where he was educated at Khalsa College and the Government Medical College. He qualified in 1955, winning the Colonel Nat gold medal in surgery. After junior posts he served in the Indian Navy for three years, followed by posts as resident in ENT and head and neck surgery, first in Patiala and later in Amritsar. He went to England for further training in ENT, working in Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, and St James Hospital, Balham, before returning to India as senior lecturer and assistant professor in ENT and neurosurgery in Chandigarh, where he remained for three years before deciding to go to America. After a rotating internship at St Joseph's Hospital, Lorain, Ohio, he began his neurosurgical residency at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York under Sidney Gross and Leonard Malis. After passing the US boards in neurosurgery, he stayed on at Mount Sinai, rising eventually to be vice-chairman of the neurosurgical department, training a generation of young neurosurgeons, including his daughters. An early interest in amateur dramatics gave his lectures great style and force. His special interest was in microsurgery of the spine. He married Ranjeet, also a doctor, in 1969, and both their daughters, Ulka and Ricka, followed them into medicine. He died on 8 August 2000 from a malignant lymphoma in his hospital, Mount Sinai.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008896
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Tutton, George Kenneth (1913 - 1992)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-08 2022-12-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008300-E008399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380563380563
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details George Tutton was born in Stockport, Lancashire, on 11 May 1913, the son of a company director and his wife Eleanor Gertrude, née Bailey. He was educated at King William's School on the Isle of Man and at the University of Manchester, where he qualified with the MB in 1939. He did several resident surgical jobs in Manchester before joining the RAMC in 1942. He served chiefly in North Africa and Italy, notably with No 5 Mobile Neurosurgical Unit. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, o/c surgical division, before being demobilised in 1947. His first post-war appointment was at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, with Sir Hugh Cairns, but returning to Manchester he became lecturer in neurosurgery in the university department led by Sir Geoffrey Jefferson. During this period he delivered a Hunterian Professorial lecture on brain abscess. In 1955 he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon at the Royal Preston Hospital and over the 23 years of his service there built up a fine department with a wide reputation. He married Elizabeth Mary Barbara Gladwell in 1942 and his son, Miles Tutton FRCS, became an ophthalmic surgeon in Chester. Golf had been his sport since his student days when he played for Derbyshire, and living so near to Lytham gave him an enviable opportunity to exercise his skill. He was captain of the Royal Lytham Golf Club and a member of the Royal and Ancient at St Andrew's. He died on 12 December 1992, survived by his wife Barbara, and four children - Ann, Miles, Jill and Lois - and four grandchildren. **This is an amended version of the original obituary which was printed in volume 8 of Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk**
Resource Identifier RCS: E008380
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Booth, Anthony Edmund (1934 - 1996)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007800-E007899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380013380013
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Anthony Booth, neurosurgeon, was born in Liverpool on 20 April 1934, the son of Edmund Booth, a company director, and Henrietta, a teacher. He was educated at Gordonstoun School and King's College, Cambridge, completing his medical studies at University College Hospital, London. His training in neurosurgery was at the National Hospital, Queen Square, under Professors Valentine Logue and Lindsay Symon, at the Middlesex Hospital with John Andrew, and at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street. He was appointed consultant neurosurgeon at Walsgrave Hospital, Coventry, in 1973. The department had been established fairly recently and, until Booth's appointment, was a single-handed one. Booth greatly assisted in placing the department on a firm footing, doing much general neurosurgical work while establishing a number of specialist services in the area. He was particularly interested in paediatric neurosurgery but he also helped to develop a service for the relief of intractable pain, introduced trans-sphenoidal pituitary surgery, undertook the management of acoustic nerve tumours and published papers on spinal cysts and anterior meningocoeles. He also did a good deal of administrative work, being secretary of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons for a number of years and a member of the manpower advisory committee of the College and of the specialist advisory committee in neurosurgery. By his first wife, Margaret, whom he married in 1958, he had three sons - Edmund, a film producer, Sam, an architect and Adam, a sculptor - and by his second, Susan, whom he married in 1969, two daughters - Hannah, a psychologist and Emily. He married for a third time to Janet in 1989. His outside interests were in amateur dramatics, cooking and, after his retirement to France, the restoration of a water mill. He died on 13 December 1996.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007830
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Crocker, Matthew Jeremy Norton (1976 - 2022)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Timothy Jones
Publication Date 2022-05-17
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E010000-E010999/E010100-E010199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/385691385691
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Matthew Crocker was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Atkinson Morley department of neurosurgery, St George’s Hospital, London. He was born on 6 August 1976 to Elizabeth Crocker née Norton and Simon Crocker. Simon was a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist in Norwich, where Matthew and his sister Alison grew up. Alison went on to become a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist. His headmaster noted a ‘capacity to enthuse and encourage others’, which, coupled with academic achievement, led to a scholarship to King Edward VI School in Norwich and a place at New College, Oxford in 1994. He obtained a BA in 1997 and qualified in 2000 with his BM BCh. He undertook his house jobs at the John Radcliffe in Oxford and moved to London for rotating senior house surgeon posts at St Mary’s Hospital, St Thomas’ and ultimately the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, which cemented his path toward a career in neurosurgery. He obtained a coveted South Thames national training number in neurosurgery in 2005 and completed six years of specialist training rotating between King’s College, Hurstwood Park and St George’s Hospital. During his training he undertook a two-year period of full-time research as the McKissock lecturer in neurosurgery at St George’s University of London investigating changes in cerebral blood flow in glioblastoma using xenon CT as well as the role of serum angiogenic profiles in prognosticating high grade glioma. He was a prolific author throughout his training, publishing over 50 articles on the breadth of neurosurgery, including vascular neurosurgery, spinal surgery, cranial trauma and the politics and governance of surgical practice, all reflecting his passion for neurosurgery and academia in general. He was awarded the Norman Dott gold medal for scoring first nationally in the FRCS neurosurgery examination in 2011. As a result, he was also awarded a Marjorie Newsome fellowship, which funded a visiting fellowship at the Barrow Neurological Institute at St Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona. Under the supervision of Robert Spetzler, a neurosurgeon of worldwide renown, he studied surgery for complex aneurysms and also witnessed surgical treatment of highly complex spinal disease, which fuelled an interest in this field for his consultant career. He was appointed to a consultant position at St George’s Hospital in 2012, initially as a general neurosurgeon, however in a short time he evolved into a highly skilled complex spinal surgeon. He prided himself on being the first to learn new surgical techniques, often adapting and improving the existing paradigm. He worked closely with his spinal orthopaedic colleagues and, as a result, had the skillset to undertake any spinal operation via any approach. In particular, he performed surgery for intramedullary spinal cord pathology, well known to be the most technically challenging cases for any neurosurgeon. As well as being an excellent trainer who was held in the highest regard by his trainees, he was passionate about equity of access for patients to the best treatment; he devised and led the regional complex spinal surgical network and spinal multidisciplinary team and was an active lead of his regional operational delivery network during the covid crisis. During his nine years of consultant practice, he achieved so much; he served his term as clinical lead for the department, co-authored a textbook (*Oxford case histories in neurosurgery* Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2013), reviewed articles for several journals, taught on spinal courses and developed a well-regarded medico-legal practice, being described as ‘lucid and impressive’ in his capacity as an expert witness. In 2003 he married Helen Matthews, a consultant gastroenterologist, and they had two daughters and a son. He was a pillar of his local church and community and shared his infectious passion for knowledge and mischief with everyone he met. He was a keen sportsman, firstly as an enthusiastic member of the Oxford University rowing squad. His made the final of the Diamond Challenge Sculls at Henley and won head of the Charles Regatta in Boston. His innate determination and stamina led him to excel in cycling, triathlon and ironman, finishing in the top quarter of the field at the amateur stage of the Tour de France. He took his life on 27 January 2022 with great sorrow for his family, many friends and the UK neurosurgical community, but leaves a legacy of determination, generosity and excellence.
Resource Identifier RCS: E010116
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jefferson, Antony Andrew (1922 - 2017)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Jan Jakubowski
Publication Date 2017-12-13 2018-03-21
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009400-E009499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381804381804
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Antony Andrew Jefferson was a consultant neurosurgeon in Sheffield. He was born in Manchester on 13 June 1922 into a family with a well-established medical tradition. His mother, Gertrude May Jefferson née Flumerfelt, was a medical practitioner/psychiatrist and his father, Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, was already a famous neurosurgeon when Antony began his studies. His paternal grandfather, Arthur John Jefferson, was a GP in Rochdale, and his uncle, John 'Jack' Jefferson, was a general surgeon, also in Rochdale. It is therefore not surprising that Antony chose a medical career. His early education began at the Dragon School in Oxford and subsequently at Rugby School. He began medical school in Manchester, but moved after winning a scholarship to Oriel College, Oxford. From Autumn 1942 to December 1943, after obtaining a wartime Rockefeller studentship, and despite his ship being torpedoed off St John's, Newfoundland en route, he reached Canada and was able to continue at McGill University. During that time he had the opportunity of meeting the famous Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield and, following an internship at Duke University Hospital, North Carolina, did a short stint in neurosurgery with Guy Odom. These encounters seem to have decided the course of his career and he returned to England to complete the requirements for his medical degree. His postgraduate training started as a house surgeon to George Grey Turner at Hammersmith Hospital. From August 1945 to September 1947, he served as a surgical lieutenant in the Navy and travelled to New Zealand, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines, Korea and finally Japan, where he saw the effects of the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After leaving the forces, from September 1947 until June 1948 he worked as a demonstrator in anatomy with George Mitchell in the department of anatomy, Manchester University. Subsequently, he trained in surgery at Ancoats Hospital in Manchester from July 1948 until August 1950, working as a registrar to Peter George McEvedy, gaining his FRCS in 1950. Following this, he worked with Walter Schlapp as a research fellow in neurophysiology at Manchester University, doing experimental work on spinal cord and nerve conduction in cats. In September 1952, he began his neurosurgical training with Joe Pennybacker at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, until March 1956, when he was appointed as an assistant consultant in neurosurgery to James Hardman in Sheffield, shortly becoming a full consultant. He remained in Sheffield for the rest of his neurosurgical career until his retirement at the end of 1986. As so often the way, he was a victim of 'famous father syndrome' and spent his early years in the shadow of his father's towering reputation, however, he soon established himself on the national and international scene in his own right as an open-minded, progressive, innovative surgeon, eager to push the boundaries of neurosurgery forward with the progress of science. In 1956, he was made Hunterian professor and delivered a lecture on pituitary tumours and Rathke's pouch cyst, and was subsequently invited to deliver the Cairns lecture in Adelaide, South Australia and the Pybus lecture in Newcastle, UK. Antony was a great believer in 'neurosurgery without state boundaries' and was a keen believer in international cooperation, actively promoting the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies, where he served as vice-president from 1985 to 1987 and lectured on many training courses. He was also English language section editor of *Acta Neurochirugica* from 1960 to 1971. He served on the neurosurgical specialty advisory committee, including a period as chairman. Locally he was very active in the management of the Royal Infirmary and later the Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, serving as secretary and later as chairman of the medical staff committee. He continuously worked on expanding the department and introducing new methods of treatment and diagnostics. His main interest was the treatment of pituitary tumours and he made a major contribution to the development and popularising of the transnasal approach, including understanding fluid balance in that disorder. He promoted the coordinated, multidisciplinary approach to the management of pituitary disorders involving endocrinological, surgical and X-ray therapy input. He also worked on the development and improvement of the far lateral approach to cervical and thoracic disc surgery. He was very keen to develop non-invasive diagnostic methods and made a contribution to the use of ultrasound in hydrocephalus, as a diagnostic tool for measuring the width of the third ventricle and the displacement of the third ventricle in the space occupying lesions. Prior to CT scan, it was an extremely useful non-invasive diagnostic tool. Further, he supported the development of CT and was instrumental in bringing one of the first CT scans in the UK to Sheffield. His other clinical interest was the treatment of trigeminal neuralgia and the pathogenesis and treatment of aqueduct stenosis. He believed and promoted early and continuous rehabilitation of patients with head injuries, also involving 'rehabilitation' of the patient's family. He introduced to Sheffield coherent management of the after effects of serious head injuries, the significance of which had not hitherto been understood or addressed, and, with the help of the Rotarians, built an outpatient head injury rehabilitation centre. His approach to surgery was meticulous, delicate and anatomical, which was later enhanced using an operating microscope. Antony took great pleasure in postgraduate teaching and instilled in his trainees the importance of seeing the patient not just as a medical condition, but as a person. He had a methodical diagnostic and surgical approach. He not only pursued his own clinical and research interests, but generously encouraged and helped his younger consultant colleagues to reach their full potential, although he was also quite capable of withering sarcasm if any lesser mortal should think too much of themselves! During the time he was senior consultant, under his leadership the Sheffield neurosurgical department expanded, developed and was modernised, both in clinical methods of treatment and in research. He encouraged and helped to establish in Sheffield stereotactic radiosurgery (gamma knife) and the small animal experimental research laboratory. He had many publications, which he generously shared with his trainees. On 16 August 1947, he married Margaret Eirlys Hughes, who was also a doctor, specialising in child health. They had three daughters Ann Margaret, Jane Monica and Ruth Penelope Mary, all three of whom graduated in the humanities. After retirement in December 1986, Antony and Eirlys moved to Wales, to her birthplace, and lived there until her death in December 2004. There he was able to indulge his many interests, including cabinet making, antique furniture restoring and gardening on a grand scale. Together they created a beautiful garden up above the pretty town of Newport in Pembrokeshire. They had many friends and family members in the area and were active in the Council for the Protection of Rural Wales. He became a member of the National Trust and the Royal Horticultural Society, and had a passionate interest in rhododendrons, camellias and magnolias. Although he had many interests, he had a genuine empathy with others, which made him good company. He was a kind, generous and humorous man who made friends all around the world and from all walks of life. Antony died on 8 November 2017 at the age of 95. He was survived by his three daughters, eight grandchildren and six great grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009400
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Symon, Lindsay (1929- 2019)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Michael O’Brien
Publication Date 2020-04-14
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009700-E009799
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Lindsay Symon was a professor of neurological surgery at the Institute of Neurology, London University and the National Hospital, Queen Square who made important contributions to neurosurgical management, technique and training, and major advances in cerebrovascular pathophysiology. He was born in Aberdeen, the son of William Lindsay Symon and Isabel Symon, and was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School. He was awarded a scholarship to Aberdeen University to study medicine at the age of 17 and graduated MB ChB a month before his 22nd birthday with many prizes and gold medals, including the Lyon prize as the most distinguished graduate of the year in medicine. After appointments as a house physician and then house surgeon to the professors of medicine and surgery at Aberdeen, he joined the RAMC for his National Service, which he spent mostly in Graz, Austria. In Austria he met and married Pauline Barbara Rowland in 1954, a Liverpool-trained Queen Alexandra’s Royal Army Nursing Corps sister. He returned to Aberdeen as a research fellow in surgery and then as a surgical registrar. A Medical Research Council (MRC) fellowship took him to the MRC division of physiology and pharmacology of the National Institute for Medical Research Laboratories at Mill Hill, where he worked with William Feldberg and pursued his interest in the cerebral circulation, publishing in the *Journal of Physiology* on the leptomeningeal circulation in dogs (‘Observations on the leptomeningeal collateral circulation in dogs’ *J Physiol*. 1960 Nov; 154[1]: 1-14.2). He combined this with an honorary attachment to Valentine Logue’s neurosurgical unit at the Maida Vale Hospital. A Rockefeller Travelling fellowship (from 1961 to 1962) took him to the laboratories of John Sterling Meyer, a pioneer in cerebral blood flow research, at Wayne State University in Detroit, USA. On his return to the UK, Symon joined Logue’s department at Maida Vale as a registrar and first assistant until his appointment to the consultant staff of the National Hospitals in 1965. He succeeded Logue as professor of neurological surgery at the Institute of Neurology, University College London and chairman of the Gough Cooper department of neurological surgery at the National Hospitals in 1978. He also held honorary consultant appointments at St Thomas’ Hospital, Hammersmith Hospital, the Italian Hospital and the Royal National Nose, Throat and Ear Hospital. He was adjunct professor in the department of surgery at Southwestern Medical School in Dallas and a civilian adviser in neurosurgery to the Royal Navy. Symon received numerous medals and rewards from institutes around the world, including the Jamieson medal of the Australasian Neurosurgical Society, the John Hunter medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the K J Zulch prize of the Max Planck Gesellschaft in Germany, and the Otfrid Foerster medal of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Neurochirurgie. He gave the Herbert Olivecrona Memorial lecture at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and the Sir Thomas Willis lecture to the Stroke Council of America. He was an active participant in numerous symposia and conferences around the world and visiting professor or invited lecturer in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, South Korea, United States and many European countries. He was made a CBE in 1994. During the 15th World Federation of Neurological Societies’ world congress in Seoul, South Korea in 2013 he received the Samii medal of honour. Symon was particularly interested in the training of neurosurgeons and was a member of the editorial board of *Advances and Technical Standards in Neurosurgery* from its inception in 1972, becoming its chief editor from 1984 to 1994. He was elected president of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies and served from 1989 to 1993. During this time, he established a central office and secretariat for the Federation in Geneva and helped to develop educational schemes and courses worldwide. He was vice president of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies from 1975 to 1979 and a member of the training committee from 1979 to 1983. He was president of the Harveian Society of London in 1998. Symon was well known and much appreciated by his surgical colleagues and referring physicians for his clinical expertise and technical skill. In 1990 *The Observer* newspaper ran a series on the best in various fields as voted by their contemporaries: the survey of British neurosurgeons voted Symon as the best and most distinguished British neurosurgeon. Of around 500 paper publications, about 200 related to clinical aspects of neurosurgery and to technical issues. He was particularly interested in cranial and spinal vascular malformations and aneurysms, and skull base surgery, publishing on acoustic neuroma, trigeminal neuroma, CSF leaks, jugular paraganglioma, craniopharyngioma, haemangioblastoma and meningioma. Technical advances included the development and intraoperative use of somatosensory evoked potentials, central contraction times, intracranial pressure measurements and in acoustic neuroma surgery, electrocochleography and facial nerve stimulation and electromyography. Around 300 papers came from the Cerebrovascular Research Laboratory, which Symon established at the Institute of Neurology with support from the Medical Research Council. In collaboration with many academic colleagues, the output from this unit was prodigious, often requiring the development of new techniques, such as the hydrogen clearance method for measurement of local blood flow, ion-selective electrodes and microdialysis to measure electrolyte changes, evoked potentials and intracranial pressure monitoring. There is no doubt that the most important and lasting contribution was the concept of progressive thresholds of ischaemia, first published in 1977 in the *Journal of Neurological Sciences* (‘Extracellular potassium activity, evoked potential and tissue blood flow: relationship during progressive ischaemia in baboon cerebral cortex’ *J Neurol Sci* 32: 305-21, 1977). Symon and his colleagues showed that there were two perfusion thresholds with ischaemic injury when blood flow in the cerebral cortex was reduced progressively. Evoked responses were affected at cerebral blood flows below about 20ml/100g/min with electrical failure at around 16 to 18 ml/100g/min; but potassium efflux, indicating sustained cell membrane failure, did not occur until the local blood flow fell to around 8-11 ml/100g/min. These observations showed that in focal ischaemia there were areas with blood flow below that required for electrical activity, but above that needed to maintain cellular integrity; these areas Symon and his colleagues designated ‘the ischaemic penumbra’. In these areas there is a precarious balance between blood supply and metabolic demand, and this is time limited, with a tendency to fail, joining the infarct core where the blood flow is inadequate to sustain cell membrane function from the onset of ischaemia. Restoration of blood flow to the penumbra has the potential to restore electrical function, but time is short, almost four hours or sometimes a bit longer. These important observations are now the basis for the acute treatment of stroke with thrombolysis or catheter extraction of clot. Apart from medicine, his main sporting interest was golf, which he played regularly from an early age. When working in London he played at South Herts Golf Club and in retirement, when he and Pauline moved to Shalbourne in Wiltshire, he played at Tidworth Garrison Golf Club, where he was a life member. He was also a member of Rye Golf Club and the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews. For several years he raced dinghies on Grafham Water, Huntingdonshire. He was a freeman of the City of London and a member of the Caledonian Club, serving as secretary of the Caledonian senior members golf club for many years. He was a member of the Royal Archaeological Institute and developed interests in medieval history, the prehistory of Wiltshire and the naval battles of the 20th century. Predeceased by his wife Pauline in 2018, he died on 2 December 2019 at the age of 90 and was survived a son, Frasier, two daughters, Rosemary and Fiona, and five grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009750
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Dawson, Benjamin Henry ( - 1983)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007200-E007299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379397379397
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Benjamin Henry Dawson, after education at Middleton Grammar School, worked for a short time in industry while pursuing further education at Salford Technical College. After securing a scholarship to Manchester University Medical School, he duly graduated and became house surgeon to Sir Geoffrey Jefferson at Manchester Royal Infirmary. Sir Geoffrey, recognising Dawson's talent in the neurological sciences, was his adviser and exemplar, and this led on to an MD thesis on the blood supply of the human optic chiasma - a classic work still referred to some thirty years later. After training in neurosurgery at the Maudsley Hospital, London, and in Sheffield, he was appointed in 1956 as consultant neurosurgeon to the Salford Royal and Manchester Children's Hospitals. He then devoted his considerable energy, and powers of argument and persuasion, to the building of a neurosurgical unit. He trained a series of neurosurgeons to pursue and encourage clinical research whilst constantly striving to improve his departmental resources. He had a long-standing interest in cerebral artery aneurysms and vascular malformations, and in vascular features of cerebral and spinal tumours, and had an enormous experience of the then daunting problems of early treatment for congenital abnormalities of the central nervous system. He was also interested in the natural history and management of early sutural fusion, and in stereotactic surgery for Parkinsonism which led to a long and close association with the energetic department of mechanical engineering, in the young University of Salford, where he was visiting professor. He was widely travelled but spent virtually the whole of his professional life in the Manchester area. His restless disposition was a constant stimulus to young and old colleagues alike. Strongly loyal to those with whom he worked, he was a firm disciplinarian who nevertheless evoked great support from his former postgraduate students. He was a member of, and held office in, a number of societies, including the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, the Society for Research into Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida, the Manchester Medical Society, the North of England Neurological Association, and the British Standards Institution. He was President of the Manchester Paediatric Club at the time of his retirement when he moved to Aboyne, Aberdeenshire. At the time of his sudden death on 31 December 1983 he was survived by his wife Muriel and their three children, Aileen, Jane and Benjamin.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007214
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Schurr, Peter Howell (1920 - 2019)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Charles E Polkey
Publication Date 2019-12-18 2020-07-02
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009600-E009699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/382933382933
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Peter Schurr was a consultant neurosurgeon at Guy’s and Maudsley hospitals, London. He was born in Brighton on 9 December 1920. His father, Christopher George Schurr, was an ophthalmic surgeon and his mother, Lilian Nellie Schurr née Abell, had been a ward sister; they met at University College Hospital. He was a great-grandson of William Archer Kent, a physician to Queen Victoria. After education at Prestonville House Preparatory School and Maiden Erlegh School in Reading, he gained a place at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge to read medicine. He completed his clinical training at University College Hospital and qualified in 1943. After appropriate pre-registration jobs, he joined the RAMC and served in Egypt and Greece as a general surgeon, with the rank of captain, between 1944 and 1947. He returned to civilian life and gained the FRCS in 1948. He then trained as a neurosurgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. In 1951, he had an Eli Lilly travelling fellowship, which funded a year at Harvard, where he studied cerebrospinal fluid physiology and hydrocephalus at Boston Children’s Hospital. In 1953, soon after his return to the UK, he obtained a post as a supernumerary senior registrar at the Guy’s and Maudsley neurosurgical unit, which up to that point had been run single-handed by Murray Falconer. In 1955, he was appointed as an independent consultant in the same unit. He retired from that post in 1985 and during those 30 years he saw many changes in clinical and operative practice, including the introduction of the operating microscope, direct brain imaging in the form of CT scanning of the head and spine and the beginnings of subspecialisation. Another consultant (J J Maccabe) was appointed in 1963, but in such a small unit he was obliged to do a great deal of general neurosurgery, however his special interests included paediatric neurosurgery, he preserved his interest in stereotactic methods and performed, in cooperation with his psychiatric colleagues, some careful psychosurgery. Upon the retirement of Murray Falconer in 1975 he became the director of the unit. He was academically active throughout his long and busy career writing some 45 peer-reviewed papers, numerous review articles and, after retiring, three books. The first was a biography of his great grandfather Benjamin Arthur Kent (*Benjamin's son* Royal Society of Medicine Services, c.1991), then a multi-authored book on hydrocephalus (*Hydrocephalus* Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1993) and finally a biography of the neurosurgeon, Sir Geoffrey Jefferson (*So that was life: a biography of Sir Geoffrey Jefferson Kt CBE FRS MS FRCS (1886-1961): master of the neuroscience and man of letters* London, Royal Society of Medicine, c1997). His Army service had always been a significant part of his life and in 1975 he was delighted to be appointed as a civilian consultant to the new Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital at Woolwich. In addition to his clinical responsibilities and the Falklands conflict, he expanded teaching activities there; he preferred his resident medical officer to be a physician and he gave Army surgical trainees relevant experience by allowing them to work in the main neurosurgical unit. In 1986, just after he retired, he was awarded the CBE from the Army List. He had numerous professional appointments and honours. He was a visiting academic to John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, to the American University in Beirut, and to the universities of Cincinnati, Wake Forest in the USA and Alexandria in Egypt. Immediately after retirement he became the sub-dean for postgraduate studies at Guy’s. He served as president of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons from 1982 to 1984, was president of the Harveian Society of London and held various offices in the Royal Society of Medicine. He met his wife Susan (née Todd) at a dance in 1947 and they were married in 1949. The marriage was a long and happy one with two daughters and a son in the family. Although his life was first and foremost neurosurgery, throughout it he always had alternative interests in the humanities, shared by his wife Susan. He was a keen musician having played the piano since his youth and he built a number of string instruments, culminating in the construction of a harpsichord from a kit. He found pleasure in painting, mostly in oils, and was a keen reader, had learnt German and Farsi and he appreciated and wrote poetry. They retired to Ufford in Suffolk in 1991 and lived happily there. Unfortunately, Susan died in 2011, thereafter he was supported by his family, passing his later years in a care home, until he suffered a severe stroke, from the effects of which he died on 29 October 2019. He was 98.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009698
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First Title value, for Searching Davies, Francis Llewellyn (1914 - 1968)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-07-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005600-E005699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377877377877
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Francis Davies was born at Cardiff in June 1914. He was educated at Llanelly County School, and Pagefield College, Swansea, and entered the London Hospital Medical School in 1936. He gained a prize in clinical medicine, and qualified with the Conjoint Diploma in 1940. After house appointments at the Metropolitan Hospital he entered the Royal Navy and served during the second world war in destroyers on convoy duty until 1944, when he was invalided out with a back injury. When he was again fit he joined the neurosurgical department of the London Hospital, a step which led to his devotion to this branch of surgery and determined his career. Like many young men whose training had been disorganised by the war he found it difficult to obtain appropriate general surgical experience. In pursuit of this he held junior surgical posts at the London Hospital, and undertook a variety of work including general practice. In 1954 he obtained the Fellowship and was appointed a senior registrar to Diana Beck at the Middlesex Hospital; during this appointment he studied the long-term effects of thorotrast and reported a technique of pituitary ablation by radio-active substances. In 1957 Davies was appointed neurological surgeon to Hurstwood Park Hospital, which he built up into a vigorous regional centre, working alone for the first five years. Francis Davies was a sound and cautious surgeon with excellent clinical judgement, whose outstanding quality was selfless devotion to his patients. Interest, kindliness, integrity and reliability were the attributes praised by his senior nursing staff. For many years he gave lectures at the Nurses Training School in Brighton, which were greatly appreciated. In 1960 he suffered his first attack of coronary occlusion and this was followed by others, culminating in his last fatal attack. Davies died suddenly while on a holiday in Penarth on 15 August 1968; he was survived by his wife and their four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005694
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Fairburn, Bernard (1916 - 1984)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007200-E007299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379432379432
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Bernard Fairburn, the son of Lazarus and Leah Fairburn (née Margolin) was born at Christchurch, Hampshire, on 3 August 1916. He was educated at Bec School, Battersea, securing an arts scholarship in 1933 before entering the Middlesex Hospital Medical School in the following year. He qualified MRCS, LRCP in 1939. There is no record of his early appointments but he served in the RAMC from 1941 to 1946, with four years on the North West frontier of India, and achieved the rank of Major. He graduated after the war and then took the FRCS before his appointment as senior registrar in neurosurgery at the Middlesex Hospital. He became consultant neurosurgeon to Oldchurch Hospital, Romford, in 1946, with an honorary appointment to the London Hospital and was later also appointed consultant neurosurgeon to St Bartholomew's Hospital in 1971. The greater part of his surgery was undertaken in the neurosurgical centre at Oldchurch Hospital, in the same region as Bart's and the London. By sheer hard work, combined with tact and organisational ability, he and his senior colleague, Leslie C Oliver, built up a first class unit from small beginnings. In 1977 he was awarded Her Majesty the Queen's Silver Jubilee medal for services to the community. By the time of his retirement in 1981 he had wide experience in his specialty. Although he did not write a great deal in the medical literature there were some thirteen personal or joint publications in his name. Outside his professional work he was keenly interested in chess, having captained the London University team as a student and later representing Essex on several occasions. He was also keen on bridge, music and opera, and he enjoyed travel, especially in Italy. He had married Doris Freedman, a nurse, in 1947, by whom he had a son, Richard, who qualified in medicine and two daughters, Joanne and Lynne, one of whom became a nurse. He was studying for a bachelor of law degree when struck by his terminal illness and died on 12 October 1984, survived by his wife and children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007249
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First Title value, for Searching Price, David John Everard (1935 - 2014)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Philip van Hille
Publication Date 2014-10-17 2015-02-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006100-E006199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378330378330
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details David Price was a consultant neurosurgeon at the General Infirmary at Leeds and also at Pinderfields Hospital, Wakefield. He was born on 9 April 1935 in Northampton, the younger son of Arthur Joseph Price, an education officer, and Ruby Kate Price (née Smart), a housewife. He attended Northampton Grammar School and then went to St Bartholomew's to study medicine, qualifying in 1958. Early in his undergraduate training his older brother Roger was involved in a motor cycle accident and died as a result of his head injuries: this no doubt influenced David's decision to become a neurosurgeon. He completed his house officer posts at Bart's and then became officer in charge of the Army head injury unit at Colchester Military Hospital during his two years of National Service. He then returned to Bart's under Gerard Taylor in vascular surgery and gained his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1967. He continued his interest in head injuries at the Birmingham Accident Hospital, and during that time carried out research on the effects of hypoxia, hypotension and delayed surgery on outcome. He completed his neurosurgical training at the West of Scotland Neurosurgical Unit in Glasgow. He was appointed to his consultant post in Yorkshire in 1972, and was also an honorary clinical lecturer at Leeds University. He continued his interest in the critical and later care of the head injured patient. He served on the council and later became president of the Intensive Care Society. He was a founder trustee of Headway (the National Head Injuries Association) and was a member of the management committee for almost 20 years. He established Second Chance, a local head injury support group affiliated to Headway, in Wakefield. This charity flourished under his 20-year care and remains an active day centre for the support of head injured patients. He was a life fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. He maintained an active clinical practice with special interest and expertise in trigeminal neuralgia, the medical management of epilepsy and normal pressure hydrocephalus. He had a great interest in computing and wrote his own interactive software programmes in BASIC, an early computer language. He brought this technology into clinical practice and for 10 years from 1975 programmed a mini computer to control intracranial pressure automatically with a mannitol infusion in an automatic closed loop. He also developed computer-assisted infusion studies for the diagnosis of hydrocephalus. He forged links with Warsaw University of Technology, studying intracranial pressure in hundreds of head injury patients. He published over 80 papers on these subjects and contributed to some 20 medical text books. He attended and contributed to many national and international medical and computer conferences. In addition to his clinical and research activities, David had a busy medico-legal practice that he continued after his retirement from clinical practice in 1997. He was always conscious of the long-term effects of traumatic brain damage and aimed to support those suffering personal injuries and their carers. David was a most polite and charming man. He was a meticulous trainer of surgical technique and very supportive to his many trainees. He had few hobbies, but was dedicated to his 1953 MG TD British racing green sports car, which he maintained throughout his lifetime. He was dedicated to his work and as such his early marriages initially to Patience ('Bunty') in 1964 and Mavis in 1975 did not survive. He married Janis in 1989. He had two sons, Toby from his first marriage and Jolyon from his third. He suffered a throat malignancy in later years which restricted his diet, but not his enthusiasm and activities. David Price died on 30 March 2014, aged 78.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006147
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Bartlett, John Richard (1934 - 2014)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Richard Gullan
Publication Date 2014-02-24 2014-06-06
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005000-E005099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377201377201
Occupation Neurosurgeon Photographer
Details John Richard Bartlett was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Brook Hospital, Woolwich, and later at King's College Hospital, London. He was born on 18 January 1934, the son of Justin Bartlett, a GP in Saffron Walden, and his wife Elsie (née Wright), who was also a doctor. Aged 10, he was given a book *The boy electrician*, which led to a lifelong passion for science. His grandmother gave him the plates and box cameras used by his grandfather Sir John Kirk during explorations in Africa with Livingstone in the 1860s: this started a lifelong interest in photography. In 1947 he went to Radley College. There he considered becoming an engineer, but as his grandfather, both parents, and an aunt were doctors and an uncle, Sir Almroth Wright, was engaged in medical research, he was led inexorably to medicine. At Radley he was introduced to rowing, his main sport during school and college years. He read natural sciences at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, and completed his clinical training at St Mary's Hospital Medical School, qualifying in 1958. He was appointed house surgeon to Sir Arthur Porritt. John decided to pursue a career in neurosurgery after completing a junior post at the Midland Centre for Neurosurgery, working for Edwin Robert Bickerstaff and Jack Morton Small, and a nine-month spell at the Birmingham Accident Hospital with William Gissane and P S London. He obtained his FRCS in 1966. His neurosurgical training started with Richard Turner Johnson and John Dutton in Manchester, where he was highly influenced by the very positive and active operative teaching. Johnson had great confidence in John's surgical abilities. This was demonstrated when, during a period of absence from the unit, he asked John to look after his private patients. He then moved to the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, to complete his training with Joe Pennybacker and John Potter. The senior neurosurgeon at the neurosurgical unit in the Brook Hospital, Woolwich, Geoffrey Knight retired. His main interest was the treatment of affective disorders, especially depressive illness, with a modified frontal leucotomy technique, performing a subcaudate tractotomy using stereotactically placed Yttrium-99 seeds. While the consultant post on offer was not entirely to his liking, Pennybacker encouraged him to 'go for it', confident that John would, with his excellent surgical skills, soon do the sort of neurosurgery he really wanted to pursue! So in January 1971 he was appointed to the Brook and started work alongside George Northcroft and John Gibbs. John, having been one of the first neurosurgeons from the UK to study microsurgery with Gazi Yasargil in Zurich, brought microsurgery to the Brook. He also developed the use of the cavitron ultrasonic surgical aspirator (CUSA) and laser, relatively new to neurosurgical practice, in his tumour surgery. He remained committed to psychosurgery and, with Paul Bridges, a consultant psychiatrist, published extensively. This surgical practice aroused much controversy, but despite sometimes extremely aggressive hostility from those determined to see this work stopped, they remained strong advocates for the patients, all refractory to every other method of treatment. They knew this type of treatment was a 'last resort'. However, they saw and showed that it helped many to be freed from institutional care. The procedure went on to become a factor in the development of the functional neurosurgery of today. John received the bronze award in the 1988 BMA film and video competition, for his video *Psychosurgery: a last resort*, a stimulus for a *QED* science programme broadcast on BBC2 in March 1990. 'JRB' trained numerous doctors. His qualities - enthusiasm, honesty, clarity of thought, desire for high standards and commitment to training - influenced many trainees in the development of their careers. He engendered respect and affection from all in the unit, irrespective of position. John was an excellent clinician, in the style of a good neurologist, taking a careful and probing 'history', really listening to the patient, and examining them sensitively and carefully - looking for little clues, however small. Policies and protocols were not for him! 'Why go to medical school unless it's to learn to understand the natural history and pathology of disease and above all think!' But of course managing complex conditions involves far more than this. 'You can make a diagnosis, but what are you going to do about it?' he would often say. With his absolute passion for science in its broadest sense and his supreme logic, he would work out from 'basic principles' the best way to solve the task at hand (a message he would frequently convey to his own children when helping them with their homework!), all done under a beguiling veil of calm kindness and empathy. He would weigh up with precision the optimum treatment for each individual, fully taking into account the real and often forgotten limitations of modern neurosurgery at its best, and also the limitations that might exist for the patient. He was involved in several major publications on the use of CT scanning in its infancy, the Brook unit having one of the very first CT scanners in the world. Economic evaluation and implications of the CT scanner were undertaken, resulting in two papers in the *British Medical Journal* with, amongst its authors, John Banham (subsequently knighted and later the director general of the Confederation of British industry) ('A clinical study of the EMI scanner: implications for provision of neuroradiological services.' *Br Med J*. 1978 Sep 16;2[6140]:813-5, 'Evaluating cost-effectiveness of diagnostic equipment: the brain scanner case.' *Br Med J.* 1978 Sep 16;2[6140]:815-20). Further publications on MRI scanning demonstrated its huge potential and the revolution it would cause, particularly in spinal imaging and diagnosis. John's visionary fascination for modern technology was exemplified as computers became available. He spent many happy hours with his four children, trainees and colleagues, learning to manage systems and develop programs. This resulted in the computerisation of the neurosurgical unit clinical records system well in advance of other centres. Senior colleagues recognised John as an outstanding surgeon. His results (regular audits were carried out) spoke for themselves. His anaesthetic colleagues loved working for him because there were no 'unexpected moments of excitement'. As he would say 'if things seem exciting it always strikes me that perhaps something has gone wrong'. As a trainee one would think this was easy, just as we all do when we watch any world-class musician or sportsman at work! For much of his career there was political indecision and uncertainty over the future of the Brook unit. Many options were considered, some in great detail, producing considerable tension between the various parties involved. John fought with total honesty for what he believed was right for his department, neurosurgery and above all his patients. He gained the respect of those he fought. Almost 30 years after the initial Ministry of Health meeting in 1967 to rationalise neurosurgical provision for the Metropolitan Regions, the Brook unit was amalgamated with the Guy's/Maudsley unit within King's College Hospital in 1995 to form a single neuroscience centre for south east London, East Sussex and Kent. Once established in King's as the senior consultant neurosurgeon, he showed great leadership and was determined to make the unit flourish, despite all the past conflict and the bitter last minute decision to cancel the construction of a new purpose-built unit that had been fully designed and should have opened on the Maudsley site in 1995. He rapidly engaged with his new colleagues to help create major services for pituitary and acoustic neuroma surgery. John was president of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons from 1996 to 1998, at a time when there was much need for change. He was instrumental in revising the Society's constitution and structure to make it fit for purpose as a rapidly modernising specialty within the NHS. He was a good president - he listened, showed fine judgement and great determination. He became an associate of the Royal Photographic Society in 1993, when he presented a panel of pictures depicting daily life in the Brook Hospital. In retirement photography became his main hobby. Many people will remember him with his camera around his neck and seeing exhibitions of his work, often carried out on holidays in 'remote' places. He was president of the Bromley Camera Club for its centenary year and London organiser for the Royal Photographic Society. He always had time for anyone who was starting out on their photographic adventure and would give what help he could, teaching all four of his children use of the camera, the darkroom, the principles of light and composition, and being rewarded by three of them taking up professional careers in photography and film. John Bartlett was a special person. He was first and foremost a committed doctor who displayed a passion for the welfare and care of his patients and secondly a neurosurgeon. He fulfilled that latter role with vision and determination, tempered by great modesty, grace and humility. He died on 6 January 2014, aged 79, from prostate cancer. He was supported throughout by his devoted wife Cilla, a pillar of strength to him at every stage of his glowing career, and his deeply loved four children and grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005018
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Kalbag, Ramanand Mangesh (1926 - 2018)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Nicholas Todd
Publication Date 2019-01-15 2019-09-20
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009500-E009599
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Ramanand Kalbag (known as ‘Ram’) was the first Indian-born consultant in neurosurgery when he was appointed to the department of neurosurgery in Newcastle upon Tyne in 1964. Ram, the elder son of Mangesh and Uma Kalbag, was born on 6 March 1926 at his maternal grandparents’ home in Karwar, a town on the Konkan coast of India. He grew up with his parents and younger brother in Hubli on the Deccan Plateau, where his father, a doctor, had set up in medical practice. His father was also in the Army reserve and was called up just before the start of the Second World War. Ram was taken to Bombay to live with his uncle, before rejoining his mother and brother, who also moved to central Bombay. Ram attended schools run by the Jesuits, St Mary’s in Hubli and St Xavier’s in Bombay. From school, Ram studied for a BSc in chemistry and physics, and only on graduation realised that, for financial reasons, his childhood aspiration of starting his own factory was quite unrealistic. After spending a holiday with his father and witnessing the effects of famine in Bengal, Ram decided to study medicine and graduated from his father’s medical school in 1951. Following junior posts in Bombay, Ram’s life changed direction when he became fascinated by the intricacy of the structure and function of the brain and, aware of the lack of local expertise in the treatment of brain tumours, was attracted to surgical neurology. Ram went to London in February 1953 for further surgical training. He worked in various posts in general surgery and casualty. Within months of his arrival in the UK, Ram’s father died suddenly, followed by the deaths of other family members crucial to the running of the family’s pharmaceuticals company, which brought about a dramatic change in fortune. Ram’s hopes of returning to India to set up in practice were dashed as in those days a private income was necessary to survive in the early years. So, Ram stayed in England and completed a full-time fellowship course at the Royal College of Surgeons. He then started training in neurosurgery in Bristol. In 1955, Ram moved to the Midland Centre for Neurosurgery in Smethwick, Birmingham, followed by a spell on the professorial unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, also in Birmingham. At Smethwick, he was influenced by three people – the neurosurgeon Jack Small; the neuropathologist Tony Woolf; and the nurse Doreen Dulson, who became his wife in 1959. In Ram’s words: ‘With a reputation as an excellent surgeon but a bit of a bully, he [Jack Small] somehow took me under his wing. After a few months, he told me he wanted me to stay in England as a consultant and that he would make sure I did. At the time, there was not a single Indian senior registrar let alone consultant in the specialty. …Tony Woolf, a consultant neuropathologist, befriended me from the start. He invited me to his home regularly, and I learnt a lot of basic neuroscience from him; often when he was working late he would tap on my office window, suggesting that we went to the pub opposite the hospital, and “blocked a few neurones” temporarily. The third person and the most important in every aspect of the rest of my life was a student nurse. That nurse, Doreen Dulson, for reasons I have never questioned but have always been grateful for, had faith in me when I had lost it; she gave my life meaning.’ Opportunity arose for a work placement at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and a spell in America was regarded as a very useful addition to any CV, but his neurosurgical trainers were highly critical of the idea. Whilst Ram was wondering what to do, a consultant post was advertised in Newcastle. This offered Ram a way out of his quandary because he felt that the regional neurological centre at the Newcastle General Hospital provided a more comprehensive service to the community than other neurosurgical departments in England. With reassurance that he could always return to Birmingham, Ram was interviewed in March 1964 and took up his post in Newcastle six months later. Ram had a general neurosurgical practice on-call for any and all aspects of neurosurgery, as was the norm at that time. The paediatric department at the General Hospital and helpful paediatricians gave Ram scope to indulge in his other main interest, paediatric neurosurgery, especially children’s brain tumours and hydrocephalus. Ultimately Ram had subspecialty interests in the management of spina bifida, hydrocephalus, paediatric brain tumours, spinal surgery, neurorehabilitation and the evolving field of intracranial pressure monitoring. It is common now for neurosurgeons to have special interests in spinal surgery, intracranial pressure monitoring, shunts or neurorehabilitation, but this was rare in those days. Ram helped to lead British neurosurgery into these wider neurosurgical interests. P S Ramani, senior consultant neuro and spinal surgeon at Lilavati Hospital, Mumbai, met Ram in 1968 and he remembers him warmly: ‘He was a gentle soul, soft spoken, but astute and very intelligent, and I was impressed with his extensive knowledge of spinal surgery. At the time, neurosurgeons preferred to restrict themselves to cranial surgery, except for a rare obligatory spinal surgery meant to repair a congenital myelomeningocele. Mr Kalbag was the only one who had evinced interest in spinal surgery and other consultants were relieved and none too hesitant to recommend him to their ailing patients who needed such medical attention. This however resulted in Mr Kalbag’s outpatient department being heavily overcrowded and the waiting list for surgery a mile long.’ During his time in the neurosurgical department at the Newcastle General Hospital Ram and his colleagues were instrumental in lobbying local decision makers and the Government for improvements in surgical training and in the rehabilitation of patients who had suffered head injuries. Ram became associated with the Newcastle upon Tyne Council for the Disabled when it was founded in 1973 (it was renamed Disability North in 1985). Ram remained a trustee and member of the executive committee until he resigned in 2013 because of declining health. Sandra Wheatley, chair of Disability North, said: ‘…our paths continued to cross as he and I worked closely with and supported many of the families in this region who were affected by neural tube defects. Without exception, each of the families valued Ram’s care and [knew] that they were in safe hands and that Ram’s experience, expertise and genuine care of them was of the highest standard.’ It took many years, but Ram was gratified that finally a proper neurological rehabilitation service was established at Hunters Moor Hospital shortly before his retirement. Ram said: ‘I was privileged to work in the NHS during its best years, when consultants weren’t told how they should spend their time at work or how much. It was left to the individual’s conscience. But in April 1991, yet another of those interminable changes in the NHS that every government, whatever its political complexion, likes to introduce, required all consultants to specify in new written contracts exactly how they spent every hour on duty. I retired happy to be free of such shackles on 31st March 1991, to try and make up for the time I should have, but hadn’t, given to Doreen.’ He greatly valued time with Doreen and the children. In spite of working long hours, Ram tried to be home in the evenings to enjoy a meal with his family. If necessary, he returned to work after the children had gone to bed. And, although he was on call every other week, whenever possible Ram and Doreen with Aneel and Anji would drive out into the countryside and have Sunday lunch in country pubs in Chollerford, Bamburgh or Alnmouth. Family holidays were often spent in Wales or Shropshire, and they particularly liked the scenery and beaches in north Wales. Ram’s long retirement allowed him to pursue lifelong interests that he had not had time for before, including philosophy, reading classical literature, politics, overseas travel and the Wranglers Debating Society, the oldest debating society in the North East. Ram was also a member of the Newcastle Philosophy Society and the North East Humanists and regularly attended meetings of both. An avid reader, he enjoyed the works of Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Dickens, plus many books on politics. He also spent lots of time with his eight grandchildren. After their children had grown up, Ram and Doreen travelled extensively to India, the Far East and North America, and enjoyed European holidays by car. They motored all around France as they loved the food and countryside and Ram the wine, and when they could no longer face the long drives, they went on coach tours to France and Turkey. Ram Kalbag died on 20 October 2018. He was 92. P S Ramani sums up his legacy: ‘His spirit lives on in the selfless work he carried out throughout his life and the patients who were given a new lease on life through his skillful hands
Resource Identifier RCS: E009560
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Harries, Bernard John (1916 - 2009)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by T T King
Publication Date 2010-09-30 2013-11-25
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001000-E001099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373211373211
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Bernard Harries was a consultant neurosurgeon at University College Hospital (UCH) and the Whittington Hospital, London. He was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, on 30 April 1916, the son of Eric Henry Rhys Harries, an infectious diseases physician, and his wife, Edith Irene née Brazel. His grandfather, Arthur John Harries, was also a physician, in practice in London. He was educated at 'innumerable' preparatory schools, King Edward VI Grammar School, Birmingham, and University College School, and entered medical school at University College in 1933, obtaining the primary FRCS there. His clinical years (1936 to 1939) were at University College Hospital, where he was Goldsmid entrance scholar and won the Liston gold medal for surgery in 1938. From August to October 1939, he was a house surgeon to Julian Taylor, who also held a neurosurgical appointment at the National Hospital, Queen Square. Harries had been an officer in the cadet reserve of the Territorial Army from 1936 to 1939 and joined 131 Field Ambulance as a lieutenant in October 1939. Between January and May 1940, he saw service in Belgium and France, but was captured by the Germans with his unit and spent the rest of the war in various prison camps in Germany and Poland, including Stalag Luft III and IXb, Oflags VIIc and VIb, and Bad Soden-Salmünster. In 1943, he was transferred to surgical duties in a number of prisoner-of-war hospitals "as a kind of military house surgeon". These hospitals were run by some extremely able British and Australian medical personnel of all ranks who treated patients of many nationalities, but mainly British, Commonwealth and Americans. Harries, who seldom spoke of his war experience, felt he owed a great deal to the young physicians and surgeons with whom he worked at this time, a period in his life which included nine months in ophthalmics, nine months in rehabilitation of major injuries and nine months of primitive operative surgery. At the end of the war, he spent June to December 1945 at the Cambridge Military Hospital, Aldershot, where he was graded as a surgical specialist. Demobilised in 1946, he returned to the Territorial Army in 1951 and continued until 1961, as a major. Back in civilian life, he obtained the final FRCS in 1946, MB BS London in 1947, and started as a house surgeon at UCH again, to Julian Taylor and F J F Barrington, both of whom influenced him. He moved quickly to a post as a senior registrar in surgery at UCH, senior house surgeon at Queen Square and resident assistant surgeon at UCH. As Bilton Pollard fellow and Leslie Pearce Gould travelling scholar, he spent a year in North America - three months at the Montreal Neurological Institute with Wilder Penfield and William Cone, and nine at the Massachusetts General Hospital with James White, William Sweet and Jason Mixter. He also visited other units in the United States and on his return spent a year at Queen Square in the neuropathology department with J G Greenfield. His appointment at UCH in 1951 was as a "general surgeon with an interest in neurological surgery" which, even at that time, must have been unusual. In 1960 he became wholly a neurosurgeon, though he continued to have an interest in the surgery of phaeochromocytomas in which he had a large experience. In 1966 he also became a neurosurgeon to the Whittington Hospital, an honorary, though busy, appointment. It was intended that the Whittington and UCH units should eventually become a unified regional unit, but this plan was abandoned when the Whittington neurosurgery was transferred to the Royal Free Hospital in 1975. Harries continued to give a consultative service to the Whittington until 1979, when he retired from the NHS. As a neurosurgeon, Harries was held in high regard by his neurological and other medical colleagues, as a clinical opinion, an operator, for his care of his patients, and for his courtesy and kindness towards them and his colleagues. He belonged to a period when neurosurgical units were commonly small and sometimes, as in the case of UCH and the Whittington, often run almost single-handedly and were more isolated than would be the case later. His early involvement in some general surgery may, too, have separated him a little from the general run of neurosurgeons. He wrote on head injuries, spinal cord compression and phaeochromocytoma, and was a member of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, Association of Surgeons, Surgical Travellers and was a founding member of the University Hospitals Association. Harries' other important field was in the University College Hospital Medical School, where he was a vice-dean and then dean. He played a part in the translation of the UCH Medical School into the School of Medicine, University College, London. He was also chairman of the medical committee of UCH and the south Camden district medical team, a trustee of the Sir Jules Thorne Trust, secretary of the statistical unit of the University Hospitals Association and chairman of the special trustees. In 1954 he married Irene Elsie Broadbent, whom he had met while in Boston. There were two daughters, Joanna Mary and Alison Jane, both of whom qualified in medicine, and four grandchildren. His extracurricular interests were his family and sailing, which he pursued by crewing for friends and by building his own small dinghies, thus developing an interest in carpentry. He was also a gardener and, after his retirement to Sussex, created a garden from a wasteland. He died on 19 March 2009 from bronchopneumonia after a series of strokes. He was survived by his wife and daughters.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001028
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Connolly, Rainer Campbell (1919 - 2009)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by T T King
Publication Date 2009-10-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000700-E000799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372898372898
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Campbell Connolly was a consultant neurosurgeon at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. He was born on 15 July 1919, the elder son of George Connolly, a solicitor who had served in the First World War, and his wife, Margaret, née Edgell, of Brighton. His grandfather, Colonel Benjamin Bloomfield Connolly was a distinguished military surgeon who had been principal medical officer of the Cavalry Brigade at El Teb (Sudan) and was commander of the Camel Bearer Company on the expedition to relieve General Gordon. Connolly’s education was at Lancing College, Bedford School and St Bartholomew’s Hospital, from which he graduated in 1941. Owing to the shortage of junior medical staff, he was immediately employed as a locum anaesthetic houseman and gave a number of anaesthetics for Sir James Paterson Ross who had, at the start of his career, an interest in neurosurgery. This position led to Connolly’s appointment as a house officer at the wartime hospital, Hill End, St Alban’s, to which the professorial surgical department of St Bartholomew’s had been evacuated. Though Paterson Ross was nominally in charge of neurosurgery, J E A O’Connell was the neurosurgeon within the professorial unit. While working at Hill End, Connolly was seconded to Sir Hugh Cairn’s head injury hospital at St Hugh’s, Oxford, to learn about electroencephalography, which it was thought might be useful in neurosurgical diagnosis. Oxford was one of the few places in the country where this new technique was being explored. This experience put him in contact with Cairns, who was responsible for the organisation of neurosurgery in the Army. Connolly eventually spent almost a year at St Hugh’s. Early in 1943 he found himself posted to an anti-aircraft battery in south London, where he had little to do until his commanding officer told him that he was to accompany the battery to a destination in West Africa. Alarmed, he wrote to Cairns and was almost immediately removed and placed in a holding post at Lancing. Connolly was one of the last survivors of the young neurosurgeons who staffed the mobile neurosurgical units that had been established by Hugh Cairns at the beginning of the Second World War. These saw action in France and Belgium in 1940, and the first one was captured at Dunkirk. Subsequently another six were formed and deployed in the Western Desert, Italy, Northern Europe and Burma. Through the influence of Cairns, Connolly was posted to mobile neurosurgical unit No 4 in Bari, Italy, when the senior neurosurgeon of the unit, Kenneth Eden died suddenly of poliomyelitis in October 1943. With its head, John Gilllingham, and John Potter, he accompanied the unit in the campaign up the east coast of Italy, ending at Ancona with the rank of major and with a mention in despatches. This unit treated over 900 head injuries from the battles at the Gothic Line and the Po Valley, as well as those from partisan activities in Yugoslavia. Many of the Yugoslavian patients had open head wounds for which treatment had been delayed by difficulties in transport, a subject on which Connolly contributed a paper to *War supplement No.1 on wounds of the head* published by the *British Journal of Surgery* in 1947 (*Br J Surg* 1947;55(suppl1):168-172). The results were surprisingly good, the mortality being 20 per cent. The use of penicillin, first clinically tested by Florey and Cairns, and then by Cairns in mobile neurosurgical unit No 4 in North Africa, was considered to be an important factor in these results. After VE day, Connolly returned to England in July. He was posted to the Far East, spending six unproductive months in India following the ending of the war in August. After demobilisation, he returned to Bart’s to a post created to accommodate ex-servicemen such as himself whose training and careers had been affected by war service. He obtained the FRCS in 1947. Cairns had plans for an organised training scheme for neurosurgeons, something not achieved until many years later, and he offered Connolly an appointment at Oxford to a training programme of some years’ duration, beginning as a house surgeon. At the same time Cecil Calvert, in Belfast, who had done much of the surgery at St Hugh’s during the war, invited him to the Royal Victoria Hospital as a consultant. The rigours of being a houseman at Oxford under Cairns were known to Connolly: he took the offer in Belfast and stayed there for four years. In 1952 he moved to the Midland Centre for Neurosurgery in Birmingham. In 1958 he was appointed as the second neurosurgeon to O’Connell at St Bartholomew’s Hospital and remained there until his retirement as senior neurosurgeon in 1984. He was also in private practice and established a reputation especially for judgement and skill in intervertebral disc surgery. He was on the staff of the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and the King Edward VII Hospital for Officers and was a civilian consultant to the Royal Navy from 1971 to 1984. In the College he was Hunterian Professor in 1961, speaking on cerebral ischaemia in subarachnoid haemorrhage. He was president of the section of neurology of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1980 to 1981, a Freeman of the City of London and a liveryman of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries. He married Elisabeth Fowler née Cullis, who was an anaesthetist at St Hugh’s. He died of cancer of the prostate on 14 August 2009, survived by his wife, two daughters and a son.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000715
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Alexander, George Lionel (1902 - 1970)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-07-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005600-E005699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377796377796
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Alexander was born on 18 January 1902 in a family long associated with the stage, but from an early age was determined to follow a medical career. He was educated at George Watson's Academy and the University of Edinburgh, and qualified in 1925. He then held resident posts at Edinburgh, London and Leicester, before taking the Edinburgh Fellowship in 1931. Before that he obtained a scholarship to the United States and came under the influence of Harvey Cushing whose teaching dominated all young neurosurgeons at that time. In 1933 he joined the department of neurosurgery at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, becoming one of the honorary staff three years later. In 1940 he was appointed neurological surgeon to Bangour Hospital, and during the war years worked with Professor Norman Dott in the Unit which at that time served civilians and service men throughout Scotland. After seventeen years in Scotland he was appointed director of the neurosurgical unit at Bristol, a post he held until his retirement. During this period he gave the Patterson Smythe Lecture at Montreal in 1956 and the Honeyman Gillespie Lecture at Edinburgh in 1957. He was president of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons 1964-66. Alexander travelled widely and was a member of the Portuguese, Spanish and French Neurosurgical Societies, and also belonged to the Surgical Travellers Club. At Bristol Alexander was responsible for a unit which entailed a considerable amount of organisation; his work was rewarded by the opening in 1953 of a first-class twin-theatre block with air-conditioning and ancillary services including a special neuro-X-ray department. Alexander was so absorbed in his work that he had little time for outside pursuits but his chief relaxation was to be found in his garden and in entertaining his many friends at his home in Painswick. Alexander met his wife on the way back from the States and they were married shortly after the commencement of the second world war; she and their four children all survived him. He died at his home in Painswick, Gloucestershire on 8 October 1970 at the age of 68. Publications: Clinical assessment in the acute stage after head injury. *Lancet*, 1962, 1, 171-3.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005613
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Ascroft, Peter Byers (1906 - 1965)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-07-14
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005600-E005699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377805377805
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Ascroft was born on 4 September 1906, the only son of James Arthur Ascroft of Bootle, Lancashire and Hannah Byers of Culton, Cumberland. He was educated at Worksop, the Middlesex Hospital, and the University of Strasbourg, qualifying in 1930; the next year he gained the gold medal at his Master of Surgery Degree at the University of London. At the Middlesex Hospital he was a senior Broderip Scholar and later held various resident appointments, including that of assistant in the Bland Sutton Institute of Pathology. In 1933 he was house surgeon in the department of neuro-surgery at the London Hospital under Hugh Cairns, but returned to the Middlesex in 1934 as a surgical registrar and became assistant surgeon in 1937. Meanwhile he had been elected to a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship in neuro-surgery, and was also Streatfield Research Scholar (1937), Hunterian Professor (1938), and Leverhulme Research Scholar (1946) at the Royal College of Surgeons. During the second world war he served as Lieutenant-Colonel RAMC in the Middle East, and was adviser in neuro-surgery in the Mediterranean in 1944-45. He was awarded the MBE in 1942. His most valuable work during the war was on head injuries in the Western Desert. After the war Ascroft was the obvious choice for the newly established Chair of Surgery at the Middlesex and he relinquished his special interest in neuro-surgery. However it gradually became evident that some of his old zest and enthusiasm had gone under the strain of war, and in 1952 he gave up his chair at the Middlesex. With great courage he continued for a time to engage in surgical research but eventually this also had to go. In all his vicissitudes Peter Ascroft remained a man of great personal charm, and his friends felt sad that such a brilliant promise never really achieved its fulfilment. Ascroft died at his home at Teddington, Middlesex on 27 October 1965, aged 59. Publications: Traumatic epilepsy after gunshot wounds of the head. *Brit med J* 1941, 1, 739-44. Treatment of head wounds due to missiles; analysis of 500 cases of head wounds. *Lancet* 1943, 2, 211-8.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005622
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Northcroft, George Bernard (1911 - 1996)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-02-03 2015-09-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006700-E006799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378912378912
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details George Northcroft was born on 17 June 1911 in Harley Street, London, at the house of his father, a well-known orthodontist. His medical education was at St John's College, Cambridge, and the London Hospital, where he qualified in 1937. He began his career in neurosurgery with an appointment at the Radcliffe Infirmary as house surgeon to Hugh Cairns, who had recently moved from the London Hospital to be the first occupant of the Nuffield chair of surgery. In the early part of the war he joined No 1 Mobile Neurosurgical Unit, one of a number organised by Cairns, and, under the command of PB Ashcroft, the unit embarked for Egypt in February 1941 and was engaged in a forward position in the campaigns in the Western Desert. Northcroft was awarded the MBE for his military service and, as a result of his experiences, wrote an early report on traumatic thrombosis of the carotid artery in the *British Journal of Surgery*. He also contributed to the 1947 War Surgery supplement of the same journal, which was devoted to head wounds. After the war he continued to practise neurosurgery, first at the Regional Neurosurgical Unit at Joyce Green Hospital, Dartford (which he had helped to set up) and later at the Brook Hospital, Woolwich, to which it was transferred. He developed one of the first postgraduate centres in a non-teaching hospital in London, and also organised a successful primary course for young surgeons taking the FRCS. As happened to more than one, on returning to civilian life he had difficulty in passing the Fellowship, not obtaining it until 1958. He remained consultant neurosurgeon at the Brook until his retirement, and was also civilian adviser to the British Army and honorary consultant to the Royal Herbert Hospital while it remained open as a military institution. Northcroft was a dextrous and quick surgeon and an excellent teacher, both at postgraduate and undergraduate level. He was also a talented pianist, a good squash and tennis player and a keen and skilful gardener. He married twice, and when he died on 18 February 1996 of carcinoma of the prostate, he was survived by his second wife, Vivienne, five children and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006729
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Segelov, John Nathan (1929 - 1996)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008300-E008399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380488380488
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Segelov was born in Maitland, New South Wales, in 1929 and was educated at Newcastle High School. His medical training was at Sydney University from which he graduated MB BS in 1952, and his experience as resident medical officer at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital aroused his interest in neurosurgery as a career. In 1954 he was neurosurgical registrar at the same hospital before spending some time in the United Kingdom, working in Edinburgh and Manchester and obtaining the FRCS in 1955. He returned to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1958 as honorary assistant neurosurgeon, while at the same time taking up appointments at Liverpool, Fairfield and Canterbury Hospitals, to all of which he provided a neurosurgical service for over thirty years. At the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital he took an early interest in the development of cerebral angiography. With Barrie Scrivener, the ENT surgeon, he visited the House Ear Institute of Los Angeles in the 1960s to study the developments in diagnosis and treatment of acoustic nerve tumours being pioneered there by Dr William House and, as a consequence, introduced the translabyrinthine operation to Sydney. With Scrivener, he operated on almost two hundred such tumours over the succeeding twenty five years. He was also interested in surgery of the spine and the operation of spinal fusion. His publications included papers on intracranial aneurysm and ossifying arachnoiditis as well as surveys of cerebral tumours. He was greatly involved in the affairs of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia, in which he held every office including President, and was awarded the Society's medal in 1994. He served on the medical committee of the Royal Alfred Hospital, and was also its President. Segelov was a keen sea fisherman, and was interested in computer programming, designing a program for case management which was adopted by his own and other hospitals. He received the Order of Australia in 1993 for services to medicine, and died after a long illness from carcinoma of the colon in September 1996, survived by his wife, Maureen, son Andrew and daughter Michelle, and three grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008305
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First Title value, for Searching Paine, Kenneth William Ellis (1921 - 1994)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-25
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008200-E008299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380425380425
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Kenneth Paine was born in London on 16 October 1921, the only son of William James Paine, an accountant, and his wife Edith, née Ellis. He won a LCC scholarship to the City of London School whence he gained a City of London scholarship to St Thomas's Hospital. There he won the Kitchiner scholarship and the Foord Caiger exhibition in pathology. After junior posts at St Thomas's and Grimsby he joined the RAF in 1946 and was posted to Habbiniya, Iraq, as a surgeon. After his National Service he became registrar on the neurosurgical unit at St George's Hospital, from which he passed the FRCS, and then spent a year as a resident at the Montreal Neurological Institute in 1951. He returned to become registrar at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases at Queen Square from 1952 to 1954, going on to Great Ormond Street in 1954. He became a fellow in neurosurgery, with consultant status, at Queen Square and St George's in 1956 and for the next three years. In 1959 he returned to Montreal as an assistant professor, became associate professor and finally chief of neurosurgery in 1962. He became President of the Canadian Neurosurgical Society from 1973 to 1974 and wrote extensively on neurosurgical topics. His hobbies included big-game shooting (especially elk), and bridge - he became a Life Master of the American Contract Bridge League. In 1953 he married Vetha Merritt, by whom he had two sons - Anthony, an organic chemist and Michael, an environmental consultant - and twin daughters - Wendy, working for Canada Transport, and Gail, a political scientist. He died on 30 December 1994.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008242
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Gillingham, Francis John (1916 - 2010)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Angus E Stuart
Publication Date 2011-12-20 2013-11-15
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001700-E001799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373969373969
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Gillingham was professor of neurosurgery at the University of Edinburgh. He was born in Dorchester, Dorset, on 15 March 1916, the son of John Herbert Gillingham, a businessman, and Lily Gillingham née Eavis. He was educated at the Thomas Hardye School in Dorchester, and then studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, where he won prizes in surgery and obstetrics. After graduation and house posts with Sir James Patterson Ross and Ronald Christie, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was deployed for 18 months in Sir Hugh Cairns' 'crash course' at Oxford on all aspects of neurological trauma. Gillingham later became commanding officer of the number 4 neurological surgical unit in the Middle East and Italy - the 'nomadic surgeons'. His unit chased after the 8th Army in the desert for some two months during the huge battle of El Alamein and then to Sicily. During this time Gillingham contracted poliomyelitis, which left him with a paralysed jaw. He ate slops for three months, but, in his own words, he eventually 'cheeked' his way back to command the unit. After the war he became a senior registrar in general surgery and then in neurosurgery at Bart's, and in 1950 he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon and a senior lecturer in surgical neurology at the University of Edinburgh. Gillingham spent 12 years working alongside Norman McOmish Dott, one of the great triumvirate of neurosurgeons that also included Cairns in Oxford and Sir Geoffrey Jefferson in Manchester. In 1962 Gillingham became a reader and, in 1963, professor of surgical neurology at Edinburgh. Gillingham's experiences during the Second World War gave him an understanding of, and a lasting interest in, head injuries. He kept meticulous notes on how bullets entered, traversed and often exited soldiers' brains, and correlated these injuries with any abnormal central nervous system signs or behavioural and emotional aberrations. He later described an area now known as the reticular activating system, noticing that injuries to this part of the brain always resulted in total loss or serious loss of consciousness. Gillingham regarded this area as the seat of the conscious mind, an analogy being the central processing unit of the computer. In recognition of this work he was awarded the medal of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons (in May 2009). When his colleague in Edinburgh, David Whitteridge, described the use of microelectrodes in distinguishing between grey and white matter, Gillingham immediately saw their usefulness in distinguishing deep brain structures. From these first microelectrode recording studies, fundamental insights were gained which improved the accuracy of locating lesions within the brain, including the observation that spontaneous rhythmical discharge from the thalamus was synchronous with tremor. However, the main emphasis of his work in Edinburgh was on stereotaxis (or the use of three-dimensional coordinate systems to locate and operate on targets in the body), which he used as an aid to localising brain lesions. He was introduced to stereotactic surgery by Gérard Guiot, who had visited Edinburgh to learn aneurysmal surgery from Dott and Gillingham. Gillingham's wealth of experience in aneurysmal surgery led him to adapt Guiot's stereotactic method. Over the years he refined his procedures, targeting the cerebellum, brain stem and cervical spine to help patients with chronic pain and dystonias. Results from 60 patients with Parkinson's symptoms showed that electrocoagulation of lesions in the globus pallidus, internal capsule and thalamus, either separately or in combination, reduced tremor and rigidity in 88% of cases. In this era predating MRI scans, stereotactic neurosurgery proved to be one of the most important developments in 20th century brain surgery. Gillingham's interest in the nature of memory and evolution never diminished. One day, discussing Marcel Proust's *In remembrance of times past*, he remarked that Proust may have had temporal lobe epilepsy. Gillingham pointed out that temporal lobectomy on the left side had to carefully done, lest damage to the superior temporal gyrus caused loss of cognitive memory. He added that the hippocampus, amygdala and the wider functions of the temporal lobe are concerned with memory, both long- and short-term. Gillingham was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1970. In 1980 he became president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, where he vigorously pursued and established fellowships in surgical sub-specialties. Education was a primary interest, and he supported the use of television and other visual aids. After he retired from Edinburgh, Gillingham was professor of neurosurgery at the King Khalid University Hospital in Riyadh - at that time a veritable nest of distinguished medicos. Gillingham's services were in demand during the planning of a new medical school and I remember him insisting on a helicopter pad being built. With great gusto, he improved training and skills in the neurosurgery section, which soon began to flourish. In 1945 Gillingham married Judy (Irene Jude), who was a constant support. Cairns, a brilliant administrator, arranged their wedding locally in Oxford, followed by a reception in his house. After the war they settled in a splendid house overlooking the Forth, where Judy was a sparkling hostess, entertaining guests with tales of their many tours abroad. They had four sons (Jeremy, who predeceased him following a skiing accident, Timothy, Simon and Adam) and many grandchildren. John Gillingham died on 3 January 2010, at the age of 93. His modesty and kindliness were apparent throughout his life; all who met him admired him. Once, walking through the main corridor of the King Khalid Hospital in the company of a Syrian surgeon, we encountered John, advancing towards us with his entourage. As they passed by, the Syrian doctor lent over and whispered in my ear: 'Do you see that man? I would never tell him so, but I would do anything for him!'
Resource Identifier RCS: E001786
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gairdner, Alan Campbell (1900 - 1977)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006500-E006599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378712378712
Occupation Genito-urinary surgeon Urologist Neurosurgeon
Details Alan Campbell Gairdner was born in Surbiton on 4 July 1900. Both his father and grandfather were general practitioners. He was educated at Tonbridge School and, for the last six months of the first world war, served as a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps. After demobilisation he studied medicine at University College, Oxford, and at the London Hospital, qualifying in 1925. He held numerous house appointments at his teaching hospital where he came under the stimulating influence of Russell Howard; he obtained his FRCS in 1928. He developed an interest in brain surgery and spent six months in Boston, USA, studying under Harvey Cushing. In 1932, soon after his return, he was appointed medical superintendent at St Georges-in-the-East Hospital, and in the same year won the London Hospital Hutchinson Triennial Prize. In 1934, at the age of 34, he was appointed surgeon to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and the Exeter Clinical Area. During the early years and until the speciality was moved to the regional centre in Bristol, he widened his experience in neurosurgery in addition to a very busy general surgical practice. He volunteered for service in the second world war and served as surgical specialist with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel RAMC in India and West Africa. On his return to Exeter he developed an increasing interest in genito-urinary surgery and pioneered transurethral resection of the prostate with excellent results. He was a careful and gentle surgeon with a special interest in neonatal work and he co-operated closely with his colleagues in paediatrics. Although he published little he communicated his experiences to the Surgical Club of South West England at which meetings he was a regular attender whose opinions were held in high regard. He was a man of few words who did not suffer fools gladly. His somewhat gruff exterior belied the generous and considerate man that he was. On his retirement he continued to work in the cottage hospitals to help reduce the waiting lists. Failing health in his last few years prevented him from enjoying to the full his hobbies of farming, fishing and shooting, but he was uncomplaining and staunchly supported by his wife. They had two daughters and a son. He died on 5 June 1977, aged 76.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006529
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Crawford, John Veitch (1917 - 1968)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-10-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006200-E006299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378428378428
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Jack Crawford was born on 19 November 1917 and received his education at Brentwood School and the London Hospital Medical College. After graduation he obtained a post in the clinical laboratory before his house appointments at the London. In September 1939 he became house surgeon to Douglas Northfield and from that date became wedded to neurosurgery. War broke out in that month and he was transferred with the neurosurgical unit to Chase Farm Hospital and continued there until in May 1940 when he volunteered for the RAMC although he was strongly advised to remain in the EMS. In April 1941 he went to the Head Injuries Unit at Oxford under Brigadier Sir Hugh Cairns who was impressed with his ability and recommended him for a similar post overseas. Crawford worked in the Middle East and North Africa, was appointed a graded surgeon in 1942 and gained his Majority in 1943. He then served in Burma under very difficult conditions and for his gallantry in the field was appointed MBE Military Division. At that time also he was appointed to work again under Douglas Northfield, and took his Fellowship in 1947. In 1949 he was awarded a postgraduate travelling fellowship and spent six months at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, USA. In 1951 he was appointed assistant neurosurgeon to the London Hospital and became senior surgeon to that unit in 1967. Most of his work at the London was done at the Brentwood Annexe which had been started during the war and continued in the country for long owing to the shortage of beds at the main hospital; this plan suited Crawford living, as he did, nearby. In 1958 he was appointed Sub-Dean to the London Hospital Medical College and rapidly gained the affection and attention of the students. Crawford was a member of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons and made communications to that Society on the various complications of cerebral angiography; with Professor Dorothy Russell he also published work on hamartomas. In 1945 he married Hilda Brevington who had been a sister at the London; she well understood the difficulties and emergencies which beset the life of a young neurosurgeon and with their four sons provided him with a happy background of family life. Jack Crawford died suddenly on the night of 23-24 February 1968 and was survived by his wife and four sons of whom the eldest, Peter, became a neurosurgeon.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006245
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Atkinson, William John (1918 - 1990)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-04-17
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007000-E007099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379274379274
Occupation Barrister Neurosurgeon
Details William John Atkinson was born in London on 18 May 1918, the elder son of William Atkinson, a civil servant. He was educated at Ongar Grammar School and at Mercer's School in High Holborn before entering St Bartholomew's Hospital for his medical studies. He qualified in 1941 and immediately afterwards was appointed house surgeon to the neurosurgery unit at Shotley Bridge, Durham, returning to St Bartholomew's Hospital as senior house officer in the professorial unit in the following year. In 1942 he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps serving as a medical officer in the 6th Airborne Division and later in India. At the end of the war he returned to St Bartholomew's as a supernumerary registrar and after passing the FRCS was appointed house surgeon at the National Hospital, Queen Square, where he worked under Wylie McKissock, Harvey Jackson and Valentine Logue. He was senior registrar at the London Hospital and later at the Maida Vale Hospital for Nervous Diseases and during this time he carried out research into destructive lesions of the hypothalamus, describing the effects of occlusion of the anterior inferior cerebellar artery. This work was continued while he was a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He acquired the MD and MS degrees and was appointed Hunterian Professor in 1954, giving a lecture entitled *The management of head injuries*. Initially he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon to the North Manchester Hospital Group and later to the Hurstwood Park Neurosurgical Centre at Haywards Heath. He was a prodigious worker and despite his heavy professional commitments served in the Territorial Army from 1947 until 1970, being awarded the Territorial Decoration with 3 bars. He also became interested in medico-legal aspects of psychosurgery and this led to his being called to the bar in 1962 and graduating LLB in 1984. After retiring from the health service at the age of 64 he spent some time as a barrister doing medico-legal work. He married Imelda Morrisroe in 1944 and had two sons and two daughters the youngest of whom has graduated in medicine. In his earlier years he was a keen runner and tennis player but in later life his main outside interests were gardening and music. He died on 2 January 1990.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007091
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Williams, Bernard Norman (1932 - 1995)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008400-E008499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380593380593
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Bernard Williams was born on 20 April 1932 in Stockport, Cheshire, the son of Francis Bernard Williams, a shoe retailer, and Hope Johnson, the daughter of the sea captain and author Walter Rise Hawkins Johnson. He was educated at Stretford Grammar School and the University of Birmingham, where he qualified in medicine in 1955. After junior appointments at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, and National Service in the RAMC he worked as a casualty officer at the Central Middlesex Hospital, Acton, and the Park Hospital, Davyhulme, before being appointed neurosurgical registrar at the National Hospital, Queen Square, in 1960. He then worked as research assistant to Eric Turner at Birmingham with an MRC grant before being appointed senior registrar in neurosurgery at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in 1963. In 1970 he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon to Hull Royal Infirmary, and three years later he transferred posts to the University of Birmingham and the Midland Centre for Neurosurgery in order to further his academic work. Bernard Williams was an outstanding neurosurgeon who combined an international reputation for pioneering research with great clinical and operative skills. His main research interest was in syringomyelia where he was a recognised international authority, and he also made major contributions in the physiology of the cerebro-spinal fluid, arachnoid cysts and subdural empyema. His publications were prolific and he lectured extensively both at home and abroad. The subject of his MD thesis in 1980 was cerebro-spinal fluid pressure and deformities of the neuraxis. He was awarded the Casey-Hollter memorial prize in 1977, and was Arris and Gale lecturer of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1981. More recently he had been awarded the Pudenz prize (1994) from the International Society for Paediatric Neurosurgery and the Jacksonian prize (1995) of the Royal College of Surgeons. Bernard Williams was a very sociable person with a keen sense of humour and he was an excellent raconteur. He was a champion chess player and enjoyed climbing and motor cycling - ironically it was a motor cycle accident resulting in serious head injuries which caused his death on 10 August 1995 at the age of 63. He married twice - firstly in 1962 to Colinette Beauchamp, a nurse, by whom he had one son and three daughters (one of whom, Helen, is a GP) and secondly to Susan Raffie, a radiographer. They had two further children, one of whom, Georgina, intends to become a neurosurgeon.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008410
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Robertson, James Sloan Mutrie (1905 - 1978)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006800-E006899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379078379078
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details James Sloan Mutrie Robertson was born on 8 April 1905 and graduated in medicine at Glasgow University in 1928. He took the FRCS England in 1932 and was appointed gate surgeon to Glasgow Royal Infirmary. When it was decided to create new departments of orthopaedic surgery and neurosurgery he chose neurosurgery and went to Canada for a year as a Rockefeller Scholar. He trained with Wilder Penfield as a fellow of the Neurological Institute, Montreal, and when he came back to Glasgow Royal Infirmary he was given a few beds and appointed neurosurgeon. War came and changed the direction of his career. He was retained as a specialist in neurosurgery and appointed to a new EMS hospital at Killearn and the West of Scotland Neurosurgical Unit with the active support of the Regius Professor of Surgery, Sir Charles Illingworth. Sloan Robertson was a brilliant neurologist and his systematic investigation and understanding produced accurate and precise diagnoses in complicated and obscure cases. He was a master craftsman, and his attention to detail and management was responsible for success in many dangerous and technically difficult operations. Killearn became a centre for training neurologists and neurosurgeons. Young doctors came from all parts of the world to train with Sloan Robertson and held him in high regard with a mixture of respect, affection, and veneration. For several years before he retired he planned and organised the Institute of Neurological Sciences at Glasgow. This is his creation, based primarily on the Neurological Institute at Montreal and modified in accord with his own wide experience at Killearn. He was diffident and shy, but keenly interested in other people. He enjoyed constructive recreations, and after he retired to Carrick in Argyllshire became skilled in silver work. He was also secretary to the local community council. He was married and had one son. He died on 25 May 1978, aged 73.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006895
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hardman, James (1909 - 1980)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-11
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006500-E006599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378741378741
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details James Hardman was born and brought up in Birmingham, the son of William Henry Hardman, a chemist, druggist and shopkeeper, and Florence Lilian Hardman. He entered the Birmingham Medical School where he obtained his Primary Fellowship as student prosector in anatomy gaining the Peter Thompson Prize for anatomy. He had a brilliant student career, winning the Russell Memorial Prize for nervous disorders and the Ingleby Scholarship in midwifery and disorders of women before qualifying with second class honours in 1932. Resident posts followed in the General and Queen's Hospitals, Birmingham, and he became FRCS in 1934. In 1936 he became clinical assistant to Ernest Finch at the Sheffield Royal Infirmary and in 1937, honorary clinical assistant to Geoffrey Jefferson at Manchester Royal Infirmary. During this period, he published several papers on the microscopical structure and the abnormal blood supplies to certain cerebral tumours, but he found writing slow and difficult and he begrudged the time lost to his clinical work. In the late thirties, neurosurgery was in its infancy and the results were generally depressing, but Hardman had entered medicine with the declared intention of becoming a brain surgeon. With his background of anatomical knowledge and this determined dedication to his ambition, it is not surprising that he succeeded and, at the very early age of thirty, he applied for, and obtained, the post of neurosurgeon to the Sheffield Royal Infirmary. This was a new appointment and he set about creating a new service which integrated neuropathology, macrophysiology, psychology and neuro-anaesthesia. During the ensuing years he became engrossed in his organising and clinical work, sparing little time for research or writing or attending clinical meetings or conferences abroad. He was, however, a brilliant teacher and a shrewd diagnostician and compulsive worker. As time passed, he shifted his allegiance from Aston Villa to Sheffield United and at the age of 50 his clinical work became less arduous and he found time for his other great life interest - the history of medicine. In 1970, in his sixties, he sat for, and obtained, the Diploma in the History of Medicine at the Society of Apothecaries where he lectured all too infrequently. With the help of his wife, Una, he made a shrewd and enormous collection of books throughout his later life and he was very proud of being made honorary lecturer in the history of medicine at the University of Sheffield. His vast collection of journals and books on the history, biography and bibliography of medicine, largely related to anatomy and neurology was sold at Sotheby's in June 1981, the sale catalogue of that occasion runs to four pages of very interesting reading. Before Hardman retired, he bought a country house in Bedfordshire where he slowly transferred his precious collection of books. He cut the grass and generally tidied his own garden and entertained his friends of the Osler Club or the Society of Apothecaries. He was married twice. In 1937 he married Barbara Ruth Seville Bourne, a nurse, with whom he had two children, Margaret and John. His wife died in 1946 and in 1954 he married Una Margaret Campbell, his anaesthetist at the Royal in Sheffield. In all his work he was supported and advised by his wife. He died suddenly on 28 May 1980 at the age of 71, leaving his wife and two children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006558
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Jackson, Harvey (1900 - 1982)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-01-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006600-E006699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378802378802
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Harvey Jackson was born on 16 October 1900 and educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He studied medicine at the Middlesex Hospital Medical School and qualified with the Conjoint examination in 1923. One of his obituarists states that he had qualified in dental surgery and supported himself while a medical student by doing part-time dental work, but there is no evidence of a dental qualification in contemporary records. He became honorary consultant surgeon at Acton Hospital in 1930, and honorary assistant surgeon at the West London Hospital in 1935 during which period he was noted for his keen and conscientious attendance whenever required. He then decided to specialise in neurosurgery and travelled extensively in the USA to acquire as wide experience as possible. On returning home he became a disciple of the late Percy Sargent and, in due course, together with Julian Taylor, succeeded him on the staff of the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square. He was also appointed as consultant neurosurgeon at St Thomas's Hospital and the Westminster Hospital. A conservative surgeon of superb technical skill, neither audacious nor yet an exponent of the exceedingly slow methods of some of his contemporaries, his technique was compounded from what he believed to be the best of all that he had observed in the course of his travels. He was meticulous, neat and careful in his operative methods and sensitive to the needs of individual patients. He never embarked on any new procedure without considering its merits and demerits most carefully and was an indubitably safe surgeon. His trainees and assistants greatly admired these qualities and also the humanity and care which he lavished on his patients. He was a hard but completely fair taskmaster, loyal to his juniors and not sparing in their praise when this was fully deserved. He himself was a first-class 'all-rounder', but especially well known for his work on orbital tumours. He also co-operated with his psychiatric colleagues in the early days of neurosurgery for the psychotic patient. In association with the late Paul Wood, he also took a special interest in lumbar sympathectomy. He did some early work in the field of stereotactic surgery for Parkinsonism, favouring alcohol ablation rather than cryosurgery. He also had an ingenious technique for the removal of hydatid cysts. During the second world war he served as Director of the Emergency Medical Service Head Injury Unit at Hurstwood Park, Sussex. Amongst his many distinctions, he was twice a Hunterian Professor at the College in 1947 and 1951. He gave the Elsberg Lecture in New York and lectured widely elsewhere abroad. For many years he was a visiting professor in Cairo. He was a founding member and later President of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons and also President of the Neurological Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was a very reserved and modest man, and a perfectionist who did not readily delegate responsibility, but this was chiefly due to his high sense of personal service to his patients. He was bedevilled by ill-health during his retirement but maintained his lively linguistic and engineering interests. He had married Freda in 1930 and when he died on 19 September 1982 he was survived by her and his two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006619
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching McConnell, Adams Andrew (1884 - 1972)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-09-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005900-E005999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378103378103
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Adams McConnell was born in Belfast on 2 June 1884, and was educated at the Royal Academical Institution and Dublin University, where he graduated in medicine in 1909. He early showed his outstanding qualities by winning a gold medal at the BA examination in 1906, at the end of his pre-clinical studies. After holding junior appointments at Sir Patrick Dun's Hospital he joined the staff of the Richmond Hospital, and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland in 1911. The following year he visited the United States, and his career in neurosurgery may be considered to have started at that time. He soon distinguished himself in this specialty, being one of the first surgeons in the United Kingdom to adopt Walter Dandy's practice of ventriculography. He was one of the party of seventeen surgeons who met at the Athenaeum on 2 December 1926 and founded the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, and it is generally acknowledged that it was due to the influence of Geoffrey Jefferson, Norman Dott and Hugh Cairns and Adams McConnell that the Society initially won its prestige. He was not only a skilled surgeon and a gifted and witty speaker but also a most kindly and generous host, and the meetings of the Society in Dublin in 1931, 1936, 1948 and 1957 were memorable as well as most enjoyable occasions. McConnell was President of the Society in the years 1936 to 1938. In addition to his clinical duties at the Richmond Hospital he was much appreciated as a teacher, and for many years he was chairman of the board of governors. He was President of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland from 1935 to 1937, and was appointed Professor of Surgery in Dublin University in 1946, a post which he held till his retirement when he was made an honorary Fellow of Trinity College. He was President of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland in 1946-47; and in 1959 the Royal College of Surgeons of England was proud to admit him to the Honorary Fellowship. In spite of many honours and distinctions bestowed on him he remained a genial, friendly person without a trace of pomposity, and was ever most popular with the younger generation. He had a beautiful home at Shankill where he delighted in entertaining his friends and visitors. He died in Dublin on 5 April 1972, and his second wife survived him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005920
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Falconer, Murray Alexander (1910 - 1977)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-12-01
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006400-E006499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378670378670
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Murray Falconer was born in New Zealand in 1910 and received his medical education at Otago University, Dunedin, from where he graduated MB BCh in 1934 and MCh in 1938. He obtained his FRCS in 1935, a year after he graduated. In 1937 he went to the United States as a Fellow in Surgery at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester. In the following year he came as a Nuffield Dominions Fellow to Oxford, where he trained under Sir Hugh Cairns at the Radcliffe Infirmary. War had broken out, and he continued his training in Oxford in the RAMC at St Hugh's College which had been converted into a military hospital for head injuries. In 1943 he returned home to New Zealand as Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at Otago University where he set up a neurosurgical service for returning pensioners from the services. He obtained the FRACS in 1944 and was one of the first to advocate surgical treatment of cerebral aneurysms that had caused subarachnoid haemorrhage. He produced a number of papers on a wide variety of subjects over the next few years. He returned to London in 1947 as Hunterian Professor in the Royal College of Surgeons of England on the subject of lumbar disc protrusion. He renewed his friendship with Cairns and other neurologists and neurosurgeons with whom he had worked at St Hugh's. Two years later he was invited to return as consultant neurosurgeon to Guy's Hospital and the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals. The neurosurgical unit was created from the unused private wing of the Maudsley and was opened in 1952. In 1963 it became also the unit for King's College Hospital. He continued to work as Director until his retirement in 1975. The close proximity of the unit to the Institute of Psychiatry provided a unique opportunity for Murray Falconer to develop an interest in the surgery of temporal lobe epilepsy in conjunction with colleagues in neuropathology, EEG and neuroradiology. He gradually built up a teaching and research unit of renown. No fewer than 18 consultant neurosurgeons received all or part of their training in the neurosurgical unit during his time there. He travelled widely and on five occasions held visiting professorships at various universities in the United States. He was honoured by the Presidents of the Lebanon and Gambia, and by honorary membership of many foreign neurosurgical societies. The drive and determination which enabled him to continue work, despite repeated illnesses over many years, were always supported by his devoted wife and two daughters. He died on 11 August 1977.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006487
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Kerr, Alan Sutcliffe (1909 - 1977)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-01-23 2017-03-29
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006600-E006699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378835378835
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Alan Sutcliffe Kerr was born in Liverpool on 31 May 1909 and educated at the Liverpool Institute for Boys and Liverpool University. He graduated MB ChB with first class honours in 1932. He chose a career in surgery and his interests were directed into the field of neurosurgery. Three years later he proceeded to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and was a Hunterian Professor of the College in 1937, the same year as he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship. He was Streatfield Research Scholar 1939. After a period of training in America he was entrusted with the task of developing a neurosurgical service in the Emergency Medical Service Hospital at Winick, near Liverpool. With the inauguration of the NHS the team he had built up at Winick was transferred to Walton Hospital, Liverpool, to become the regional neurosurgical unit. Despite the restrictions and confines of working in an ex-workhouse hospital Alan Kerr built up a large and efficient neurosurgical service which encompassed the specialities of both neuroradiology and neuropathology. The culmination of his long struggles was the opening of the new regional department of medical and surgical neurology at Walton Hospital in 1972. In addition to his work at Walton he ran an active consulting surgical practice and also was visiting consultant at the paraplegic unit at Southport. Alan Kerr was an active participant at the meetings of both national and international neurosurgical societies and frequently travelled abroad visiting other neurosurgical units. He was an active teacher in the University of Liverpool and an active participant in the Liverpool Medical Institution, becoming President of this society shortly before his retirement. He was endowed with great strength of character and determination, which enabled him to overcome a serious illness and return to full neurosurgical practice. He always found time to listen to a colleague's problem and give sound advice and encouragement when called for. A careful, efficient surgeon himself, who kept in touch with all developments in his speciality. He was equally effective as a teacher and left behind him on his retirement a tradition which has spread far beyond Merseyside. One of his special interests was the contribution of neurosurgery to the care and treatment of the paraplegic patient. He was appreciative of the company of his friends and colleagues, who frequently enjoyed his hospitality. In later years his keen interest in archaeology resulted in trips to the Middle East in pursuance of this hobby. He married Melva Day of Western Australia in 1937 and had two daughters and one son. He died on 21 January 1977 aged 67 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006652
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Oliver, Leslie Claremont (1909 - 1990)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-07-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007500-E007599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379735379735
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Leslie Claremont Oliver was born on 5 February 1909, the son of an engineer. He was educated at Latymer School and Guy's Hospital, London, qualifying in 1933 and proceeding immediately to FRCS in 1935, gaining general surgical experience as registrar, Bristol General Hospital, and as resident assistant surgeon, West London Hospital, before beginning training in neurosurgery under Hugh Cairns at the London Hospital. In 1939, at the outbreak of the second world war, he worked in the Emergency Medical Service as neurosurgeon at Woodford Green (Claybury) and Romford Hospitals, but in 1941 Cairns invited him to join the staff of the Military Hospital for Head Injuries at St Hugh's College, Oxford, as surgical specialist with the rank of Major. Towards the end of the war he was seconded to the West London Hospital to deal with the civilian casualties caused by the V2 rocket attacks and he continued his association with that Hospital, and later with Charing Cross Hospital on amalgamation, as consultant neurosurgeon until he retired in 1974. His major commitment after the war was however to the neurosurgical service he set up with help from Essex County Council at Romford - this became the North East Metropolitan Regional Neurosurgical Centre. Equally Leslie's ability was recognised when he was invited to become the first neurosurgeon at the Royal Northern Hospital. At all these hospitals his steady, meticulous and quietly competent clinical and operative ability was matched by his skill as a clinical teacher, especially in instructing young general surgeons in the management and operative surgery of head injuries. He was specifically elected to the Court of Examiners, Royal College of Surgeons - becoming its Chairman in due course - to ensure that FRCS candidates were tested in their knowledge of neurosurgery; this he did with kindly thoroughness. Leslie Oliver made significant contributions to the literature of general and neurosurgery exemplified in *Essentials of neurosurgery* (1952), *Basic surgery* (1958) - (emanating from the staff of the Royal Northern Hospital), *Parkinson's disease* (1967) and *Removable intracranial tumours* (1969). He was expert in stereotactic brain surgery. He was elected Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1957. He married Irene Ferguson in 1933 and they had two sons. Secondly he married Regine de Quidt in 1949 and they had a daughter and a son. Leslie was a fluent French speaker and had a considerable knowledge of French culture, and understandably of French wines - he could not touch spirits. He died suddenly on 4August 1990, aged 81, survived by his second wife, Regine, and his four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007552
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Robertson, David Blair (1916 - 1985)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-07-20
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007500-E007599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379768379768
Occupation General practitioner Neurosurgeon
Details David Robertson was born in August 1916 in Auckland, a son of Sir Carrick Robertson. He was educated at Wanganui Collegiate School where he represented the school in rugby, rowing and swimming. He studied medicine first at Dunedin and then at Melbourne, where he won an anatomy scholarship under Professor Wood Jones, qualifying in 1940. While still at medical school he took part in a survey of the Sir Joseph Banks Islands in the Spencer Gulf, and was the co-author of a paper on the fishes of South Australia. With the onset of war he joined the New Zealand Army as a resident medical officer, and was wounded at Cassino. He served with the 6th Field Ambulance and the No.1 General Hospital. On demobilisation he returned to England to take his FRCS, which he obtained in 1946. He returned to New Zealand for two years working with his father at the Mater Hospital and doing general practice in Otahuhu. He decided to study the newly emerging specialty of neurosurgery so returned to England where he studied at the Manchester Royal Infirmary under Sir Geoffrey Jefferson. Upon returning to New Zealand in 1951 he was appointed as neurosurgeon to the Auckland Hospital and to the Mater Hospital. He had a particular interest in the surgery of Parkinson's disease and hydrocephalus in children. In 1958 he became a Fellow of the Australasian College. He continued in active practice until his retirement in 1981. David was a very active conservationist and an elected member of the Auckland Institute and Museum. He had a special interest in the native birds and trees of New Zealand. In 1978 he was elected to the Waipoua Forest Sanctuary advisory committee and helped in the formation of the Tahuna-Torea reserve in Glen Innes. In his own property in the Bay of Islands he propagated many hundreds of native trees. He made a special study of the exotic Macademia nut tree, working to find which variety was most suitable for growth in New Zealand. His work on this matter is being carried out by his son, an orchardist at Kerikeri. A lifelong interest in sailing gave him the impetus to both build and sail racing dinghies. He was for many years one of the group trained to act as guides at the Auckland War Museum. He was survived by his wife, Isabel, daughter of Jane Taylor, a nurse, and son Ian, when he died suddenly at his home in Auckland on 26 January 1985, aged 68.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007585
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Duffy, Graeme Patrick (1930 - 1990)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-08
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007200-E007299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379420379420
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Graeme Patrick Duffy, the son of Patrick Duffy, tram driver, and Madge Duffy, who was a nurse, was born of Irish stock in Wellington, New Zealand, on 12 December 1930. He attended Rongotai College where he was head boy, school boxing champion and in the rugby first fifteen. He secured a scholarship to study medicine at the University of Otago and graduated in 1955. Following resident and other appointments at Dunedin, Gisborne and Palmerston North, in New Zealand, he came to England in 1961 where he worked as resident surgical officer at Kingston-upon-Thames Hospital; registrar in neurosurgery at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, and then senior registrar to the department of neurosurgery in Birmingham. During that period he passed the MRCP (neurology) in Edinburgh and the English Fellowship. He also worked for three months as a clinical associate in the University department of neurosurgery at Gothenburg, as well as with an Oxfam team in Nigeria, and as a locum consultant surgeon in Zambia. In 1967 he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon to the Birmingham Regional Hospitals Board at the Midland Centre for Neurosurgery and Neurology. Some five years later he spent one year in the Bahamas as consultant neurosurgeon and head of the department of neurology and neurosurgery to the Princess Margaret Hospital, Nassau. In December 1973 he finally moved to Tasmania as head of the department of neurosurgery at the Royal Hobart Hospital. Graeme Duffy published papers on orbital injuries, anterior communicating artery aneurysms, the aetiology of spontaneous subarachnoid haemorrhage and the anterior approach for intervertebral disc surgery. His membership of a number of societies and associations included the Society of British Neurosurgeons, the Neurological Society of Australasia, the Royal Society of Tasmania and the Pan-American Medical Association. Outside his professional life he was always interested in riding and kept six horses. He was also a keen supporter of his local pony club and was latterly its president. He was twice married. By his first wife he had a daughter, Michele, who is an anaesthetist, and two sons, Christopher and Nicholas, who are respectively physician and general practitioner; and, after her death, he married Karen Jean Richmond in 1973. At the time of his death on 11 March, 1990, he was survived by the children of his first marriage, his wife and their 15-year old daughter, Kate.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007237
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Beck, Diana Jean Kinloch (1902 - 1956)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-01-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004800-E004899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377080377080
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Born at Chester on 29 June 1902, the only daughter of James and Margaret Beck, she was educated at the Queen's School there and at the London School of Medicine for Women, where she won prizes and scholarships. After a few successful years as a general surgeon, she decided to specialise in neurosurgery and trained in Sir Hugh Cairns's exacting school at Oxford, holding the William Gibson research scholarship awarded by the Royal Society of Medicine in 1939. During the war of 1939-45 she practised and taught at Oxford, Enfield, and Bristol, and was appointed neurosurgeon at the Royal Free Hospital in 1943. She received a remarkable tribute to her abilities in being appointed in 1947 neurosurgeon at the Middlesex Hospital, the first appointment of a woman to the senior staff of a major teaching hospital in London. She quickly made her mark here as surgeon, teacher, and popular member of the community. She published valuable papers in *Brain*, *The British Journal of Surgery*, and elsewhere, her latest work being on the surgical treatment of intracerebral haemorrhage. She served for two years as president of the London Association of the Medical Women's Federation. She was the only woman neurosurgeon of consultant rank in western Europe or North America, and carried her exhausting work and responsibilities with consummate ability in spite of frail physique. She was a woman of naturally fastidious taste and open-hearted generosity. She died suddenly on 3 March 1956, when apparently well on the way to recovery after undergoing thymectomy. A memorial service was held in Middlesex Hospital Chapel on 22 March. She was survived by her two brothers. Publications: Oligodendrogliomatosis of the cerebrospinal pathway, with D S Russell. *Brain* 1942, 65, 352-372. Implantation of acrylic resin discs in rabbits' skulls, with D S Russell and others. *Brit J Surg* 1945, 33, 83-6. Experiments on thrombosis of the superior longitudinal sinus, with D S Russell. *J Neurosurg* 1946, 3, 337-347. Intracranial haemorrhage in closed head injuries. *Arch Middx Hosp* 1954, 4, 231-255. Sequelae of head injuries. *Trans Ass Indust Med Off* 1955, 5, 77-83.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004897
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Pattison, Alfred Richard Denis (1906 - 1940)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-10-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004400-E004499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376635376635
Occupation Neurological surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Born on 10 April 1906 at High Grange, Howden-le-Wear, Co Durham, the eldest son of Charles Arthur Pattison, mining engineer, and Annie Isabella Chilton, his wife. He was educated at Clifton House School, at Durham School, and at the Newcastle-upon-Tyne School of Medicine. He served as resident medical officer and surgical registrar at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne. He was awarded the Rutherford Morison travelling scholarship and was thus able to visit Berlin, where he learnt much from Ferdinand Sauerbruch, and to spend a year at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital, Boston, Mass, where he came under the influence of Harvey Cushing and was confirmed in his desire to devote his life to the surgery of the nervous system. On his return to England he established a neurosurgical clinic at the Newcastle Hospital, was appointed neurological surgeon to the Royal Infirmary and to the Children's Hospital, Sunderland, and on 8 February 1937 delivered an important lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons, as Hunterian professor, on Cushing's syndrome of basophile adenoma of the pituitary. He died on 7 June 1940, survived by his wife and one son. She was Vera Margaret French, daughter of Joseph J French, MD, whom he married on 16 June 1937. A martyr to asthma, Pattison had yet the courage and ability to establish the surgery of the nervous system on a sound and lasting basis in the north-east of England. He had great inventive power, was a clear thinker and a skilful craftsman. It was said of him that he had so delicate a touch as to be able to pass a catheter on a goldfish. Publications: Unforeseen dangers of blood-transfusion. *Newcastle med J* 1931, 11, 170-178. Ventriculography and encephalography. *Ibid* 1933, 13, 90-103. Tumours of the posterior cranial fossa occurring in childhood and adolescence. *Ibid* 1934, 14, 170-187. Epilepsy as a surgical problem. *Ibid* 1935, 15, 145-160. Considerations on head injuries. *Ibid* 1936, 16, 108-117. Supracallosal epidermoid cholesteatomata. *Lancet*, 1937, 2, 4303-1307. Surgical treatment of pituitary basophilism, with W G A Swan. *Lancet*, 1938, 1,1265-1269.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004452
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Gye, Richard Spencer Butler (1926 - 2012)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Louise Goldrick
Publication Date 2013-11-08 2014-03-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004600-E004699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376800376800
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Richard Gye ('Dick') was one of the foremost neurosurgeons in Australia and a pioneer in his field. He was born in Sydney on 18 January1926, the youngest of three sons of Eva and George Butler Gye, both professional journalists. In infancy his parents divorced, leaving Eva to raise her family on her own at the start of the Depression. With support from her extended family, her journalist career took her to England and Europe on three trips without her sons. In Sydney she joined *The Australian Women's Weekly*, owned by Sir Frank Packer, as a writer and later as editor. Richard's eldest brother died of influenza at a young age. Attending several schools throughout his education, his final years were completed at Knox Grammar School, Wahroonga, on the upper north shore of Sydney, from 1942 to 1944. He described this period as being amongst the happiest of his life, where he came to understand the meaning of fellowship and friendship that endures despite the uncertainties of time and distance. He was a good athlete and keen footballer, house prefect and captain. He was to enjoy a lifelong association with the school as a parent, later becoming an active member and past president of the Senior Knoxonians. He enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy in January 1945, serving in the South Pacific, advancing to the rank of sub-lieutenant. Whilst serving on HMAS *Lachlan*, he undertook surveys of the northern coastline of Australia, some areas of which had been chartered by Matthew Flinders, including the first complete survey and charting of King Sound, Western Australia. It was during this period that Richard was befriended by the ship's surgeon, who recognised his potential, encouraging him to seriously consider a career in medicine. He was discharged from the Navy in 1947 after being injured in a mine explosion whilst commanding a mine clearing patrol boat in north Queensland. In 1948, he enrolled in medicine at the University of Sydney. In 1953, he graduated with honours and obtained his MB BS, also with honours, in 1955. It was early on in his medical studies that his interest in neurology was apparent when he was asked by the university's professor of anatomy to review the vascular components of the optic radiation of the human brain. He was awarded the (shared) Norton Manning prize in psychiatry in 1955. It was also during this time that he met his future wife, Margaret Waddell. They were married in 1956. Margaret looked after their growing family. Their son Nicholas was born in 1958 and their daughter Louise was born in 1960. On graduating, Richard was appointed to the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, where he trained as a neurosurgeon. After gaining his fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1960, he was awarded a Nuffield Dominion travelling fellowship in neurosurgery to further his studies and clinical experience in neurosurgery in Oxford. He was admitted as a member of Worcester College, Oxford, and in 1967 was awarded a doctorate in philosophy for his thesis, 'A clinical and experimental study of sub-dural effusions'. The department of neurological surgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary, headed by Joe Pennybacker, was a major neurosurgical facility, one of four in the country established in the 1930s. Demands were heavy, with the department providing neurosurgical services to over four million people; in consequence he rapidly gained vast clinical experience, training and guidance. On arrival, he was appointed as a house officer, later becoming a senior registrar. Returning to Sydney in 1964, he was appointed as a senior lecturer in neurosurgery at the University of Sydney. He developed the first academic unit of neurosurgery in Sydney, becoming an associate professor and academic head of neurosurgery at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He also held clinical posts at other teaching hospitals in Sydney. Richard appreciated the need for other neurosurgical services in more remote places, including the Northern Territory. His principal research interest was nerve transplantation, and the preparation and use of nerve grafts in treating Aboriginal patients at the East Arm Leprosy Hospital in Darwin, who had suffered extensive damage to the nerves in their limbs due to leprosy. Several trips were made to Melville, Bathurst and Goote islands. He was also asked by the government of Fiji to provide a neurosurgical service. Between 1965 and 1970, Richard and his team successfully performed major operations on brain tumours and other conditions in Fiji, visiting the country two to three times a year during this period. In 1971, following the impending retirement of his mentor, Joe Pennybacker, Richard accepted an appointment as head of the department of neurological surgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. He had many friends from his earlier years and this proved to be an exciting and rewarding period in his professional life as a surgeon. In 1974, on his return to Australia, he was appointed as the first full-time professor and dean of the faculty of medicine at the University of Sydney, a post he held for 15 years. This was a time of major changes to the undergraduate curriculum, increasing numbers of academic staff and departments, and the opening of new teaching hospitals, including the planning, development and building of Westmead Hospital. He was involved in university administration, teaching hospital management, and state and federal health department policy development up to ministerial level. In addition, he continued with his clinical duties as a neurosurgeon at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and other teaching hospitals. From 1979 he was deputy chairman of the Menzies Foundation that led to his contributing, amongst other things, to the establishment in 1985 of a major medical research institute in the tropical Northern Territory, the Menzies School of Health Research, Darwin, which is linked academically to the University of Sydney. Richard was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia for services to medicine in 1988, before retiring from the deanship in 1989. He continued as professor of neurosurgery and was engaged as a visiting professor in neurosurgery at the Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, before his retirement from the University of Sydney. He became an emeritus professor at the University of Sydney in 1992 and was appointed as a consultant emeritus to the department of surgery, neurosciences, at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. He also worked as a medico-legal consultant in private practice. He believed that the excellence of an institution is not a function of bricks and mortar, but it is dependent upon the people who work within it, and the traditions which ensure that the highest principles and standards are passed on from one generation to another. In retirement Richard pursued his abiding interest in drawing and painting. He enjoyed reading historical biographies and attending orchestral concerts. He had been a member of the Australian Club since 1976. His was an inspiring life, well spent and with many great contributions made. He will be remembered for his generous and warm nature, his devotion and loyalty to his family and friends, his sensitivity and for his consideration and thoughtfulness for others. Richard died on 25 December 2012, aged 86. He was survived by his wife Margaret, their daughter Louise and four grandchildren. Their son, Nicholas, predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004617
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hankinson, John (1919 - 2007)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-08-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000500-E000599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372733372733
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Hankinson, known as ‘Hank’, was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, and professor of neurosurgery at the University of Newcastle. He was born in Ramsbottom, Lancashire, on 10 March 1919, the son of Daniel Hankinson, a company director, and Anne née Kavanagh. He described himself as half-Irish, from Kilkenny, and half-English, from Cheshire. He was educated at Thornleigh College, Bolton, and entered the medical school of St Mary’s Hospital, London, in 1941. He edited the St Mary’s Hospital *Gazette* and, in 1945, was a member of the London University medical group which visited Belsen, an experience of which he later spoke little, though it affected him markedly. The group helped to care for the survivors, many of whom suffered from typhus, tuberculosis or other serious diseases. After qualifying in 1946, he held house appointments at St Mary’s, with Arthur Dickson Wright and John Goligher, the Seaman’s Hospital, Greenwich, the Middlesex Hospital, and Harold Wood Hospital. Dickson Wright, though a general surgeon, included neurosurgery in his wide practice and it was while working with him that Hankinson’s interest in this specialty developed. In 1951 he became a house surgeon to Wylie McKissock and Valentine Logue at the neurosurgical unit of St Georges’s Hospital at Atkinson Morley’s Hospital, Wimbledon. He progressed to registrar and senior registrar, interrupting this with a year in the USA, at the Children’s Memorial Hospital, Chicago, with Luis Amador and as research assistant at the neuropsychiatric institute, University of Illinois, with Ralph Gerrard, returning as senior surgical registrar to Atkinson Morley’s Hospital in 1955. In 1954 he developed diabetes, requiring insulin for its management. McKissock encouraged him to continue in neurosurgery in spite of this, which he did, without difficulty. He spent 1956 and 1957 at the National Hospital, Queen Square. In September and October 1956 he was clinical assistant in Lund to Lars Leksell, an early exponent and developer of stereotaxic surgical technique. While at Queen Square he frequently met Sir Geoffrey Jefferson, who was carrying out research for his centenary lecture on Sir Victor Horsley, given at BMA House. In 1957 Hankinson was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon to the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle upon Tyne, and to the Regional Neurosurgical Centre. He came into contact with G F Rowbotham, who had set up neurosurgery in that city. He also held an academic post as senior lecturer in neurological surgery at the University of Newcastle. In 1972 he was appointed to a chair of neurosurgery, which he held until his retirement in 1984. Hankinson’s main interests were stereotaxic functional neurosurgery and the surgical treatment of syringomyelia, upon both of which he wrote a number of papers and chapters. He was secretary of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons from 1972 to 1977, president from 1980 to 1982 and, from 1977 to 1983, neurosurgical adviser to the Chief Medical Officer, Department of Health and Social Security. Hankinson married Ruth Barnes, a theatre sister at St Mary’s, in 1948. There were two daughters of the marriage (Barbara and Elizabeth). His first wife died in 1982 and he married Nicole Andrews, a radiographer and later a managing director of a plastics engineering works. He was a keen yachtsman and also played the organ at the local church. Hankinson was a popular figure in neurosurgery. He had a droll sense of humour and was an amusing and entertaining conversationalist. He died suddenly on 9 March 2007. T T King
Resource Identifier RCS: E000549
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Rowbotham, George Frederick (1899 - 1975)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-09
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/379087379087
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details George Frederick Rowbotham was born at Altrincham and educated at Manchester Grammar School, Manchester College of Technology, and Manchester University. After qualification in 1925 he held surgical appointments at Manchester, Salford, Stockport, and London, and returned to Manchester in 1930 as surgical registrar at the Royal Infirmary. Here he came under the influence of Geoffrey Jefferson, was converted to neurosurgery, and then was made first assistant in Jefferson's new unit. In 1936 came his appointment as neurosurgeon at Stockport, Withington, and to the Christie Hospital. He moved to Newcastle in January 1941. His work soon became internationally renowned in the whole field of neurosurgery, but especially for the management of head injuries. He was a prolific and painstaking writer whose best-known work was *Acute injuries of the head*, first published in 1944. In this unique book Rowbotham demonstrated his ability to see the whole problem of the head-injured patient from the time of injury until the completion of rehabilitation. He served his hospital and his adopted city and region with great devotion and was for some time chairman of the medical staff committee. He was not without his eccentricities, and indeed many stories about 'Row' and some of his fascinating flights of fancy still go the rounds in Newcastle, where he was a distinctive figure for many years on the medical scene. A skilful and meticulous surgeon whose technique was always most evident when he sectioned a trigeminal root, he was prominent in many different aspects of Newcastle medical life. Virtually unaided, he established an outstanding department of neurosurgery at Newcastle General Hospital, at first under relatively primitive conditions. The new regional neurological centre was his brainchild and his pride and joy, but he was only able to enjoy its facilities for about two years before he reached the statutory retiring age. Honours were numerous, including a Hunterian Professorship and the Presidencies of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, the North of England Neurological Association, and the North of England Surgical Society. He played international hockey for England, and was for many years a selector for the English hockey team. By his many pupils and his devoted staff he was always known as 'Father', a sign of the affection and respect which all had for this kindly, sometimes eccentric, and always compassionate man. After retirement he pursued active research, wrote, attended medical appeal tribunals, and at the age of 75 sat and passed an examination for the Open University BA degree. A devout churchgoer, he was vicar's warden for twenty-five years. On 4 July 1935 he married Monica Boyle, a university psychologist. Her father had been a gold medallist in his final year at Leeds and was RSO to Lord Moynihan. They had one daughter and four sons, three of whom are medically qualified. He died from Hodgkins' disease on 23 November 1975, aged 76 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006904
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching McKenzie, Donald Dixon (1902 - 1974)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-02-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006700-E006799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378923378923
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Donald Dixon McKenzie was born in Colac, Australia, in 1902, where his father was a Presbyterian minister. In 1905 the family moved to New Zealand. He was educated at Wanganui Technical High School and followed his two elder brothers to Otago University where he qualified in medicine in 1924. After taking care of the practice of his brother at Waiuku while he was overseas, he in turn went to England and became FRCS in 1929. After returning to New Zealand for a short while, he studied in England again, specialising in the use of radium for accessible cancers. He took radium needles back with him to New Zealand in 1931. He was appointed to the staff of the Auckland Hospital and soon became established as a leading surgeon. He had always been interested in neurosurgery, but had no formal training until in 1936 he went to spend a year in San Francisco with Howard Nafziger. He continued to do what neurosurgery he could on his return home but it was not yet an established speciality and only provided part of his work as a general surgeon. In 1940 he went with the second NZEF to the Middle East and after a period as a general surgeon was posted as a neurosurgeon, with the rank of Major, to the 15th Scottish Hospital. In 1944 he was attached to the Military Hospital for Head Injuries at Oxford and came under the influence of Sir Hugh Cairns. In 1945 he set about the organisation of a formal neurosurgery unit in Auckland Hospital. He was an able administrator and within ten years the unit had become a busy department with a varied neurological programme. His own special interest lay in the spinal cord and autonomic nervous system. After the successful foundation of the neurosurgical department he devoted his administrative ability to many other medical, educational and charitable organisations in which his Presbyterian sense of duty and restless enquiring mind found full scope. These led him sometimes into conflict and in 1961 after differences with the Auckland Hospital Board he left the staff of the unit that he had founded. He received numerous distinctions, the most important of which was his appointment as CMG in 1959. He and Wilder Penfield were the only two representatives from the Commonwealth to be honoured with invitations as official guests at the Centenary Celebrations in 1961 of the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases. Before and after retirement he successfully struggled to develop a thriving farm from poor land, but his final days were marred by a long and distressing illness. He died on January 2 1974, aged 72, leaving a wife and son.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006740
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Lewin, Walpole Sinclair (1915 - 1980)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-01-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006600-E006699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378863378863
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Walpole Sinclair Lewin was born on August 20, 1915. His father died while he was very young. After a brilliant career at school he entered university as an exhibitioner and qualified from University College Hospital in 1939. After resident appointments at UCH he proceeded to FRCS in 1940 and at the London MS in 1942. Joining the RAMC he was posted to the Head Injuries Military Hospital at St Hugh's College, Oxford, where he came under the influence of Sir Hugh Cairns. He subsequently served in the Middle East, achieving the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in charge of a surgical division. In due course he was to follow Cairns as consultant neurosurgeon to the Army. His outstanding ability and inexhaustible energy had been spotted by Cairns and at the end of the war he was appointed assistant surgeon and lecturer to the Nuffield Department of Neurosurgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. In 1955 he became consultant neurosurgeon to Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and was tireless in helping to set up the new medical school. He enjoyed an international reputation as a neurosurgeon but it was in the field of head injuries that his contributions will be best remembered. He was invited to give the Ruscoe Clarke Lecture in Birmingham in 1967 and the Victor Horsley Memorial Lecture in 1975 and many other honours flowed his way. At the British Medical Association he was an outstanding committee man and chaired the Central Committee for Hospital Services and the Central Council and in recognition of his services he was awarded the BMA's Gold Medal in 1979. In many other spheres he achieved distinction, becoming Chairman of the World Medical Association, World Federation of Medical Education, Standing Committee of Doctors on the EEC and the Commonwealth Medical Association. He was a Fellow of Darwin College, Cambridge, and University College, London. He served with distinction on the General Medical Council until his death. He was appointed CBE in 1978. He was elected to the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons and became Vice-President 1976-1977, he was still serving on Council when he died from a cerebral haemorrhage on 23 January 1980. A service of thanksgiving, attended by the President and Council of the College was held at Great St Mary's Church in Cambridge on 15 March, 1980 when the lessons were read by Sir Reginald Murley, PRCS and Dr Grabham, Chairman of the Council of the BMA. The address was given by Sir Thomas Holmes-Sellors, Past President of the College. Walpole Lewin was a quiet, unassuming man of great integrity and his serious mien disguised a warm heart and nice sense of humour. He was happily married but tragically his wife, Marion (née Cumming), whom he had married in 1947 died the year before he did. They had a daughter, Caroline, and a son.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006680
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Pennybacker, Joseph Buford (1907 - 1983)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-07-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007500-E007599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379757379757
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Joseph Buford Pennybacker was born in Somerset, Kentucky, on 23 August 1907, the only son of Claude Pennybacker, a train dispatcher. His early education was at Knoxville High School, Tennessee, before entering the University of Tennessee, graduating BA in 1926 (summa cum laude). He followed the earlier colonial tradition of going from the American south to study medicine in Edinburgh, graduating with honours in 1930 and being awarded the Allen Prize in surgery. He had a short period in general practice before being appointed house physician at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and later house surgeon to Sir John Fraser. He decided to pursue a career in surgery and took an appointment as resident surgical officer at Grimsby and District Hospital, passing the FRCS in 1934 and subsequently being resident medical officer to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, where he acquired considerable neurological diagnostic skills. He then decided on a career in neurosurgery and was appointed first assistant to Hugh Cairns at the London Hospital in 1935, subsequently moving to Oxford two years later when Cairns was appointed first Nuffield Professor of Surgery. During the war years he was appointed honorary consultant to the Military Hospital for Head Injuries at Oxford, took the MD degree in 1941 and when Cairns was occupied with military duties Pennybacker ensured the efficient running of the professorial department's neurosurgical service. After Sir Hugh Cairns' death in 1952 he was appointed director of the new, separate department of neurosurgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary and remained there until his retirement in 1971. After some years in Oxford he became a naturalised British Citizen. During his tenure of the post of director of his department he attracted many visitors who were impressed with his diagnostic skills and his ability to perform neuro-surgical operations with greater speed than had hitherto been considered possible. He was able to complete a prodigious amount of work and made valuable contributions to invertebral disc surgery. He encouraged junior staff to publish professional papers. A special interest was the Society of British Neurological Surgeons which he served as treasurer and secretary although he declined the offer of presidency. He was consultant adviser in neurosurgery to the Ministry of Health and in later years undertook much administrative and committee work. He was awarded the Cross of the Royal Order of George I of Greece in 1966 and Commander of the Order of the British Empire a year later. In 1941 he married Dr Winifrid Dean MB, ChB Manchester, DA, and they had one son. He retired from hospital practice a year early in 1971 and went to live in Tighnabruaich, Argyllshire where he pursued his hobbies of gardening and photography. His wife died in 1980 and he died suddenly on 27 March 1983 aged 75.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007574
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Walsh, Lawrence Sutcliffe (1916 - 1986)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-08-12
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007700-E007799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379900379900
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Lawrence Sutcliffe Walsh was born on 7 January 1916 in East London, South Africa, the son of Richard Chadwick Walsh, an engineer, and his wife Maria, née Schofield. He was educated at Selbourne College. In order to study medicine it was first necessary for him to qualify in pharmacy. Later he obtained a scholarship which enabled him to enter Cape Town University where he graduated MB, ChB in 1944 with the gold medal for the most distinguished student. After postgraduate training in medicine and surgery he spent a period as an anaesthetist at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town. Seeking wider horizons he embarked on an overland journey from Cape Town to England in 1947. He was appointed house surgeon to WB Gabriel and to Hamilton Bailey and then to Wylie McKissock at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases. His training there gave him scope for research in hydrocephalus and trigeminal neuralgia. He obtained his FRCS in 1949. A research fellowship at St George's Hospital then enabled him to study the problems of cerebrovascular disease especially those due to intracranial aneurysm. His contribution lead to a more orderly and scientific approach to their treatment. He then spent a period of study in Stockholm in order to pursue his interest in stereotactic surgery. On his return he obtained a research fellowship at the Royal National which resulted in his clarification of the case selection and surgical techniques required in many movement disorders, notably Parkinson's disease and he appeared on the BBC Television series *Your life in their hands* describing the surgical treatment of this disorder. In 1957 he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley's Hospital and soon afterwards to the area neurosurgical centre at Guildford. These appointments were followed in 1965 by that of consultant neurosurgeon to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases and to St Mary's Hospital. Throughout these appointments he continued his researches into stereotactic surgery and its application to biopsy of tumours and the treatment of pituitary tumours and craniopharyngiomas by radioactive implants. His inquiries into cerebrovascular disease continued and he played a major part in the cooperative studies sponsored by the National Institutes of Health in the United States. Recognition of his work came when he was elected a corresponding member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in 1969. He married Mary Evelyn Thomas in 1952. They had three children, Richard, Gillian and Robin; the elder son is a Fellow of the College. He retired in 1981 but sadly was soon stricken by an illness that prevented him from enjoying his well earned leisure, suffering with great fortitude, forbearance and humour until his death on 16 March 1986.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007717
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Wall, Arthur Ernest (1917 - 1993)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-08
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008300-E008399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380553380553
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Arthur Wall was born on 10 April 1917 in Hulme, Manchester, the son of Arthur Wall, a pharmacist, and Bertha Elizabeth Pack. He was educated at Old Trafford High School and received his medical education at the University of Manchester Medical School. In his preclinical years he was awarded the Tom Jones exhibition in anatomy. Following the second MB he took both a BSc and MSc in physiology, gaining the former in 1938 and the latter in 1939, and as a result was awarded the junior and senior Sydney Renshaw prizes in physiology. He qualified in 1942 with second class honours, after which he became neurological house officer at the Manchester Royal Infirmary before joining His Majesty's Forces and becoming regimental medical officer to the 7th Mountain Regiment, with whom he saw action in Italy. He was later posted to India, Egypt and Palestine before being discharged in August 1946 with the rank of captain. He subsequently became orthopaedic senior house officer at Salford Royal and in 1947 took a supernumerary post in general surgery at the Manchester Royal Infirmary. He then commenced his neurosurgical education at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in Queen Square, in which post he stayed for two years before becoming a senior registrar to the neurosurgical unit at the Leeds Infirmary, at that time headed by Arthur Henderson. He married Eva Margaret Young, SRN, in 1950 and they had two daughters, Anne Elizabeth (born 1954) and Pamela Mary (born 1956), the latter following in her mother's footsteps by becoming a nurse. In 1954 he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon to the department of neurosurgery at the Leeds General Infirmary and the Leeds Regional Hospital Board, this appointment being associated with the post of clinical lecturer in neurosurgery. Not surprisingly with his scientific background, Arthur took a great interest in the scientific side of his specialty, introducing stereotactic surgery to Leeds for the treatment of Parkinsonism. Among his pastimes was the study of astronomy and for many years he was a member of the Yorkshire Light Aeroplane Club based at Yeadon, although this hobby failed to satisfy him since, unexpectedly failing a medical, he was always forced to fly with a licensed companion. He enjoyed reading, but only non-fiction, and was fond of marquetry. He was a man of great loyalty and integrity and was known for his enormous (and sometimes wry) sense of humour. Prior to the onset of serious medical problems he enjoyed ten years of happy retirement before his death at the age of 76 on 28 January 1993, survived by his wife, daughters and seven grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008370
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First Title value, for Searching Johnson, Richard Turner (1912 - 1996)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008100-E008199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380293380293
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Richard Johnson was born on 30 June 1912 in Manchester, the son of Herbert Johnson, a company secretary, and Grace, née Rose. He was educated at King's School, Macclesfield and in 1932 was awarded an Exhibition to Downing College, Cambridge, where he obtained first class honours in the natural science tripos part I, a BA in 1934 and an MA in 1938. His clinical studies were at St Bartholomew's Hospital, where he was first junior, then senior, house surgeon. In 1940 he was house surgeon and clinical assistant to Geoffrey Jefferson in the neurosurgical department of Manchester Royal Infirmary. He returned to Bart's in 1941 as chief assistant to the surgical professorial unit and surgeon to the Emergency Medical Service Head Injury Centre. His military career extended from 1942 to 1946. He was commanding officer in No 3 Mobile Neurosurgical Unit attached to Slim's 14th Army in Burma, eventually gaining the rank of lieutenant colonel, and being awarded the OBE (military). During this time he undertook investigations into fractures of the anterior fossa with dural tears and on gram negative infection, work which was subsequently published in the *Lancet* and the *British Journal of Surgery*. On his return to civilian life in 1946 he was appointed lecturer in neurosurgery at the University of Manchester, assistant neurosurgeon in 1949 and was director of the University Department of Neurosurgery until his retirement in 1977. Johnson wrote extensively after the war, contributing important studies with PO Yates on tentorial herniation (a particular interest of Jefferson's) and on cerebrospinal fluid circulation, cerebral abscess and intracranial aneurysms. He was an excellent operator with an original turn of mind, developing new approaches to orbito-cranial lesions and disease of the petrous bone. His methods of organisation and lack of regard for time, the latter a characteristic of his mentor, Jefferson, sometimes made difficulties for his junior staff; however, he had an uncanny knack of turning up in the operating theatre just when needed, and his personal charm, humour and enthusiasm were always evident. He was active in a number of organisations: he was President of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons from 1970 to 1972 and took an important part in the development of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies in 1971, becoming its first President. He held a Hunterian professorship of the College in 1950, was President of the Section of Neurology of the Royal Society of Medicine and President and life member of the North of England Neurological Association. He married Mairead Farragher in 1942 and she predeceased him in 1989. They had two sons, one of whom became a neurologist, and a daughter. He died on 21 September 1996, following a stroke.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008110
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching McKissock, Sir Wylie (1906 - 1994)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008100-E008199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380374380374
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Wylie McKissock was born in Staines, Middlesex, on 26 October 1906, the son of Alexander Cathie McKissock, a linoleum manufacturer and author who went under the pseudonym of Alan Graham, and his wife Rae, née Wylie. He went to the City of London School and King's College before winning the Laking Memorial prize and entrance scholarship to St George's Hospital. Four years after qualifying he decided on his future career in neurosurgery and in 1936 he travelled to Stockholm to visit Professor Olivecrona. He was much impressed by his ability to locate accurately lesions in the brain, which was due almost entirely to the skill of his radiologist. On returning to London he was appointed neurological surgeon to the Maida Vale Hospital for Nervous Diseases, which enabled him to build up a first class department of neuroradiology. In 1937 he was awarded a Rockefeller Travelling Fellowship which allowed him to meet Gilbert Horrax at the Lahey Clinic in Boston and also visit many other neurosurgical centres in North America. He developed a keen sense of judgement and produced a pattern of operating procedures which had to be strictly adhered to. It was almost revolutionary, and he drove his trainees into a similar frame: they all admired him for it, even though following his technique was incredibly hard work. In his training he was influenced by Sir Stewart Duke-Elder, Charles Donald and Lionel Colledge. He held appointments at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, and at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in Queen Square. During the war he was surgeon-in-charge at the neurological centre at Leavesden, the Atkinson Morley Hospital and the Royal United Hospital in Bath. Later he became consultant to the Royal Navy, the army and the Royal Air Force. He received the OBE in 1946 in recognition of his untiring work treating head injuries during the Blitz. His ability as an administrator was no less dynamic than his surgery, and he virtually controlled the development of his specialty along the entire south coast down into south west England. McKissock published many papers and chapters but one of his contributions related to the treatment of small aneurysms by using angiography and hypothermia to localise and obliterate the lesions which were causing a very high mortality. In 1934 he married Rachel Jones and they had one son and two daughters. On his retirement he received his Knighthood, and was also President of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons. He left London for the west coast of Scotland when he retired - he had always hated going abroad. He reflected his attitudes when he wrote of his recreations as 'wine, food, gardening, and antagonism to bureaucracy'. He died on 3 May 1994.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008191
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Latham, Geoffrey Rourke Welsford (1927 - 1973)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

First Title value, for Searching Hughes, Ernest Brodie Cobbett (1913 - 1989)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007300-E007399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379529379529
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Brodie Hughes was born in Broadstairs, Kent, on 21 September 1913, the son of E T C Hughes, MRCS, assistant medical superintendent of Lewisham Infirmary. He was educated at Eastbourne College and University College, London, before going to University College Hospital for clinical studies. He qualified in 1937 and during his early resident appointments came under the influence of Wilfred Trotter FRS and Julian Taylor, both of whom inspired an interest in the surgical approach to pain and disorders of the central nervous system. He passed the FRCS in 1939 and started training in neurosurgery at the National Hospital, Queen Square, under Harvey Jackson and Julian Taylor. After the outbreak of war he moved with them to the Emergency Medical Service neurosurgical unit at Hayward's Heath and remained there until 1945 when he transferred to Birmingham to take over the neurosurgical unit previously staffed by the American Hospital in Britain. In 1947 he was appointed neurosurgeon to the Birmingham United Hospitals and in the following year at the age of 35 years was appointed to the Chair of Neurosurgery at Birmingham University. During his 30 years as Professor he travelled widely, often for the British Council, lecturing at overseas universities, and wrote extensively particularly on perimetry and visual fields. He was joint author of *Clinical neurology* published in 1953 and author of *Visual fields* published in 1955; many other papers were published in neurosurgical journals including an important contribution on hypothermia in neurosurgery in 1964. He was a pioneer in stereotactic surgery and devised a special apparatus to apply this technique to the treatment of Parkinson's disease until the introduction of more effective drug treatment for this condition. In addition to his professional work he was a member of many university and hospital committees as well as being Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry from 1974 to 1978. He had a reserved manner and expected high standards from his junior staff. He believed in starting work early each morning and in the importance of punctuality. Apart from his work he had many outside interests which included playing the oboe, fly-fishing for trout and painting. In retirement he went to live at Saxmundham, Suffolk, mainly because of its proximity to the Aldeburgh Festival. He married Frances Wendy Alexander in 1971 and there were no children of the marriage. He died on 23 March 1989, aged 75.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007346
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First Title value, for Searching Krayenbuhl, Hugo (1902 - 1985)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-14 2015-09-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008000-E008099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380247380247
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Professor Dr Hugo Krayenbuhl was admitted to the honorary Fellowship at a meeting of Council on 10 March 1977. Mr Walpole Lewin delivered a citation in his honour, pointing out that Krayenbuhl was one of the European neurosurgeons who trained in England and subsequently influenced the training of many of our younger neurosurgeons. A firm anglophile, he was an internationally acknowledged surgeon and a friend to many in Great Britain. Mr Lewin summed up his career in the following words: 'Professor Hugo Krayenbuhl, the son of a psychiatrist, was destined in turn to become a neuropsychiatrist. To that end he trained in the neurological clinics both in Berlin and Zurich, coming under the influence of Bonhoeffer and Maier. After some six years, and noting the limitations of neurosurgery at that time, he decided to train in this new specialty. In 1934 he came to the London Hospital for training under our own Hugh Cairns and thus began a firm friendship between them which lasted until the untimely death of Cairns in 1952. 'After his training in England Krayenbuhl returned to Zurich to begin the makings of a neurosurgical department. It is interesting nowadays to reflect that at that time he was expected to take back with him his own operating table and neurosurgical instruments, and it is widely rumoured that in his bag he also carried an endotracheal tube. Some initial disappointments were overcome and a formal unit was opened in 1939. Subsequently Dr Krayenbuhl became the first professor of neurosurgery in Switzerland in 1948. From that time he remained in the forefront of European neurosurgery, and among his numerous contributions one would mention in particular his work on cerebral aneurysms and cerebral vascular disorders, and more recently his encouragement of the development of microneurosurgery. As the years went by his services were in increasing demand throughout Europe and he received numerous honours on both sides of the Atlantic. 'From the time of his training in London Professor Krayenbuhl has remained a firm friend of this country. On several occasions he has attended the meetings of our Society of British Neurological Surgeons, of which he was made an honorary member and to whom subsequently in 1969 he delivered the 5th Hugh Cairns Memorial Lecture. But more than that, many British neurosurgeons over the past 30 years owe a debt to Dr Krayenbuhl not only for the welcome he gave to those who visited his unit but for his contribution to their postgraduate education in setting up seminars and workshops in neurosurgery. His academic career was crowned in 1972 by his election as Honorary Academician of the Accademia Lancisiana di Roma and the award of the Foerster medal in 1973. 'Outside medicine he shares with his wife, whom we welcome here today, a love, and indeed a deep knowledge, of music and painting and takes as his special interest a study of contemporary art. There are few neurosurgical centres in the world that he has not visited and that have not included a surreptitious trip to the local art dealers' The President, Sir Rodney Smith, then admitted Professor Krayenbuhl to the Honorary Fellowship, saying that the number of Honorary Fellows in the College was strictly limited and Honorary Fellowship was therefore given only to those who have become household names in surgery and respected the world over. Council regarded Profesor Krayenbuhl very highly and fully supported Mr Lewin's citation. Professor Krayenbuhl replied, expressing his heartfelt gratitude to the Council of the College for this honour, which represented a high point in his medical career. He deeply appreciated the fact that he was the guest of a country with a great cultural tradition and a country in which great things had been done in the field of surgery. As a neurosurgeon and a pupil of Sir Hugh Cairns, he felt especially proud to be a Fellow of this College. He thanked Mr Walpole Lewin for his kind words.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008064
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First Title value, for Searching Robson, Alastair Geoffrey Grindrod (1926 - 2011)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by K Nadana Chandran
Publication Date 2016-07-27 2016-08-04
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009100-E009199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381374381374
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Alastair Robson - the pioneer neurosurgeon in Canberra - was born in Sydney in 1926 and went to Shore School in north Sydney where his father was Headmaster. He rowed in the Shore VIII, and after leaving school he coached the senior crew. It was at Shore that he met his future wife, Anne who became the mainstay of the developing family and was the major force behind Alastair's success. He was a man of great integrity with great devotion to his family and absolute dedication to his patients and the craft of neurosurgery. He went to the Sydney University where he completed his medical education and after some years in General practice in the 1950's went to England, obtaining his Fellowship in general surgery, developing an interest in Neurosurgery and learning wisdom from Sir Wylie McKissock, at the Atkinson Morley Neurosurgical Unit. He initially commenced practice as a general surgeon in 1961 in Bathurst and then moved to Canberra shortly after that and became the first full time neurosurgeon in Canberra. Although he would never admit it, Alastair was ahead of his time in neurosurgery. He took a keen interest in spinal surgery which most other neurosurgeons steered clear of. In particular spinal fusion and instrumentation of the spine became his new interest and a specialty that he went on to teach others who would follow him. He used to regularly visit Ralph Cloward, a well-known pioneering Neuro-spinal surgeon in Hawaii and brought home new techniques. He became a close friend of Ralph and was a founding member of the Posterior Lumbar Interbody Fusion Society which later became the Spine Society. His interests then extended into making his own instruments and designing or modifying instruments to suit his needs. Being dissatisfied with the equipment available at the hospitals he bought his own set of spinal instruments and carried them from hospital to hospital. When he found that his uninsured patients were not being served adequately in Canberra he took it upon himself to start operating at the Goulburn Base Hospital - an hour's drive away where he would do a weekly list carrying his instruments all the way and driving back late in the evening. He introduced pedicle screw fixation for lumbar fusions by working with Dr Art Steffe, a pioneering surgeon in the USA and then bringing his techniques and instruments to Canberra. He also became a close friend of Dr Steffe who he visited many times and who visited Canberra to stay with Alastair. Alastair was always very kind to his patients. He often knew the intricate details of their social and family situations and some of them became his close friends as well. This personal touch and the old school approach of "practitioner to the whole patient, not just their particular body part", is something that is perhaps missing in modern medicine. Alastair was a man of varied interests. He had a wonderful collection of artworks, sculptures, paintings and one of the largest collections of Japanese wood cut prints. Whatever he did he carried out with full dedication and passion to its ultimate perfection. Fishing was no exception to this. He went on regular fishing trips and made his own flies, collecting pieces of lead fallen on the road to make into sinkers. He often visited the Thredbo River, Lake Eucumbene and Lake Jindabyne and when he retired, travelled all the way to Cape York Peninsula for fishing holidays. He was meticulous whether it was with his surgical techniques or his collection of flies, Bonsai plants or his art works. He never missed his Sunday tennis with his friends and in the winter season skiing in the snowfields near Canberra. He was an avid reader of books and collector of historic rare books as well. He was a life member of the AMA, was actively involved in the Australian Association of Surgeons, he was consultant surgeon to the Snowy Mountains Scheme and served for many years on the Medical Board of the ACT, finally becoming its chairman. He was a council member of the Medical Defence Union for many years, travelling every month to Sydney for the meetings. I owe a great personal debt to Alastair. It was he who encouraged me to stay on in Canberra and commence practice as a neurosurgeon, having spent a year as his registrar in The Canberra Hospital. He took it upon himself to deal with the bureaucratic hurdles that I faced at that time and he championed my career here in those early years. My life would have taken a very different path if not for the intervention and support of Alastair, and I will always remember and be grateful to him for this. It was unfortunate that his last days were so difficult but he faced the health issues he had with great courage and fortitude. Alastair led a very fulfilling life with many interests and talents. He leaves behind many grateful patients for his services and friends and colleagues for the wonderful example he set as a doctor and his companionship. He will be missed by his patients, a wide circle of friends and he will be remembered by all as an intellectual, a dedicated doctor, a great technician, a craftsman, angler, family man and above all a man of great integrity. His death leaves a huge gap in the family, Prue, Nick, Amanda, Kristin, Sarah, their spouses and thirteen grandchildren to whom he was a wonderful grandfather.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009191
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First Title value, for Searching Jennett, William Bryan (1926 - 2008)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by T T King
Publication Date 2009-06-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000600-E000699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372807372807
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Bryan Jennett, professor of neurosurgery at the University of Glasgow, devised, with colleagues, two key diagnostic tools – the Glasgow Coma Scale, used throughout the world to assess consciousness, and the Glasgow Outcome Scale, used for patients with head injury. His work led to the defining of persistent vegetative state and the establishment of criteria for brain death. He was born on 1 March 1926 in Twickenham, Middlesex, the son of Robert William Jennett, a civil servant, and Jessie née Loudon. His mother’s family had farmed in Lanarkshire, Scotland, though there was a tradition of medicine. His father, an Irish Protestant, worked in the offices of the Royal Irish Constabulary in Dublin, but after his marriage was transferred to the British Civil Service in London, an option offered after the Troubles of 1916 and the establishment of the Irish Free State. At the start of the Second World War, Jennett was evacuated to rural Scotland, and then to Southport, where he attended George V School. He went on to study medicine at Liverpool, qualifying at the top of his year, in 1949, having been president of the British Medical Students’ Association. During his period in Liverpool, he was influenced towards neurosurgery by the lectures of Lord Cohen of Birkenhead on neurology. A neurosurgical house appointment at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, with Sir Hugh Cairns and J B Pennybacker was followed by National Service at the Military Hospital, Wheatley, which confirmed him in a career in neurosurgery. At the suggestion of Walpole Lewin, who was responsible for the care of head injuries at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Jennett undertook a study of the incidence and features of epilepsy after blunt head injuries, work which later resulted in his important monograph on the subject (William Heinemann Books, 1962). From Wheatley and Oxford, he went to Cardiff and, in 1957, was appointed senior lecturer at Manchester, a post he held until 1962. During his period he was a Rockefeller travelling fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), with W Eugene Stern. There he carried out experimental work on the effects of brain compression on tentorial herniation and the pupil, from which came two papers. The experience in UCLA introduced him to experimental work and research, and he considered staying on in the States, but in 1962 he was recruited to a combined academic and NHS appointment at Killearn Hospital in the West of Scotland Neurological Unit, Glasgow. There he was influenced by Sir Charles Illingworth, who had established a tradition of clinical surgical research. He published, in 1964, the first of five editions of *An introduction to neurosurgery* (London, Heinemann Medical), a small textbook in which he showed his skill in exposition. In 1968, he was given a chair of neurosurgery and, two years later, moved to the new Institute of Neurological Sciences at the Southern General Hospital, which he made into an outstanding centre of neurosurgical research and education in the UK. British neurosurgery had not been orientated much towards research, especially the laboratory sort for which Jennett had become enthusiastic after his experience in Los Angeles. In his new appointment, he showed a gift for co-operation and for enlisting accomplished scientists from other disciplines. With Murray Harper, he set up a Medical Research Council group on cerebral circulation, which studied the effects of carotid ligation, raised intracranial pressure, the sympathetic nervous system and the effect of anaesthetic agents on cerebral blood flow in primates and humans. He continued his studies of post traumatic epilepsy and greatly advanced the study of the pathology and outcome of head injuries. Together with Graham Teasdale, his successor in the chair, he devised a method of quantifying a head injury by using simple clinical observations. This became the Glasgow Coma Scale, an essential instrument in grading the severity of a brain injury. He and Michael Bond, who later became professor of psychological medicine at Glasgow, also devised a simple categorisation of the outcome of head injuries. Jennett’s studies with Hume Adams on the pathology of fatal head injuries drew attention to neuropathological evidence that these brains showed ischaemic damage, presumably occurring in the period immediately following the injury and, therefore, due, at least in some cases, to avoidable factors. This offered the opportunity of improving the outcome by attending to ventilation and avoiding hypotension in the early period after injury and controlling, if possible, raised intracranial pressure. Another co-operative effort, this time with Fred Plum of Cornell University, New York, led to the separation of a group of patients following severe head injury in which lack of awareness and of willed movement was associated with cycles of waking and sleeping, which they termed ‘vegetative state’, usually, though not always, permanent. Jennett’s special and characteristic contribution to the management of head injuries was to look at the evidence or collect new evidence, rather than rely on general impressions and past assumptions. If this sometimes seemed slightly cold-blooded, it was very successful in his hands and greatly changed the position of this important if somewhat depressing branch of trauma surgery. Management now depended on rational knowledge, rather than hopeful expectancy. In 1981 he published, with Graham Teasdale, *Management of head injuries* (Philadelphia, F A Davis Co. 1981), which incorporated these studies. Comparison of this book with earlier publications on the same subject shows how greatly the study of head injuries had advanced in a decade. Jennett’s later work inclined towards more general ethical, legal or administrative problems. When the development of heart transplantation created a need for organs to be taken from patients whose heart and circulation were still functioning, there developed a desire to redefine the criteria for death. Artificial ventilation of patients with very severe brain injuries produced a group of patients who appeared eventually to have no cerebral activity or cerebral circulation, if they were investigated, and who would die if ventilation were to be stopped, since they could not breathe spontaneously. Their circulation, however, continued as the heart remained beating. Such patients, at the endpoint of an overwhelming injury, provided an indispensable source of material for heart transplants. After much discussion, criteria were laid down which pronounced them to be, in effect, dead and therefore available as organ donors. This translation of a prognosis into a ‘state’ was not accepted by everyone in the profession and there was some unease and agitation about it. Jennett successfully brought his skill in laying out an argument, and in public debate, to bear on the problem. A somewhat similar difficulty arose over patients in the permanent ‘vegetative state’ he had described. They could live for many years in this state, fed by tube but showing no signs of higher mental functions, often to the distress of their relatives. The question arose whether their lives could be terminated by ceasing tube feeding. In the end, a judgement of the House of Lords decided it could. Jennett wrote an extensive study *The vegetative state: medical facts, ethical and legal dilemmas* (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002), which examined all aspect of this difficult problem. The increasing expense of highly complex medical treatment, its effectiveness and its value for money was the subject of his Rock Carling fellowship and monograph (*High technology medicine: benefits and burdens*, London, The Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust, 1984) in which, in his usual clear and even-handed way, he examined all aspects of the subject, admitting its failings, which he tended to attribute to misapplication by doctors, but generally defending it. His intellectual and organisational gifts made him sought-after as an administrator. He was on many committees in the UK, especially those concerned with head injuries, epilepsy, criteria of brain death and allocation of resources. He was dean of the faculty of medicine of Glasgow University from 1981 to 1986, visiting professor to universities in the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, a corresponding member of the American Neurological Association and the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, an honorary member of the Society of Neurological Surgeons in America and the stroke council of the American Heart Association. He was president of the International Society for Technology Assessment in Health Care. Jennett was a small man with great energy. He had a sharp tongue, pen and wit, and could be harshly dismissive of people of whom he had little opinion, which sometimes produced enemies. He married Sheila Pope, a fellow medical student at Liverpool, who became a respiratory physiologist at Glasgow. There were three sons of the marriage and one daughter. He and his wife pursued outdoor activities and he was interested in flora and fauna. He was a keen sailor, owned a series of yachts and did much cruising around the coast of Scotland and England. Though tone deaf, he was a sponsor of musical activities. His daughter became a professional cellist. Jennett died on 26 January 2008, aged 81, from the effects of multiple myeloma.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000624
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cummins, Brian Holford (1933 - 2003)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372232372232
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Brian Cummins was a consultant neurosurgeon at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol. He was born in Somerset on 10 March 1933, the son of Peter Cummins (known as ‘Cecil’ or ‘Pop’) and his wife, Rita. His early years were spent in Bath, but he moved to Edmonton, Alberta, in 1946, when his family emigrated to Canada. At the age of 16 he entered the University of Alberta to study classics and modern languages, at the same time as helping his father build the family home. He spent his vacations working as a foreman in pipeline construction in Manitoba. He graduated with honours in 1953. A chance encounter with a book on the surgery of epilepsy by Wilder Penfield, director of the Montreal Neurological Institute, raised in him an ambition to become a neurosurgeon and he spent two years on the medical course at Alberta, before returning to England to complete his studies at Bristol in 1961, when he won a gold medal. After qualifying, he held a junior post in neurosurgery in Oxford under Joe Pennybacker and John Potter, where he developed his interest in head injury management, brain tumour and spinal injury. He returned to Bristol in 1968 as senior registrar. He became a consultant neurosurgeon at Frenchay Hospital, Bristol, in 1973. He retired in 1999. Cummins’ interests in neurosurgery were wide, encompassing tumours, spinal surgery and head injuries. He was instrumental in bringing the main technological advances in neurosurgery to Bristol and pioneered teleradiology. He was involved in improving the standards of head injury care in the region by education and guidance on management, and helped the College and the Society of British Neurological Surgeons in producing their booklet on the topic. He was an advocate of multidisciplinary clinics and this, plus his interest in the rehabilitation of head injuries, led to his setting up a head injury unit at Frenchay in 1992, of which he was director for three years. He also took part in the charity Headway which sought to help these patients. He also established a combined clinic for managing brain tumours. In spinal surgery he developed a steel prosthetic joint for implanation into the cervical spine. He was an enthusiastic and patient teacher of junior staff and would spend much time supervising them in operations. Consultant surgeons from at least half the neurosurgical units in the UK trained with him at some stage. He was an adviser on head injury to the Department of Health, the Royal Colleges, and to the World Health Organization in Bosnia. He advised on neurosurgical services in India and South East Asia, and raised funds for a children’s unit. His character was enthusiastic and extroverted. Love of outdoor activities resulted in him breaking both hips rock climbing in 1970. He was so grateful for the help he received from the mountain rescue team that he joined the organisation to advise and teach. He enjoyed skiing, canoeing, hill-walking and travel to remote places, and he was an extremely knowledgeable gardener, studying for a degree in botany during his early retirement. He married Annie in 1961 and they had two sons, Sean and Jason. He died on 16 August 2003 after a short illness of carcinoma of the pancreas.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000045
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Calvert, James Murray (1924 - 2003)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-10-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372462372462
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details James Calvert, neurosurgeon, was born at Mount Bute, near Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, where his parents owned a sheep farm. He was educated first at the local state school and then at Ballarat Grammar School. On leaving school, he worked briefly for the Commercial Bank of Australia, before enlisting at the age of 18 in April 1943 in the Australian Army. After initial training in South Australia he was sent to the 2/8th Australian Field Regiment, which had recently returned to Australia after taking part in the Battle of El Alamein. The regiment was now training for the invasion of Sarawak and Brunei in Borneo and sailed from Townsville in May 1945, initially to Morotai and then for Brunei, where it landed on 10 June. Though there was little resistance initially, an ambush of a patrol in which Calvert was taking part resulted in the death of three of his immediate companions. The Japanese surrender occurred in August 1945 and Calvert was discharged in September 1946. He then spent a year at a coaching college, obtaining the necessary exams to enter the medical school at the University of Melbourne. To accommodate the influx of ex-serviceman the University had set up a branch at a former RAAF base in Mildura, in the north west of Victoria, and there Calvert entered the first year of the course. For later years he was resident at Queen’s College, Melbourne University, where he rowed in the first eight, played football and took part in athletics. His clinical studies were done at the Royal Melbourne Hospital where after qualifying he did his house jobs. He then became a surgical registrar there, and later at the Western General Hospital, Footscray. In 1959 he obtained the FRACS, went to England, passed the FRCS at the first attempt, without doing a course, which he could not afford, and entered neurosurgical training at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham under Brodie Hughes. He returned to Melbourne in 1962, working initially at the neurosurgical department of the Alfred Hospital as an honorary (unpaid) assistant neurosurgeon until 1969. During this time he did GP locums at the weekend to make ends meet. In 1967 he took up the post of neurosurgeon to the Austin Hospital, Heidelberg, Melbourne, and there he worked for the next 20 years as senior neurosurgeon. He also held an appointment to the Repatriation Hospital, close to the Austin, which dealt with ex-servicemen, and at the Peter McCallum Clinic, the Victorian Cancer Centre. He retired from the Austin in 1987 and from the Repatriation Hospital two years later, though continuing to do medico-legal work. Calvert was a person of quiet and retiring demeanour who worked long hours and was much liked by his patients. He was an active member of the Neurosurgical Society of Australia, being treasurer for some years and president from 1980 to 1981. He was also closely associated with the Returned Services League, the Australian ex-servicemen's association and was vice-president of his regiment. In 1956 he married Marnie Fone. They had four daughters and a son.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000275
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Morgan, Francis Patrick (1906 - 1988)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-06-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007500-E007599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379711379711
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Francis Patrick Morgan was born in Melbourne on 17 February 1906 to Patrick Morgan, a road building and civil engineering contractor, and his wife Catherine, née McGrath. He received a sound Catholic education under the Christian Brothers and went to St Vincent's, Melbourne, to qualify in 1929. He studied at the London Hospital in 1932 for the Conjoint which was required before taking the FRCS and it was here that he was inspired by a lecture given on the pituitary by Hugh Cairns. After obtaining the FRCS he spent six months as a house surgeon at Great Ormond Street. In 1934 he returned to the London and Hugh Cairns' secretary, Nora Quartermaine, sent him to the operating theatre where - considering that he had neither credentials nor introduction - he found his reception encouraging. Cairns accepted him provided that he read the prescribed reading list and spent three months studying under Gordon Holmes at Queen Square. Here Douglas Northfield was the first assistant and Joe Pennybacker was the registrar and became Morgan's lifelong friend. During his time he attended the clinics of Walshe, Kinnier Wilson and McDonald Critchley. His fellow students included Hugo Krayenbuhl of Zurich and Hans Kolbeke of Berlin. Fraenkel records the interminable operations of those days in which the Cushing method was followed in minutest detail. During this time Frank and Douglas Miller bought a second-hand Singer and drove to Edinburgh to see Norman Dott who was much slicker and quicker. Frank made friends with the ward sisters. In January 1936 Cairns invited Frank to stay with his family in St John's Wood for six months to assist in his private practice and collect what he needed to set up the unit on his return to Melbourne. The duties of the assistant included carrying the patient up two flights of stairs (there being no lift). Barbara Cairns made him very much one of the family. Dorothy Russell the neuropathologist assisted Frank by giving him a complete set of reference material to take with him and insisted that he took a Zeiss binocular microscope back with him. With an introduction to Cairns' wartime colleague, Andrew Brenan, at St Vincent's, Frank returned to Melbourne as neurological surgeon in 1936. There he carried on the Cushing tradition and became a founder member of the Neurological Society of Australasia. Like his master, Cairns, he was renowned for his meticulous technique and tireless performance. He wrote on methods of treating cerebrospinal rhinorrhoea, hypertension as a sympton of an intracranial tumour, and with his colleague Tom King, the orthopaedic surgeon (whose son was to succeed Northfield as neurosurgeon at the London), on the late result of removing the medial epicondyle for traumatic ulnar neuritis and common causes of low back pain. Frank Morgan served as honorary neurosurgeon at St Vincent's for thirty years until he stepped aside to become assistant neurosurgeon in 1966, although he continued to operate until the age of 79. During this time he served as chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee and the Electoral College and a member of the Advisory Council. In 1939 he married Mary (Mollie) Brosnan by whom he had two sons and three daughters, two of the children becoming doctors. He died on 23 February 1988 aged 82, survived by his family, apart from a daughter who predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007528
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Hitchcock, Edward Robert (1929 - 1993)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

First Title value, for Searching Knight, Geoffrey Cureton (1906 - 1994)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008100-E008199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380314380314
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Geoffrey Knight was born on 4 October 1906 at Lowfield Heath, Surrey, the only son of Cureton Hope Overbeck Knight, a produce broker, and Ida Emily Norton, the daughter of a physician whose uncles served as surgeons in the Crimean War. He was educated at Wadham House School, Hove, and Brighton College, and subsequently at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School where he qualified in 1930, after winning the Brackenbury surgical scholarship. He boxed for United Hospitals, but later discouraged his sons from boxing because of the risk of brain damage. From the age of 26 he suffered from pernicious anaemia, and had to take raw liver as treatment, which he detested. He subsequently held registrar and chief surgical assistant posts at Bart's before being appointed honorary senior surgeon to the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases in London, and then consultant neurosurgeon to the Royal Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, and the SE Metropolitan Neurosurgical Centre. He held various research scholarships awarded by the Royal College of Surgeons, including the Leverhulme scholarship (1933-1936) and the Mackenzie Mackinnon scholarship (1936-1938). During the second world war he was retained in London as essential civilian medical staff, and helped to organise the dispersal of neurosurgical services into regional centres. He treated large numbers of head injuries, especially amongst airmen, and as these were often compounded by burns he formed a close association with Archibald McIndoe. In 1946 they were both awarded the Order of the White Lion of Czechoslovakia for services to Czech aircrew. His main pioneering interests and research lay in the treatment of manic depression and schizophrenia by frontal lobotomy, which was often treated with hostility by conventional psychiatrists. An improved stereotactic technique with the implantation of Yttrium seeds into area 13 of the brain however led to better results at a time when modern psychotherapeutic drugs were unavailable. He was elected Hunterian professor of the Royal College of Surgeons no fewer than three times in 1935, 1936 and 1963, and also held the Vice-Presidency of the International Society of Psychiatric Surgery from 1970 to 1975. He wrote extensively, including the sections on neurosurgery in Bailey and Love's *Practice of Surgery*, and papers on stereotactic tractotomy for the surgical treatment of intractable mental illness, which he also presented at international symposia in Copenhagen, Madrid and Cambridge in the 1970s. His students recall him as a dynamic and witty lecturer. He also enjoyed medico-legal work, and was regarded as a formidable adversary in the courts. His outside interests included travel, wine, antiques and gardening, for which he won several prizes, but at heart he was an intensely private person. He used to drive an old Rolls Royce until his 80s, and as he lived on a steep hill with an awkward garage entrance, parking it was a 'surgical marvel of introduction'. He married Betty Lydia Havell in December 1935 and they had two sons, both of whom qualified as doctors. Martin, FRCS, is now a consultant orthopaedic surgeon in Manchester, and Anthony, a GP in Southampton. He died on 2 April 1994, survived by his wife, sons and seven grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008131
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Miller, Sir Ian Douglas (1900 - 1996)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008200-E008299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380383380383
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Ian Douglas Miller was born on 20 July 1900 in Sydney, the son of Joseph Jolin Miller, a doctor, and Ann Clare, née Doolan. He was educated at Xavier College in Melbourne, before entering Sydney University for his medical training. After graduating with honours he was appointed resident medical officer at St Vincent's Hospital in Sydney and was greatly influenced by Sir Alexander MacCormick when he became his first assistant from 1925 until 1931. He travelled to London in 1926 for further surgical training at Guy's Hospital, and became resident surgical officer at Woolwich War Memorial Hospital. He obtained the FRCS in 1929 and returned to Sydney, where he developed a reputation for teaching and was asked to become the dean of the clinical school in 1930, a post he held for the next thirty-three years. In 1930 he became a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, but returned to England in 1934 because he had decided to specialize in neurosurgery and was appointed to work with Sir Hugh Cairns in Oxford. On his return to Sydney he soon became a leading light in neurosurgery not only in that city, but in the whole of Australia. His reputation continued to impress many surgeons throughout Asia, and soon he was appointed to other hospitals in Sydney, and became a lecturer in the surgical and anatomy departments of Sydney University. He saw war service in the Allied Invasion Front in the Western Desert and developed a strong team with R S Lawson. On his return to Sydney he proceeded on lecture tours to India, Singapore and Malaysia. He was much in demand, and undertook to support the teaching role in those countries to the extent of being an external examiner. He had a natural gift for speaking in public, and was much admired for his conscientious attitude and superb skills as a neurosurgeon. He was awarded a Knighthood in 1961 and an Honorary D Litt of the University of Singapore in 1973. He was President of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons from 1957 to 1959, and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1980. He was also on the editorial committee of the *Australian and New Zealand Journal of Surgery*. In 1938 he married Phyllis, née Mort, and they had three sons, one of whom became a doctor, and two daughters. He died in January 1996.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008200
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Talalla, Andrew (1924 - 2000)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-06-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002500-E002599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374692374692
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Andrew Talalla, a neurosurgeon, was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 29 November 1924. His father, Hewage Benjamin Talalla, was an industrialist who married Lily Olga Fernando. There were two older brothers, both of whom served in the RAF in the second world war, the elder being killed flying a Typhoon in the Normandy campaign. Two younger brothers were respectively a diplomat and a high court judge. Andrew Talalla remained in Malaysia when it was occupied by the Japanese. When some Japanese ships were sunk, the family were accused of espionage and imprisoned. Talalla himself, who was 16 at the time, was kept in solitary confinement for 18 months. When the war was over, he went to England to complete his education. On leaving school, he went to Queen Mary College, London University. He entered the medical school at the London Hospital, Whitechapel, from which he graduated with the conjoint qualification. He did not take the MB BS, an omission which caused him considerable trouble later. His pre-registration house appointments included general medicine, general surgery and neurosurgery. In the latter he took a precocious and keen interest under the influence of D W C Northfield and J V Crawford, the two consultants in the neurosurgical department at the London Hospital. He determined on a career in the specialty, undertook the FRCS examination, which he obtained in 1962, and shortly afterwards was appointed registrar and senior registrar at Atkinson Morley's Hospital, Wimbledon. At the time, under the direction of Sir Wylie McKissock, this was the most distinguished department in England and knowledge of the natural history and treatment of subarachnoid and intracerebral haemorrhage in particular was greatly increased by systematic studies carried out there. McKissock was a hard taskmaster, but those who succeeded with him were in a very strong position in applying for consultant posts. Talalla did not relish any of the appointments available at the time and decided to go to the United States. He was appointed, in 1967, as associate professor of surgery (neurological surgery) at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, but to his dismay, on taking up the employment, found that his basic qualification was not acceptable, as it had not been awarded by a university. All efforts to get around this problem failed, and he had to take the MD in Los Angeles. He remained in Los Angeles until 1972, during which time he became interested in microsurgery, which was well developed in that department. He formed an association with Robert Pudenz of the Huntingdon Institute of Applied Medical Research, who had done much original work on the mechanism of head injuries and devised one of the earliest and most successful ventricular shunts for the treatment of hydrocephalus. With Pudenz he wrote on the local effects of electrical stimulation of the brain. He was a keen teacher of undergraduates and was largely responsible, while in Los Angeles, for formulating an integrated clinical course in neurosurgery, which won an award. In 1972, he left to take up an appointment as associate professor in the department of surgery at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, where he remained until his retirement, becoming Professor in 1982. He brought with him to McMaster the use of the operating microscope and, after spending sometime with Irving Cooper in 1980, introduced cryogenic stereotaxic surgery. The MD programme at McMaster was an innovative one and Talalla continued his interest in student teaching while there. At the time of his death he was compiling a teaching manual for students and residents. His scientific work at McMaster was concerned with the control of bladder function by electrical stimulation of the sacral nerves, about which he wrote extensively, the effects of pinealectomy, the use of intrathecal Baclofen in the control of spasticity, and vagal stimulation of epilepsy. During his time at McMaster, he was visiting professor in New York Medical College, Westchester, New York, and spent six months working in his old hospital, the Royal London. After retirement, he continued to practise neurosurgery as a locum in the Northern Ontario Underserved Area. Andrew Talalla married Mary Fisher, a nursing sister from the London, and there were two sons, Dominic and Piers, and a daughter, Andrea. He was a person of considerable personal charm and elegance of appearance and manner. A keen sailor, he owned a yacht on which he sailed from the Great Lakes down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico in 1997. His health in later life was affected by diabetes and vascular disease, and he died of a stroke following recurrent cardiac surgery on 27 May 2000.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002509
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Tallala, Andrew (1924 - 2000)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008900-E008999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381146381146
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Andrew Tallala, a neurosurgeon, was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on 29 November 1924. His father, Hewage Benjamin Tallala, was an industrialist who married Lily Olga Fernando. There were two older brothers, both of whom served in the RAF in the second world war, the elder being killed flying a Typhoon in the Normandy campaign. Two younger brothers were respectively a diplomat and a high court judge. Andrew Tallala remained in Malaysia when it was occupied by the Japanese. When some Japanese ships were sunk, the family were accused of espionage and imprisoned. Tallala himself, who was 16 at the time, was kept in solitary confinement for 18 months. When the war was over, he went to England to complete his education. On leaving school, he went to Queen Mary College, London University. He entered the medical school at the London Hospital, Whitechapel, from which he graduated with the conjoint qualification. He did not take the MB BS, an omission which caused him considerable trouble later. His pre-registration house appointments included general medicine, general surgery and neurosurgery. In the latter he took a precocious and keen interest under the influence of D W C Northfield and J V Crawford, the two consultants in the neurosurgical department at the London Hospital. He determined on a career in the specialty, undertook the FRCS examination, which he obtained in 1962, and shortly afterwards was appointed registrar and senior registrar at Atkinson Morley's Hospital, Wimbledon. At the time, under the direction of Sir Wylie McKissock, this was the most distinguished department in England and knowledge of the natural history and treatment of subarachnoid and intracerebral haemorrhage in particular was greatly increased by systematic studies carried out there. McKissock was a hard taskmaster, but those who succeeded with him were in a very strong position in applying for consultant posts. Tallala did not relish any of the appointments available at the time and decided to go to the United States. He was appointed, in 1967, as associate professor of surgery (neurological surgery) at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, but to his dismay, on taking up the employment, found that his basic qualification was not acceptable, as it had not been awarded by a university. All efforts to get around this problem failed, and he had to take the MD in Los Angeles. He remained in Los Angeles until 1972, during which time he became interested in microsurgery, which was well developed in that department. He formed an association with Robert Pudenz of the Huntingdon Institute of Applied Medical Research, who had done much original work on the mechanism of head injuries and devised one of the earliest and most successful ventricular shunts for the treatment of hydrocephalus. With Pudenz he wrote on the local effects of electrical stimulation of the brain. He was a keen teacher of undergraduates and was largely responsible, while in Los Angeles, for formulating an integrated clinical course in neurosurgery, which won an award. In 1972, he left to take up an appointment as associate professor in the department of surgery at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, where he remained until his retirement, becoming Professor in 1982. He brought with him to McMaster the use of the operating microscope and, after spending sometime with Irving Cooper in 1980, introduced cryogenic stereotaxic surgery. The MD programme at McMaster was an innovative one and Talalla continued his interest in student teaching while there. At the time of his death he was compiling a teaching manual for students and residents. His scientific work at McMaster was concerned with the control of bladder function by electrical stimulation of the sacral nerves, about which he wrote extensively, the effects of pinealectomy, the use of intrathecal Baclofen in the control of spasticity, and vagal stimulation of epilepsy. During his time at McMaster, he was visiting professor in New York Medical College, Westchester, New York, and spent six months working in his old hospital, the Royal London. After retirement, he continued to practise neurosurgery as a locum in the Northern Ontario Underserved Area. Andrew Tallala married Mary Fisher, a nursing sister from the London, and there were two sons, Dominic and Piers, and a daughter, Andrea. He was a person of considerable personal charm and elegance of appearance and manner. A keen sailor, he owned a yacht on which he sailed from the Great Lakes down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico in 1997. His health in later life was affected by diabetes and vascular disease, and he died of a stroke following recurrent cardiac surgery on 27 May 2000.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008963
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Logue, Valentine Darte (1913 - 2000)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-11-17 2018-01-31
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008700-E008799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380928380928
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Valentine Logue was one of the most distinguished neurosurgeons of his generation. He will be remembered principally for his determined advocacy of the place of research in the training of young neurosurgeons. He was himself a meticulous and careful surgeon, notable not only for his superb operative technique, but also for his attention to the pre-operative assessment of his patients and to their post-operative care. He was a neurologist of magnificence, whose examinations would often reveal nuances that had escaped others. He was born in Perth, Western Australia, in 1913, the second of three brothers, coming to London in 1922 with his family. His father, a pioneer in speech therapy who numbered among his patients the Duke of York, later King George the Sixth, encouraged him to pursue a career in medicine. He trained in London, at King's College and St George's Hospital, qualifying in 1936. His first interest was in general surgery and, after the usual training posts, he became a wartime consultant at St George's in 1940, serving through the heavy air raids on London. In 1941, he met Wylie McKissock, and became fascinated by the challenges of neurosurgery. He spent two and a half years training under McKissock, who had derived his own techniques from experiences with Horrax in Boston and Olivecrona in Sweden. Logue then served as a neurosurgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps, primarily in the Far East, returning to Atkinson Morley's Hospital in London to join McKissock, who had set up a busy neurological service there. Further training was augmented by a tour of neurosurgical centres in the United States. In 1948, he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley's and Maida Vale Hospitals. A busy period of general neurosurgery followed. In 1957 he left Atkinson Morley's to join the consultant staff of the Middlesex Hospital, where he taught undergraduates. He had long wished to develop academic interests in neurosurgery, and in 1965 he was given the opportunity to found and direct a department of neurosurgical studies at the National Hospital, Queen Square, the oldest neurological establishment in Britain. A titular professorship in 1968 was followed by a university chair in neurosurgery in 1974, when a generous private benefactor enabled the establishment of a university department, the first university chair of neurosurgery in England. In the succeeding years he took an active part in the evolution of the European Association of Neurological Surgeons. He had always emphasised the importance of careful documentation, and his own carefully thought out papers reflected his immense clinical experience. Especially noteworthy were works on arteriovenous malformation of the spinal cord, on early surgery for intercranial aneurysm, and on syringomyelia. His trainees were relatively few in number, but to them he conveyed his own philosophy - scrupulous care of the patient, consideration for the relatives, and absolute dedication to sound operative technique. Having set his department on a sound footing with research units in cerebrovascular disease and neuro-oncology, he retired from practice in 1977. In 1993, he received one of the medals of honour of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies from the hand of the President, one of his own trainees. In retirement, he spent a good deal of time in Cornwall, enjoying bird watching, travelling with this pursuit as far as Siberia and South America. In 1944, he married Anne Bolton, herself later a consultant in child psychiatry at the Middlesex Hospital. They had two daughters, one of whom predeceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008745
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Lindon, Sir Leonard Charles Edward (1896 - 1978)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-01-28
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006600-E006699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378868378868
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Born in Adelaide on February 8 1896, the son of a schoolmaster, Leonard Lindon lost his father when he was only one year old. He was educated at Geelong Grammar School where his uncle was headmaster and then proceeded to St Peter's College, starting his medical course at the University of Adelaide in 1914. He interrupted his studies to join the Australian Forces and saw service in Lemnos, Gallipoli and Egypt. Demobilized with other medical students he returned to Adelaide and qualified with distinction in 1919, won the Everard Scholarship as top student of his year and was selected as a Rhodes Scholar. At Oxford he worked under Sir Charles Sherrington and demonstrated in the department of anatomy. He was a house surgeon at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford and obtained the Fellowship of both the English and Edinburgh Colleges in 1922. In 1923 he returned to Adelaide and joined his father-in-law in practice, in the same year obtaining his MS at the University of Adelaide. He was appointed an honorary assistant surgeon to the Royal Adelaide Hospital in 1925 and in 1933 was made honorary surgeon, a post he held until his retirement in 1951. He was also consultant to the Children's and the General Repatriation Hospital. His special field was neurosurgery doing pioneer work in the treatment of cerebral aneurysm and in 1946 he established the neurosurgical department at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. In the second world war he was a Lieutenant- Colonel in charge of a surgical division in the Middle East. He served the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons as a member of Council, then as Vice-President 1956-1958 and subsequently as President 1959-1961. In 1964 he received the honour of knighthood in recognition of his services to the profession. In 1921 he married Jean Monteith Marten, the daughter of an Adelaide doctor and she predeceased him. They had two sons both of whom are medical practitioners and a daughter who is married to a physician. He was a man of great charm and natural dignity, an excellent speaker, and a memorable letter writer. He died on 28 August 1978.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006685
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Baratham, Gopal (1935 - 2002)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-13
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008400-E008499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380648380648
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Gopal Baratham was a consultant neurosurgeon in Singapore. He was born on 9 September 1935, into a Tamil Brahmin family, originally from southern India, who had moved to Malaya. His father was Dr Baratham Ramaswamy Sreenivasan, one of the founders of the Singapore Medical Association, and the first President of the College of General Practitioners of Singapore in 1974. He was also Vice-Chancellor of the University of Malaya in 1961. Gopal's mother was Elizabeth Haynes, a nurse and a Christian. During part of Baratham's childhood, Malaya was occupied by the Japanese. He attended St Andrews's School, but was also influenced by his father and uncle who introduced him to a wide variety of literature. On leaving school he was torn between a literary or medical career. His father persuaded him to try the latter, and he entered the medical college of the University of Malaysia. While at university his liberal views became apparent since he edited the magazine of the socialist club. His decision to make a career in neurosurgery caused some surprise among his friends. He passed the FRCS in 1966 and then obtained his neurosurgical training at the Brook Hospital, Woolwich, the London Hospital (where he worked in both the neurological and neurosurgical departments) and as senior registrar at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. He returned to Singapore in 1972, as a registrar at the Thomson Road Hospital, but later in the same year was appointed consultant at the Tan Tock Seng Hospital. He became senior neurosurgeon in 1976 and head of the department in 1987, when he left the hospital and confined himself to private practice in neurosurgery at the Mount Elizabeth Hospital, and devoted himself to writing. He retired from private practice in 1999, though he continued to do medico-legal work. Gopal Baratham was one of the earliest neurosurgeons in Singapore. At Tan Tock Seng Hospital he was active clinically and in training junior neurosurgeons. He was an important influence in establishing the high standards of the speciality in that country, making contacts with neurosurgeons in America and Australia, as well as maintaining his connections with the UK and inviting specialists to work for short periods in Singapore to help with the education of juniors. He was modest about his own achievements, claiming to have been an unusually clumsy child, however his interest in the surgery of arteriovenous malformations (common in Singapore) and the low mortality he achieved with these difficult lesions, shows otherwise. He wrote on this subject and on delayed traumatic intracerebral haematoma. He was Chairman of the Chapter of Surgeons of the Singapore Academy of Medicine in 1983, a member of the Council of the Academy from 1989 to 1991, and President of the Association of South East Asian Nations' Neurosurgical Society during the same period. He played an important role in organising the fifth congress of that society in 1992 in Singapore. Baratham pursued a literary career amidst his neurosurgical one, which brought him recognition in Singapore and beyond as one of the country's best writers. In the 1980's he published two sets of short stories and a novel about Singapore life, *A candle or the sun* (1991), which was short-listed for the Commonwealth book prize. In 1996 he published a detective novel, *Moonrise, sunset*. He was writing his autobiography at the time of his death. His fiction is not concerned with medicine, but with the way in which ordinary people live in Singapore, exploiting twists and allusions in the plot, as well as verbal jokes. He once said that 'the only subjects worth writing about are politics, sex and religion'. His antipathy to authoritarianism and his hatred of the debased language of pop and managerial culture was evident in the characterisation of his novels. He was married twice, first to Pauline Wong, a teacher, by whom he had four sons. This marriage was dissolved and he then married Low Wie Mien, his secretary. Baratham was a tall, rather gangling figure, quietly spoken, but with a highly developed sense of humour which appeared in his books. He had a great love of language and was entranced to find a new word or a hitherto unrecognised meaning for an old one. His interest in religions, especially Christianity and Hinduism, appeared in his fiction. He held that society should be based on personal freedom and honesty, and was deeply opposed to censorship of any sort. Though he was not politically active during his professional life, he was openly critical of the authoritarian government of his country, and in his book *The caning of Michael Fay* (1994) condemned the corporal punishment practised in Singapore. A gentle, kind, sociable man with a circle of friends, both literary and medical, he was an excellent and sympathetic doctor who gave patients his personal attention and care. In later years he did not enjoy good health. He underwent a coronary bypass operation in Sydney in 1989. After he retired from neurosurgical practice in 1999 he gave an address to the chapter of surgeons (entitled *The art of letting go*) in which he advocated compulsory retirement of surgeons on the basis of age - a suggestion that might be thought unexceptional, but which caused some dismay among his colleagues in Singapore. He died of pneumonia on 23 April 2002.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008465
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Verbiest, Henk (1909 - 1997)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-08
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008900-E008999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381162381162
Occupation Neurologist Neurosurgeon Psychiatrist
Details Henk Verbiest, Professor of Neurosurgery at the Utrecht University Hospital, was born on 16 July 1909 in Rotterdam to Cornelis Verbiest, member of the board of a shipping company, and his wife, Mary née Peters. He undertook his medical studies at Leiden University between 1927 and 1934, during which time, in his second year, he received an honorary award from the university for an investigation into subcortical optokinetic aspects of vertical head nystagmus in the pigeon. There he also received training in neuro-anatomy from S T Bok. Subsequently, he trained as a neurologist and psychiatrist at Leiden with G G J Rademaker. In this period, working as a neurologist, he published a paper on aseptic, chemical meningitis caused by intradural epidermoids and carried out research for a thesis on the influence of the posterior spinal cord and medial lemniscal tracts on tonic postural innervation. For this he received a PhD. This work contained a detailed discussion of the pseudoparesis and athetosis associated with loss of proprioception in the upper limb, known in the Netherlands as 'Verbiest's sign'. Between 1938 and 1939, he worked in Paris with Clovis Vincent, the distinguished French neurosurgeon, who, like Verbiest, had first been a neurologist. At the outbreak of the second world war, he returned to the Netherlands and when his senior, Lenshoek, accepted an appointment in Amsterdam, Verbiest was left with virtually sole responsibility for the neurosurgical department in Utrecht. At the end of the war, Verbiest was able to make contact with neurosurgeons in other countries, including Dott in Edinburgh, Bucy in Chicago and the leading figures on the Continent. The building of the distinguished neurosurgical department in Utrecht needed immense energy and application, as well as force of character. Verbiest was a hard taskmaster and he was capable of having major rows in the pursuit of his ends, though he tended rapidly to forget them. The success of his department led to his being appointed as a lecturer in neurosurgery at the University of Utrecht in 1949 and Professor in 1963. He supervised 14 theses, and was responsible for training 11 Dutch neurosurgeons, two of whom became Professors. He stayed on as Professor for some time after passing retiring age, but became more philosophical in later life, taking a stoical view of the world. Verbiest made notable contributions to neurosurgery. He was the first to recognise, in 1949, the syndrome of intermittent claudication of the cauda equina produced by lumbar canal stenosis. Though this condition has proved to be relatively common and to respond well to surgery, and its recognition was of signal importance, Verbiest had trouble having his original description accepted in neurosurgical journals and it was five years before his paper appeared in English in the British version of the *Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery*. This rankled with him ever after. He was one of the earliest exponents of the anterior approach to the cervical spine, which he was encouraged to try by being told by his neurological colleague, Brouwer, that this was out of bounds for a neurosurgeon. He practised early the transoral route to the atlanto-axial region, and he also devised a lateral approach to decompress the vertebral artery when it was thought this might be a useful way of treating some forms of vertebrobasilar artery disease, and for brachial neuralgia. Earlier in his career, he developed techniques in neuroradiology, particularly involving fractional pneumo-encephalography and carotid arteriography with proximal compression of the carotid artery. These advances were rendered obsolete by the development of modern imaging and arteriographic methods. As well as being an original thinker, Verbiest was a skilful and bold surgeon who, as used often to be the case, demanded quietness in theatre, though this requirement did not prevent him from occasionally exchanging sharp comments with his anaesthetist and harrying his assistants. He was a smoker and did not always suspend this habit in the confines of the operating room. He was a founder member of the International Society for the Study of the Lumbar Spine in 1977 and its third President. He was active in the World Federation of Neurological Surgeons, of which he was made an honorary President for life in 1977. He was on the editorial board of a number of leading neurosurgical journals and founded, in 1986, the journal *Neuro-orthopaedics*, which was subsequently absorbed into the *European Spine Journal*. Verbiest gained wide international honours, being made an honorary member of the medical faculty of Baylor University in 1967, Commander of the Merit Order, Italy, in 1975 and Knight of the Order of the Lion in the Netherlands in 1978. He received an honorary Fellowship of this college in 1989. He had studied music, was an accomplished organist and had an interest in philosophy, particularly that of Kant, and in the impact of linguistics on science and philosophy. In 1953, at the age of 44, he married a young nurse, José Hage, and they had two daughters, both of whom trained as nurses. The older married a neurosurgeon. Verbiest died on 27 August 1997, following multiple laparotomies for an indeterminate abdominal condition.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008979
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Cast, Ian Patrick (1936 - 2017)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Peter J E M Wilson
Publication Date 2017-12-13 2018-02-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009300-E009399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381576381576
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Ian Cast was a versatile and dedicated neurosurgeon. He was born in Gidea Park, Romford, Essex, the younger son of John David Cast, an executive officer with the Port of London Authority, and Doris Eliza Cast née Bones. Ian was educated at St Mary's High School, Romford, Gidea Park Preparatory School and at Brentwood School, where he joined the 'lower sixth medical' stream, sang in the choir, became an accomplished classical pianist, represented his school at athletics, rose to the rank of company sergeant major in the Combined Cadet Force, and won a county major scholarship. He went on to satisfy in full Brentwood School's aim that its old boys should 'emerge as intellectually curious, resilient, enterprising and independent lifelong learners'. Ian began his professional training at University College and Medical School, London. It was there that his career in neurosurgery was stimulated and fostered by his admiration of Bernard Harries and Kenneth Till. He won several further scholarships, including the Atkinson Morley, the Marshall and the Waite. After residencies at University College Hospital and in Nottingham, he joined the registrar circuit rotating between the Guy's-Maudsley neurosurgical unit, Denmark Hill and Brook Hospital, Shooter's Hill, London. At the Guy's unit, he absorbed fundamental principles of meticulous history-taking, precise clinical and operative technique, and the then relatively invasive discipline of neuroradiology under the rigorous but friendly tutelage of Murray Falconer, Peter Schurr and Richard Hoare. At Brook Hospital, he relished and learnt much from the very different styles of Geoffrey Knight, John Gibbs and George Northcroft. In 1970, in consequence of the untimely death of Donald Provan from aneurysmal subarachnoid haemorrhage, Ian filled an unexpected neurosurgical consultant vacancy at Morriston Hospital, Swansea. He quickly came to appreciate the tradition of superlative quality of ward and theatre nursing at Morriston. His post also entailed regular and busy outpatient clinics in Neath, Bridgend and Aberystwyth. Ian was instrumental in the setting-up in 1975 of one of the first purpose-built and dedicated neurointensive care units in the country, named in memory of Donald Provan who had conceived it several years before his death. With the hospital's League of Friends, he was one of the prime motivators in the construction of the dedicated spina bifida unit that finally opened at Morriston in March 1977. Ian was party to the energetic lobbying in Swansea for both a CT scanner in 1976 and a magnetic resonance scanner in the early 1980's. Himself a sound clinical opinion and excellent operator, Ian was also an effective and very generous trainer of junior staff. His dry and impish sense of humour did not wholly conceal his instinctive dislike and mistrust of medical politics. Ian was a senior member of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons (SBNS), a member of the Society for Research into Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida, and a member of the International Medical Society for Paraplegia. To the latter Society, he presented the Swansea experience of lumbar canal stenosis, its treatment and prognosis, at their 1981 Stoke Mandeville meeting. In 1985, he was joint host of the SBNS scientific meeting in Swansea. As well as his whole-time commitment to his NHS duties, Ian attracted a thriving medico-legal involvement in both personal injury and alleged medical negligence litigation. This he continued well into his post-retirement years despite failing health. Ian's leisure interests included DIY and the piano. His collection of single malt whiskies was the envy of his many guests. Another activity that he most enjoyed was his local Probus Club, of which he was president for a year and a continuing member until his death. From 2010 onwards, the insidious progression of a severe form of Parkinson's disease, complicated by a disabling loss of balance and allied to symptoms referable to aortic stenosis, compelled him largely to give up these pursuits. Nevertheless, when the writer spoke to him only a day before his sudden agonal collapse, he found him as alert, articulate and well-informed as ever and to have lost none of his old sense of humour. After a short period of cardiorespiratory support in Hereford County Hospital, Ian Cast died on 8 November 2017. He was 81. By an ironic coincidence, during the same week the bulldozers moved in to demolish all that was left of the original ward 14 in the 'spider' complex, set up under the aegis of the Emergency Medical Services in 1940, that had housed the first neurosurgical department in Wales. In 1965 Ian had married Joy Attfield, a specialist nurse. They had a very close and happy life together. Joy fell victim to spinal lymphoma in her middle years, but survived it resolutely and in effect became her husband's carer towards the end. They had two children, their son, James, is an interventional neuroradiologist in Hull, while their daughter, Sarah, is a food, health and safety adviser to a large restaurant chain. There are one granddaughter, two step-granddaughters and five step-great grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009393
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Richardson, Alan Ernest (1926 - 1998)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008800-E008899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381056381056
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Alan Richardson was a consultant neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley's Hospital, London. He was born in Walthamstow, Essex, on 21 August 1926, the youngest of four sons of William Richardson OBE, company secretary for an oil company, and his wife, Daisy. He was educated at St Egbert's Roman Catholic School, Chingford, where he distinguished himself academically, and whence he proceeded to Guy's Hospital Medical College in 1943, qualifying in 1949. Two years of National Service were spent in the 15/19 Kings Royal Hussars in Hamburg, Germany. After National Service, he held junior posts at Hammersmith Hospital and the Whittington Hospital. His training in neurosurgery was under Sir Wylie McKissock at the National Hospital, Queen Square, and Atkinson Morley's Hospital, Wimbledon, a branch of St George's. While first assistant in neurosurgery at Atkinson Morley's, he spent 10 months, in 1958, as a locum consultant at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast. Later, he was a research fellow at Atkinson Morley's Hospital. In 1962, he was appointed as a consultant neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley's and also at the Whittington Hospital, a post he later relinquished. From 1967 to 1971 he undertook the medical directorship of the newly established Wolfson medical rehabilitation centre at Atkinson Morley's. He retired from the National Health Service in 1987, but he continued a large medico-legal practice thereafter. Richardson's interests in neurosurgery were very wide, from spinal surgery to stereotaxic psychosurgery, but his name is particularly associated with intracranial aneurysms and haemorrhage, both subarachnoid and intracerebral. With the development of percutaneous carotid angiography after the second world war, direct surgical attacks on intracranial aneurysms, usually for bleeding, became common. Results were disappointing, and it became apparent that the natural history of the condition was not known and that it was not clear that anything was being achieved by surgery. This conclusion was articulated by McKissock in 1958 and was so contrary to surgeons' intuitions or desires that it led him to organise the first controlled clinical trials at Atkinson Morley's Hospital comparing surgery with bed rest. These trials showed that operating did improve the outcome, but that there were a number of factors, such as the site of the aneurysm and sex of the patient, which influenced the result. This important work was followed by the international co-operative study of aneurysms and subarachnoid haemorrhage, organised in the US, to which Atkinson Morley's was by far the largest single contributor, providing a third of the cases. Richardson was much involved and continued this work over a number of years, publishing studies on various aspects of aneurysms, including the long-term outcome of both aneurysms left untreated and those in which carotid ligature had been performed during the original studies. He also contributed to a controlled trial on the value of operating in spontaneous intracranial haemorrhage, and wrote on cerebellar haemorrhage and the surgery of basilar aneurysms, of which he had considerable experience. Richardson had a very quick intelligence and a highly developed and sometimes sharp sense of humour. He was extremely clear thinking and not very tolerant of those who were not, being regarded as a martinet in his department. As a student he had been notably well organised in his studies and had shown powers of leadership, attributes which later made him formidable in administration and in committee. His medico-legal work displayed the same incisive thinking. He was secretary of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons and an overseas member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. He married Jill née Gunthorpe, a nurse, in 1957. There was one son. From his student days he was fond of snooker and later become a keen gardener. Opera, reading, cross-country skiing and wine were other interests. He died on 27 July 1998, following surgery for carcinoma of the rectum.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008873
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Penfield, Wilder Graves (1891 - 1976)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-02-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006800-E006899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379031379031
Occupation Neurologist Neurosurgeon
Details The story of Wilder Penfield gives the lie to those Admissions Deans who hold that athletic prowess, particularly on the rugger field, is not a quality to be sought after for entry to a medical school. This great surgeon, scientist and human being was Princeton's prize quarter-back and coach. Wilder Penfield was born at Spokane, Washington, on 26 January 1891, the son of Dr Charles Samuel and Jean Jefferson. He was educated at local schools and at Princeton University (B Litt, 1913) where his fine record as a scholar and athlete won for him the Rhodes Scholarship for New Jersey. He delayed going up to Oxford in order to spend a year as full-time coach to the Princeton football team. He entered Merton College, Oxford, in the autumn of 1914 but his time there was interrupted by the first world war and he served with the American Red Cross Hospital no 2 in France before the United States entered the war. In 1916 he was severely wounded and returned to the United States to study medicine, securing a BA, a BSc and qualifying MD in 1918. He decided to become a surgeon and studied at Johns Hopkins University, then in London, spending a period with Sherrington at Oxford, at Harvard and Edinburgh Universities and in Germany and Spain. From 1921 to 1928 he was attached to the research staff of the Presbyterian Hospital, New York, and remained on it after he was appointed assistant surgeon at the Neurological Institute, New York, in 1925. Two years later he moved to Columbia University as Associate Professor of Surgery and became Assistant Professor in 1928. In the same year he was offered, and accepted, the Professorship in Neurology and Neurosurgery at McGill University, a post he held until 1954. Soon after his migration to Montreal in 1928 he was appointed chief neurosurgeon to both the Royal Victoria and the Montreal General Hospitals. By 1934, the high prestige which Penfield had acquired as a neurosurgeon was a large factor in animating the Rockefeller Foundation to provide a munificent endowment for the establishment of a Neurological Institute in Montreal and it was natural that Penfield should become its director. He planned the Institute as a purely Canadian one and he himself became a naturalised Canadian citizen. Recruiting a staff of able colleagues he soon made it one of the most efficient institutions of its type in the world and patients came from many countries outside North America. Despite his heavy burden of work he found time to write many valuable textbooks. He held that most people had it within them to adopt a second career on retirement. He himself exemplified this by writing enchanting novels and biographies. The novel *No other gods* (1954) was based upon the story of Abraham and Sarah while they lived in Ur of the Chaldees and *The torch* (1961) a reconstruction of the life of Hippocrates. He was engaged in writing his own autobiography when he died. During the second world war Penfield held the rank of Colonel in the Canadian Army's Medical Corps. After his retirement from the directorship of the Neurological Institute in 1954, he continued to act as a consultant and also became an assiduous propagandist for the improvement of Canadian education. Wilder Penfield was a man of mark in any company. He was very charming, with a wide range of intellectual interests and was singularly modest about his own accomplishments and honours. In his later years he was rated the most distinguished citizen of Montreal, where he had a wide circle of friends and by the Canadian public he was counted the most valuable recruit their country had ever received from the United States. Many honours were bestowed on him from all over the world. He married Helen Katherine (Kermott) in 1917 and the couple remained deeply attached all their lives. He kept until the end the superb figure that had made him Princeton's prize quarter-back. He died on 5 April 1976, survived by his wife, two daughters and two sons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006848
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Small, Jack Morton (1913 - 1994)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008300-E008399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380533380533
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Jack Small was born on 18 March 1913 in Birmingham, the son of Ernest Small MBE, a mechanical engineer who designed the barrage balloon winches used in air defence in the second world war, and his wife Charlotte Elizabeth, née Morton. Jack was educated at Wylde Green College and Birmingham University Medical School, where he was Ingleby scholar and qualified with honours in 1937. After house jobs at Birmingham General Hospital with H H Sampson and Robert Scott Mason, both of whom he greatly admired, he was appointed casualty surgeon there from 1940 to 1942, also working in the neurosurgical unit at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. In 1943 he spent a valuable year training in neurosurgery with Sir Hugh Cairns in Oxford and this really moulded his future career in that specialty. He then joined the RAMC, commanding No 6 and 7 mobile neurosurgical units under the command of Brigadier Arthur Porritt in the European Campaign, and subsequently he was made adviser in neurosurgery to Allied Land Forces in SEAC, serving in India and Malaya with the rank of lieutenant colonel. On his return to civilian life in 1946 he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon to the United Birmingham Hospitals, working at the Queen Elizabeth, and became clinical lecturer in neurosurgery to Birmingham University. At that time there was no separate neurosurgical centre in the Midlands, and in 1948 Jack Small was appointed neurosurgeon to Birmingham Regional Hospital Board with the remit of creating one. The result was the formation of the Midland Centre for Neurosurgery and Neurology which opened in 1954 on the site of the old Smethwick Isolation Hospital, and the construction of which was achieved largely due to Jack's considerable efforts. This centre provided neurosurgical care for the whole Midland region and he worked there until his retirement from the NHS in 1978. He possessed great surgical skill, clinical acumen and administrative ability, and he served first as treasurer (1961-1971) and then as President (1976) of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons. It gave him great pleasure when this Society held its golden jubilee meeting in the Jack Small Teaching and Research Unit at the Midlands Centre in his Presidential year. He was also a corresponding member of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons and of the Spanish, French and Middle Eastern neurosurgical societies. He was elected Hunterian Professor of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1980. His retirement dinner at the Midland Centre was marked by the presentation of his portrait (by Peter Gross) which had been subscribed for by his colleagues and friends. After the war he wrote up his experience of 1200 cases of penetrating brain injury in NW Europe between 1944 and 1945. He was particularly interested in the embryology of the nervous system, and had a wide clinical experience of spinal cord tumours and defects, and syringomyelia. He also did important work on the surgery of cerebral aneurysms under circulatory arrest and heart bypass. As a young man Jack Small was an outstanding athlete and hurdler. He was British Universities' 400m hurdle champion from 1934 to 1936, and represented Great Britain in the World Student Games in Budapest in 1935. He was also a fine golfer with a 6 handicap, and a keen fisherman. After retirement he became actively involved in local politics, and in 1977 he was elected Conservative county councillor to the Alvechurch ward of Hereford and Worcester County Council. He became chairman of social services and was particularly involved in community hospital development and in trying to combine health and social services under one authority. In 1940 he married Marjorie, née Johnson, and they had two sons, Peter, a recruitment consultant, and Robert, a marketing consultant. He died, aged 81, on 23 March 1994 after a long and successful career in neurosurgery and politics.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008350
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching James, Thomas Geraint Illtyd (1900 - 1996)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-15
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008100-E008199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380285380285
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Illtyd James was born in Barry, Glamorgan, on 12 July 1900, the eldest son of Evan Thomas James, a master tailor, and Elizabeth Jones, a farmer's daughter. He was educated at Barry County School, where he held a county scholarship, and later at University College Cardiff (where he took a BSc in 1921) and the Welsh National School of Medicine. He qualified MRCS, LRCP in 1924 and in the following year took his MB ChB with honours. As an undergraduate he was awarded the Alfred Sheen prize in anatomy in 1921 and the Maclean medal and prize in gynaecology and obstetrics in 1925. After qualification he worked on the professorial unit as a house physician and later as a house surgeon in general surgery and in obstetrics and gynaecology before being appointed resident medical officer at Cardiff Royal Infirmary. He worked for Professor Sir Ewen Maclean and Professor A M Kennedy, among others. He obtained his Fellowship of the College in 1928, having passed the Fellowship of the Edinburgh College in 1927. In 1932 he passed the mastership of surgery of the University of Wales. Once his surgical training had been completed he moved to London and was appointed surgeon at the Central Middlesex Hospital, where he practised in both general surgery and neurosurgery for the remainder of his working life. At the outset of the second world war he was nearly forty years old and he remained at the Central Middlesex, where he provided specialist advice in neurosurgery and particularly head injuries for Sector 12 of the Emergency Medical Service. Professor Ashcroft at the Middlesex Hospital had been called up for military service and James became the consultant on call for that hospital too: it was this association which was to cement a powerful link between the Middlesex and Central Middlesex Hospitals. When the war ended he was the first person from the Central Middlesex to be invited to sit on the academic board of the Middlesex Hospital. He was greatly in demand as an examiner and, in addition to being Chairman of the Court of Examiners at the College from 1963 to 1965, he was examiner in surgery at both London and Liverpool Universities. His publications date back to 1930, when he published his first paper on achlorhydria and from then a steady stream of papers appeared until thirty six years later when he published a paper on tumours of the stomach other than carcinoma, but in addition he published many papers on neurosurgical topics and on the history of medicine. In 1932 he married Dorothy Marguerite John, and they had two sons, both of whom followed their father into medicine - one becoming a GP and the other, Peter, becoming a histopathologist at Nottingham University Hospital. The long and happy marriage ended in 1993 with the death of his wife. Although he was by now ninety three years of age he continued to live alone in his home at Ealing where he looked after himself. His retirement was no less active than his medical life had been, and he studied both Welsh and classical literature, taught himself Russian and became an ardent gardener and painter of miniatures. He died on 21 December 1996, survived by his younger son Peter, his elder son having pre-deceased him.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008102
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Simpson, Donald Adrian Allen (1927 - 2018)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Peter Reilly
Publication Date 2018-11-26
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009500-E009599
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Donald Simpson was born 91 years ago into a Unitarian family with a strong tradition of learning and service. He grew up in Burnside in the Adelaide foothills and travelled to school at St Peters College by pony or bike. He lived and died close to his original family home. His academic record was outstanding – Tennyson medal for English Literature in the state school exams and then a series of scholarships and medals during his medical studies at the University of Adelaide. He graduated in 1949. During his subsequent year as resident medical officer at the Royal Adelaide Hospital he published a study on neuroanatomy, the first of many research papers. He published his last paper, on medical history, in 2013. In 1951 he began studies in Oxford in neuroanatomy under Professor Sir WE LeGros Clarke then undertook research in neuropathology and training in neurosurgery at the Radcliffe Infirmary under Mr J B Pennybaker. His research studies consisted of a clinical and pathological review of a series of meningiomas treated by Sir Hugh Cairns and Mr J B Pennybaker from which he developed a grading system relating the recurrence rate to the completeness of surgical removal. The Simpson Grading system remains a clinical standard. He married Joanna Erlistoun Thomson of Adelaide, in London in 1952. They returned to Adelaide in 1956 and Donald joined the neurosurgeon TAR (Jim) Dinning at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. Over subsequent years these two colleagues and close friends laid the foundation for a neurosurgical department as a department of clinical excellence, research and training. These were the days before scanning and trained junior staff. Neurosurgery was very labour intensive for the two neurosurgeons. As well as his clinical work he maintained his interest and expertise in neuropathology by consulting over all the surgical specimens with the hospital pathologist. He visited the New Guinea highlands in December 1957 as a member of a University of Adelaide group investigating Kuru, the progressive neurodegenerative disorder common at that time among the Fore people. He revisited the area in January 1959 and developed a close and enduring friendship with D Carlton Gajdusek, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for physiology for his work in defining prion disease. In 1975 Donald organised an appointment for me in paediatric neurosurgery at the Hospital for Sick Children Great Ormond Street London. He and I met in Lambs Conduit near Great Ormond Street and bought a bottle of wine. It was a fine day so we found a bench in nearby Coram's Field and shared the bottle in its paper bag. This established for me a fine relationship of formal informality. Perhaps it was a ceremonial initiation into paediatric neurosurgery and certainly a sign of a bond which continued through our subsequent association at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital and beyond – although we never repeated the ceremony. He was a key collaborator with Professor David J David in establishing a Craniofacial unit at the Royal Adelaide Hospital and Adelaide Children’s Hospital and with Professor Jack McLean at the (then) Road Accident Research Unit particularly on crash helmets and the neuropathology of brain injury. He resigned from the Women’s and Children’s Hospital in 1985 and took up a part-time position in the NH &MRC Road Accident Research Unit as Senior Research Associate. For many years he conducted weekly multidisciplinary head injury meetings at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. He continued in part-time public and private neurosurgical practice until 1992. The Neurosurgical Research Foundation, established by Jim Dinning with Donald as a foundation member and Chairman from 1994 to 2004, grew under their guidance from a small organisation to a highly successful research resource funding internationally recognised research and two professorial chairs. The success of the Foundation, to which Donald and his family were significant benefactors, was a further fulfillment of the vision of Jim Dinning and Donald for neurosurgery in South Australia and gave Donald great satisfaction. Donald Simpson’s contributions to neurosurgery, particularly in paediatric neurosurgery and neurotrauma, in Adelaide, Australia and internationally have been considerable. He was a member of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia (NSA) from 1964; Secretary from 1969 to 1973, and President from 1973 to 1975. He was also the curator of the NSA museum of surgical instruments for many years. His roles in the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS) included member and chairman of the Surgical Board (Neurosurgery) from 1975 to 1982; member of the Court of Examiners from 1977 to 1986; member of the National Road Trauma Committee, (representing the NSA) from 1986; convener and foundation member of the Section of the History of Surgery and Anaesthesia, now the Section of Surgical History, from 1987. He was a Foundation Fellow (1980) of the Australian College of Rehabilitation Medicine and a member of numerous national working parties and committees particularly related to head injury. Internationally he was a member of the International Society for Paediatric Neurosurgery from 1973 being President from 1985 to 1986, and a member of the Society for Research into Hydrocephalus and Spina Bifida from 1970. In South Australia he was a Life Member and Patron of the Spina Bifida Association of South Australia; chairman of the South Australian Executive Committee of the Australian Brain Foundation until 1985 and Patron of the Head Injury Society of South Australia. For these many significant contributions he was rewarded by the NSA as the Honoured Guest and Lecturer in 1997 and the Jamieson medallist and lecturer in 2003 and by RACS with a Medal for Service in 1988, an Award for Excellence in Surgery in 2002 and the inaugural Sir Henry Newland Award in 2013. He received the President’s Service Award from the Australian Council for Rehabilitation of the Disabled in 1984. He was awarded by the University of Adelaide with a Doctorate of the University in 1985 and by the nation, appointed Member of the Order of Australia in 1980 for services to handicapped Children, and Officer of the Order of Australia in 2004 for services to medicine in neurosurgery and neurotrauma, as a researcher and academic. He was invited to give numerous named lectures by RACS and the NSA. The NSA honoured him as the Honoured Guest lecturer in 1997 and the Jamieson lecturer in 2003. His lectures were always marked by deep learning and a captivating and unique style. He was the co-author and co-editor of two books and the author or co-author of approximately 165 papers and several book chapters. Donald worked and taught at the Cho-Ray Hospital Saigon for some months during the Vietnam War in 1972 and 1973. He had a great affection for Vietnam, its people, the country and its history. He was the first President of the Indo-China Refugee Association established in 1975 (now the Australian Refugee Association) and he maintained this connection thereafter. He convened with the NSA several combined Australasian and Vietnamese neurosurgical meetings. These meetings brought together for the first time neurosurgeons from the north and south and led to the formation of the Vietnam Neurosurgical Society which, with the support of the NSA, was able to join the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies. Donald was made an honorary member of the Vietnam Neurosurgical Society in appreciation for his role in its formation. He developed and maintained long and much valued friendships with several senior Vietnamese neurosurgeons. After the last of these Vietnam meetings in 1999 Donald and the Australasian participants visited the Champa temples near Da Nang. Donald of course knew much more about the extensive Champa civilisation than the Vietnamese guide whom he was able to assist with courtesy and discretion. Apart from this remarkable history of service to his profession there were many other aspects which went to the heart of Donald as a person, to qualities that made him admired and valued by his colleagues and particularly by his patients. His patients recognised him as someone who cared for them beyond the simple provision of a service. Indeed he was dedicated to the total care of each patient, to each child and their families. He thought about them, worried about them and was always available to them. He visited their homes. His concern for children with spina bifida expressed his remarkable capacity for individual care and attention. With Dr Annabel Carney he established and conducted a multidisciplinary spina bifida clinic which was a model of its kind. He inspired great loyalty from his staff, notably Ann Ingles his secretary and Valda Jones his theatre sister, both of whom worked for him at the Adelaide Children’s Hospital for many years. As brief acquaintance would demonstrate, Donald was a polymath with a remarkable memory and breadth of knowledge, combined with a nose for the arcane and bizarre, a whimsical humour and a most elegant turn of phrase. I am sure he gained great pleasure from his fund of knowledge, although I am grateful to be able to say, he did not use it to humiliate the less well informed – or only in the most gentle way. He could quote from Ecclesiastes to Beatrix Potter and it seemed, from most sources in between. He could call on the wisdom of past authorities for guidance in critical situations. As the ticklish phase of an operation approached, he might seek support from the Chinese Story teller Kai Lung, quoting: “We will advance upon the enemy in the stealthy manner affected by a duck when crossing the swamp”. Perhaps these mellifluous cadences indicate why Kai Lung appealed to Donald. One quality in which he did acknowledge himself deficient was the appreciation of music. He declared that he was tone deaf and could not pick God Save the Queen (except when people stood) from Waltzing Matilda. This did not prevent him from knowing about music. A fund raiser for the Neurosurgical Research Foundation some years ago featured Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, recognized by musicologists as a landmark in the history of atonality. Donald gave the vote of thanks to the soprano on behalf of the somewhat glazed audience, presenting a witty and detailed appreciation of the music, linking the poetry, Schoenberg and Berlin in the pre Great War years. As always with conviction, elegance and without a note. Sport was not an activity which most people associated with Donald Simpson but his family informed me that he had indeed coxed a successful head of the river and was duly dunked. His son Matthew Simpson also offered a rather tenuous story of a medal, whereabouts uncertain, won at golf played at a golf club where Donald was secretary, in which role he awarded himself a handicap of 100. I can offer no corroborative evidence for the existence of such a club. Donald did give great attention and support to Disability Sports. He was medical officer for the South Australian team, which included many of his patients, and accompanied them, in the team track suit, to their sporting competitions. When they built their smaller and final residence Joanna, his wife, described it as their twilight home. Others might have seen it as a library with domestic facilities. Indeed Joanna described the shift in terms of a library move, the boxing and labelling of their books as, for example, “Poetry M to P”. My wife and I took Donald some Pierre de Ronsard roses last year. Donald was able to provide a succinct extempore biographical note on the 16 century French poet admitting that he, Donald, had read only little of the poetry. This, he said, had really been Joanna's field. Joanna was unquestionably a great support for him and her death in 2007, a deeply felt loss. Donald often said the neurosurgical wives needed to be special, to cope with the disruption to social and family life. Joanna clearly fulfilled this requirement. He acknowledged with regret, and as a cautionary note, that neurosurgery had prevented him from spending more time with his children whom he spoke of with affection and pride, but who seemed, he said, to have grown up too quickly. Neurosurgery particularly during Donald's early career was indeed very time consuming. Donald and Joanna did however entertain with verve. As a host Donald could modify the formal constraints of his clinical persona and positively scintillate with old world charm. As his clinical duties decreased Donald expanded his interest in history, in particular medical history. He completed a Diploma of Applied History in 1997. In 2000 he was awarded an MD for his thesis on the Adelaide Medical School 1885-1914. He was a founding member and patron of the Medical Heritage Society, a member of the Australian Society of the History of Medicine, the Centre for British Studies at the University of Adelaide, the Maritime History Society of Australia and the Australian Mining History Association. He published 29 papers on medical history, most recently in 2013. His last years were clearly burdensome to him. He suffered a series of minor strokes which limited him physically but not mentally. When he could no longer attend lunch with his colleagues or entertain with the cold collations prepared by his wonderful carer Angela McKay, he remained courteous, charming, widely interested in matters outside himself and minimally factual about his own physical state. It has been a privilege for me to come to know this gifted man who touched the lives of many people - his family, friends, the adult patients and their families, the children and their parents to whom he listened and brought healing and comfort. Over these many years he was a mentor, whom I could trust implicitly, a supporter and a friend. He was non-judgemental, discrete and a person of unquestioned integrity. I was greatly attracted to his knowledge, wisdom, grace, humour and humility. Above all I experienced him as a good man - a goodness which, when one meets it, raises the possibility that there may be such goodness in oneself. Donald Simpson is survived by three children and four grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009544
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Armour, Donald John (1869 - 1933)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-03-27
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003700-E003799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375962375962
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Born at Coburg, Ontario, Canada on 13 June 1869, fifth son of the Hon John Douglas Armour, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Ontario and his wife, *née* Clinch. He was educated at Upper Canada College and graduated with honours in natural science at the University of Toronto in 1891. He then came to England and took the MB degree at the University of London in 1894, the LRCP in 1896, the MRCP and MRCS in 1897. His first inclination therefore was towards the practice of medicine, but in 1900 he was elected FRCS and thereafter devoted himself to surgery. After returning for a short time to Toronto, he came back to England in November 1901 and was appointed an assistant demonstrator of anatomy at University College, London. Whilst working there he came under the influence of Victor Horsley, and through him was subsequently elected with Percy Sargent, FRCS surgeon to the National Hospital for Diseases of the Nervous System in Queen Square, Bloomsbury. On 20 April 1903 he was appointed assistant surgeon to the West London Hospital, where he was afterwards surgeon from 22 July 1912, and consulting surgeon from 25 April 1930, and dean of the West London Postgraduate School of Medicine from 28 October 1912. He was also surgeon to the Italian Hospital, to the Blackheath and Charlton Hospital and to the Acton Hospital. At the Royal College of Surgeons Armour was Arris and Gale lecturer in 1905, and in 1906 he won the Jacksonian prize with an essay on "The diagnosis and treatment of those diseases and morbid growths of the vertebral column, spinal cord, and canal, which are amenable to surgical operations". In 1908 he was a Hunterian professor of surgery and pathology. At the Medical Society of London he was Lettsomian lecturer in 1927, when he gave an accurate description of the modern surgery dealing with the spinal canal and its membranes. He was president in 1929 and was elected treasurer in 1932, a position he held at the time of his sudden death. He was also president of the West London Medico-chirurgical Society in 1928, of the neurological section of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1928-29, and of the Association of British Neurological Surgeons 1930-32. He was also an active member of the British Medical Association, being a member of the representative body at Belfast in 1909 and in London in 1910. At the Sheffield meeting in 1908 he was secretary of the section of surgery, in 1910 secretary of the section of medical sociology, and in 1914 vice-president of the section of neurology and psychological medicine. For many years Armour was medical officer to King Edward's Horse (The King's Oversea Dominions Regiment), and when war began in 1914 he was attached as a surgical specialist to several military hospitals with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, his commission being dated 7 September 1914. Most of his work was done at the Canadian hospital supported by the Imperial Order of the Daughters of the Empire, and for these services he was created CMG in 1918. He married Louise, daughter of Captain Ormsby McKnight Mitchell of the US Army, who survived him with a son and two daughters. One of his brothers became a judge of the Canadian Senate Court. He died suddenly and without previous warning at a meeting of the council of the Medical Society of London on 23 October 1933. Armour was a man of abounding energy and masterful personality. Of a big frame, with rugged and strong features, his face was marked by a long oblique scar running across his right cheek. His voice was stentorian and he spoke with a Canadian accent. Not an easy man with whom to work, he retained many of the characteristics of individuality and resourcefulness which must have led his ancestors to leave their native country and act as pioneers. His general surgical work was good but not outstanding, and as a neurological surgeon he relied somewhat too much on the use of complicated mechanical appliances. Publications: The surgery of the spinal cord and its membranes (Hunterian lectures). *Lancet*, 1908, 1, 693, etc. The surgery of the spinal cord and its membranes (Lettsomian lectures). *Ibid*. 1927, 1, 423, etc. The surgery of the posterior cranial fossa. *Ibid*. 1932, 2, 499. The operation of gastro-duodenostomy. *Brit med J*. 1905, 1, 122.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003779
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Davis, Loyal Edward (1896 - 1982)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-25 2020-08-10
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006300-E006399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378578378578
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Loyal Edward Davis was born on 17 January 1896 in Galesburg, Illinois, the son of Al Davis, a railroad engineer who had worked from the age of seven. It was assumed by all in that small community, except his father, that he would earn his living on the Burlington Railroad. Al, however, frequently advised him to prepare to work with his head rather than his back. After grade school he attended Knox College, earning a little in the vacations in the passenger traffic office of the railroad as did a young Harvard medical student. Perhaps his conversations with that student turned his thoughts to medicine. He graduated MD, Northwestern University Medical School in 1918 and spent an intern year at Cook County Hospital, Chicago, before joining the practice in Galesburg of Dr Baird, the local family doctor. Davis had been introduced to Miss Pearl McElroy during his intern year and they married in Chicago. They settled in Galesburg where Davis gathered experience. Baird had picked up some surgical expertise in the clinic of J B Murphy and patients were referred to him by nearby doctors, with whom Baird shared the fee. Davis objected to this unethical approach and a visit to his former teacher, Allen Kanavel, led to his becoming Kanavel's part-time assistant with access to the laboratory of S W Ranson, Professor of Anatomy, for teaching and an investigation into decerebrate rigidity, experimental work which led to his degree of Master of Science (MS) in 1921 and to his PhD in 1923. His absorption in this work led to difficulty in his marriage, and a divorce. Visits were arranged to Walter Dandy in Baltimore, Frazier in Philadelphia and Cushing in Boston with whom he spent a year as associate, returning to Chicago in 1925 as the first specialist neurosurgeon there. Pollock and Davis came to London in 1927 to present their work on decerebrate rigidity and Davis met Edith Luckett Robbins on the SS *New York* on the way over. Edith had a daughter, Nancy, then aged four. Davis and Edith were married in Chicago in May, 1929. She transformed his domestic life, mellowed his single minded approach, and supported him professionally. He became a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1928, Professor of Surgery and Director of the Research Laboratories, and Chairman of the Divisions of Surgery at the Medical School and at Passavant Memorial Hospital, in 1933. He held these posts for 30 years and Davis succeeded Kanavel as editor of *Surgery, gynaecology and obstetrics* until 1981 and edited *Christopher's Textbook of surgery* from 1956 to 1968. He became a Governor of the American College of Surgeons in 1946, a Regent in 1950, Chairman of the Board of Regents in 1960 and President of the College in 1962. He served also as President of the American Surgical Association and of the Society of Neurological Surgeons. The honorary degree of DSc was conferred on him by Knox College and by Temple University, he was awarded the Alumni Medal by Northwestern University and he became an Honorary Fellow of the College in 1955 and of the Edinburgh College in 1958. Professor Davis was commissioned in the American Army in 1942, and came to Britain as Chief Consultant in Neurosurgery of the (US) European Theater of Operations. He joined his British colleagues on a surgical mission to Moscow in 1943, and he and his wife were moved and delighted when Northwestern University established the Loyal and Edith Davis Professorship of Surgery. On 14 July, 1981, the President and Council of the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland travelled to the Irish Embassy in Washington to confer their Honorary Fellowship on him. Davis' son-in-law, President Ronald Reagan, addressing the guests at a dinner that evening, including 28 surgeons and their wives from Ireland, north and south, said to the President of the College, 'You have honoured one of the most distinguished citizens of our country, and we are not at all bothered that your Charter came from George III, shortly after he had an argument with us.' Loyal Davis died on 19 August, 1982, survived by his wife Edith, his son Richard, a neurosurgeon in Philadelphia, and his daughter, Nancy Davis Reagan, America's First Lady.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006395
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Potter, John McEwen (1920 - 2002)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-12-02
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008800-E008899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381035381035
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Potter was a consultant neurosurgeon and director of postgraduate education at Oxford. He was born in London on 28 February 1920. His father, Alistair Richardson Potter, was a brewer. His mother was Mairi Chalmers née Dick, a housewife whose father had edited the songs of Robert Burns. He was educated at Clifton and Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He did his clinical training at St Bartholomew's, where he was house surgeon and junior chief assistant to Sir James Paterson Ross, who had an interest in neurosurgery, and he was later house surgeon to John O'Connell, consultant neurosurgeon. He served in the RAMC from 1944 to 1947 with the rank of Captain, as a graded neurosurgeon, and saw service in Europe, India and Burma, where he commanded a neurosurgical team. After the war, he returned to Bart's as a lecturer in physiology. With D A MacDonald he worked on the cerebral circulation, using rabbits to examine flow in the cerebral arteries. A number of papers were published in the Journal of Physiology and in Nature, detailing the technique which involved exposing the base of the brain and the cerebral cortex and recording events microscopically and by high speed cinematography. They demonstrated that flow in the basilar artery was laminar, and that there was a dead point between the anterior and posterior circulations, probably in the posterior communicating artery, which could be shifted backwards or forwards by occluding major vessels, thus confirming the circle of Willis as a compensatory anastomotic system. In 1951 he moved to Oxford, as graduate assistant to Sir Hugh Cairns in neurosurgery. In 1954 he was awarded the E G Fearnsides scholarship from Cambridge University and in 1955 was Hunterian Professor of the College, his address being on cerebral angiomas. He was appointed consultant neurosurgeon at Manchester Royal Infirmary in 1956, where he remained until he was invited back to an appointment in Oxford in 1961. His earlier papers demonstrated a continued occupation with cerebral vascular pathology and the problems of aneurysm surgery, but he maintained an interest in head injuries, with which he had been involved during the war, and in 1961 wrote an important manual *The Practical management of head injuries* (London, Lloyd-Luke [Medical Books]) which was influential in educating junior staff in the handling of these cases. At Oxford he was actively concerned with the care of patients with head injuries and trained a succession of accident service registrars. He was a member of a number of foreign academic neurosurgical societies and was a visiting professor at the University of California. Potter was always interested in teaching and was appointed director of postgraduate medical education in Oxford in 1972, a position he occupied for 15 years, during which time he revitalised postgraduate medical education, although the post naturally led to a relinquishment of clinical work. New teaching centres were established throughout the region. He was especially interested in the welfare and education of junior doctors. In the latter part of his career he was much involved in committee work, serving on the General Medical Council for 16 years, and as chairman of its registration committee for 10. He also served as a governor of the United Oxford Hospitals and on the University Hebdomadal Council. He was a knowledgeable, well-informed and iconoclastic contributor to these bodies. In 1967 he was elected a fellow of Linacre College and transferred to a professorial fellowship in Wadham two years later. Potter was a man of literary interests and his study of the celebrated warden of New College, Dr Spooner, involved considerable documentary work, searching for written equivalents of Spooner's famous - sometimes perhaps apocryphal - verbal eccentricities. He also wrote on Robert Bridges, the poet who had qualified in medicine at Bart's, and on Percivall Pott. Potter had a great interest in natural history and horticulture, and was for some years a curator of the University Parks. He was also an accomplished fly-fisherman. In 1943 he married Kathleen Gerrard, a Bart's nurse. There were three sons, Jim, Andrew and Simon, none of whom took up medicine. He also had eight granddaughters and two great granddaughters. He died on 6 February 2002 of carcinoma of the prostate.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008852
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Schorstein, Joseph (1909 - 1976)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-03-10 2022-08-24
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/379104379104
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Joseph Schorstein qualified MD in Vienna in 1931. He then continued his studies at University College Hospital, London. He was chief assistant to the neurosurgical department of the Royal Infirmary, Manchester and then became consultant neurosurgeon to the West Scotland Neurosurgical Unit. When he retired he was clinical assistant in the department of psychological medicine at the Southern General Hospital, Glasgow. During the second world war he was a Lieutenant-Colonel in the RAMC. He is thought to have died in 1976. **See below for an expanded version of the original obituary which was printed in volume 6 of Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk** Joseph Schorstein was a distinguished neurosurgeon in Glasgow. He was born on 8 December 1909 in the small town of Miroslav in Moravia, the son of a rabbi, Nachum. Early in Schorstein’s childhood the family moved to Brno, where he attended the local gymnasium. He began his medical studies at the University of Vienna when he was 17 and graduated in 1931. He is said to have attended a meeting where Hitler was speaking and, convinced of the risks of staying in Germany or Austria, he decided to start his medical career in the UK. Most of his family died in the Holocaust, though his mother survived and joined him in Glasgow after the war. He attended University College Hospital for clinical studies and, by 1935, had the conjoint examination, qualifying him to practise medicine in the UK. He moved on to Manchester, where he trained in neurosurgery at the Royal Infirmary with Geoffrey Jefferson. He later worked as the assistant director of the David Lewis Centre for children and adults affected by epilepsy. He gained his FRCS in 1938. During the Second World War he served as a senior neurosurgeon in the British Army, becoming a lieutenant colonel in the RAMC. He was the neurosurgeon in charge of the No 5 Mobile Neurosurgical Unit in North Africa and Italy, one of only seven such units. The unit went with the 1st Army to North Africa and then to Italy with the Allied advance. During fighting in Sicily in July and August 1943, he participated in the first trial of penicillin in war wounds, showing a reduction in levels of infection. This was written up as *A preliminary report on the treatment of head wounds with penicillin. Investigation of war wounds* (1943, London, War office publication AMD7/90D/43). During the battle of Monte Cassino in May 1944 he was based at a hospital in Naples and dealt with 333 cases of head wounds in just two weeks. His unit gradually moved north through Italy and was based for a while near Florence. Sir Hugh Cairns, one of the leading figures in wartime neurosurgery, wrote that he considered Schorstein’s work, especially in the management of intracranial haematoma, a ‘fine achievement’. After the war, Schorstein wrote about his wartime neurosurgical experiences in three articles in the war supplement of the *British Journal of Surgery* in 1947 (An atlas of head wounds illustrating standard operative technique’ British Journal of Surgery: War Surgery Supplement 1: Wounds of the head, 27-51. 1947; ‘Intracranial haematoma in missile wounds’ British Journal of Surgery: War Surgery Supplement 1: Wounds of the head, 96-112. 1947; ‘Primary skull closure with acrylic plates’ British Journal of Surgery: War Surgery Supplement 1: Wounds of the head, 256-7. 1947’). The experience of wartime surgery had a profound effect on Schorstein. After the war he was a patient under the psychiatrist Wilhelm Mayer-Gross at the Crichton Royal Hospital in Dumfries and was treated on later occasions. After returning to the UK at the end of the war, he was first based at the Military Hospital for Head Injuries in Oxford. He then moved to Glasgow, where he was a consultant neurosurgeon at the west of Scotland neurosurgical unit based at Kilhearn Hospital, working with Eric Paterson and James Sloan Robertson. He later became a consultant neurosurgeon at the Institute of Neurological Sciences at Glasgow’s Southern General Hospital. Schorstein had a high reputation among his colleagues for his surgical technique and skill in diagnosis. During his career he published 15 medical papers, the majority written in the 1940s. Many were on head injuries, especially from gunshot and missile wounds. One important paper, written with Geoffrey Jefferson in 1955, was on injuries to the trigeminal nerve (‘Injuries of the trigeminal nerve, its ganglion and its divisions’ *Br J Surg.* 1955 May;42[176]:561-81). Schorstein was a polymath, fluent in Latin, French, Hebrew, German, Italian, Czech and English, who could debate the ideas of philosophers from Plato to Heidegger. He published or presented papers on social and philosophical topics to members of a study group in Glasgow, some of which focused on social responsibility and the limits of science and medicine. Schorstein first met the radical psychiatrist R D Laing at Kilhearn in 1951 and he rapidly became a mentor and father figure to the young doctor. In his autobiography, Laing described being ‘grilled’ by Schorstein at three o’clock in the morning after an operating session, with the older man interrogating him on philosophy. ‘After that night, Joe adopted me as his pupil; he became my spiritual father, neurological and intellectual mentor and guide to European literature. He was the first older, fully educated European intellectual I had come to know. He seemed to be the incarnation of all the positions of the European consciousness: Hasidism, Marxism, science and nihilism … He was a master of the European tradition to which I was becoming mature enough to presume to be born.’ Schorstein retired early from neurosurgical practice in 1967 because of ill health but held a post at the University of Glasgow’s department of psychological medicine, based at Southern General Hospital. He married Mary Power in 1939 in Hampstead, London. They had a son, David. Schorstein died in 1976. Sarah Gillam
Resource Identifier RCS: E006921
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Gleave, John Reginald Wallace (1925 - 2006)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2007-03-15 2011-12-20
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000300-E000399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372524372524
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Gleave was a consultant neurosurgeon at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and an accomplished oarsman. He was born in Walsall, Staffordshire (now West Midlands), on 6 April 1925, the son of John Wallace Gleave, a priest, and his wife, Dorothy (née Littlefair). He was educated at Uppingham School, to which he won a scholarship in 1938. He then went to Magdalen College, Oxford, with an exhibition and took an honours degree in natural sciences, before completing his clinical studies at the Radcliffe Infirmary, where he won the Gask clinical prize in 1947. His house jobs were at the Radcliffe Infirmary with A Cooke, A Elliott- Smith and Sir Hugh Cairns (with whom he had done an elective period as a student). Cairns, Nuffield Professor of Surgery at Oxford, had established the neurosurgical department at Oxford before the war. Gleave completed his National Service in the neurological unit at Wheatley Military Hospital. There he worked under the neurologist Ritchie Russell, Honor Smith (who had done important research on the treatment of meningitis with Cairns) and the neurosurgeon Walpole Lewin. After his National Service, he became a registrar to the professorial surgical unit in Liverpool and then senior registrar in neurosurgery at Oxford. In 1962 he was appointed second consultant neurosurgeon at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, in the unit set up by Walpole Lewin. He remained there until his retirement in 1990. The department at Adenbrooke's became a large regional centre. When Lewin died in 1980, Gleave became the senior consultant and the department expanded with new appointments and the establishment of the Bayer chair of neurosurgery. Gleave was a skilful general neurosurgeon with a special interest stereotaxic neurosurgery, which he advocated for the accurate diagnostic biopsy of intracranial lesions. In 1990, together with R Macfarlane, he wrote a paper, which suggested that, while urgent surgery for acute central disc protrusion with cauda equina compression was wise, the unfavourable prognosis of the condition was determined so early in the course of the disease that unless delay was shorter than was ordinarily possible, it did not greatly influence the outcome. This suggestion, which had clear medico-legal implications, was resisted in the United States, where the paper was rejected on principle. It was, however, published in this country. Gleave was a fellow of St Edmund's College, Cambridge, from 1976 until 1990, praelector from 1982 to 2002, a tutor in neuroanatomy at Magdalene College between 1974 and 1992, and an examiner in surgery to the University of London from 1985 to 1991. He was a notable sportsman. He represented Oxford University in fives and squash, and played rugby for Oxfordshire and the Royal Army Medical Corps, but his great sporting interest was rowing. He was in the Oxford VIII for three successive years, and was invited to try for the Olympic crew in 1948, but his father vetoed this. He then rowed for Leander in crews that were beaten only in the final at Henley of the Stewarts' cup and the Silver Goblets in 1948, but in 1949 won the Grand Challenge cup in record time. In 1979 he won a gold medal in the veteran coxed fours at the World Championships. He coached Lady Margaret crews at Cambridge for a number of years with enthusiasm and success. Gleave was a classical scholar, accomplished in Latin and Greek. In retirement he undertook the translation of his own copy of Willis's *Cerebri anatome*, though he was unable to finish the last chapter because of illness. He married Anne Newbolt in 1953. There were six children. He died on 6 August 2006 from the effects of a carcinoma of the kidney.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000338
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Money, Reginald Angel (1897 - 1984)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-06-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007500-E007599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379706379706
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Reginald Angel Money was born in Sydney on 3 March 1897, the elder son of Dr Angel Money, MD London, FRCP, who had been assistant honorary physician at Great Ormond Street, University College Hospital and the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, before emigrating to Australia. He was subsequently physician to Sydney Hospital and the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children in Sydney and married Amy Mona Dowdell, the daughter of a sailing ship owner in Hobart, Tasmania. Reginald Money's early education was at Sydney Grammar School where he was captain of the school in 1913. He began his medical studies at the University of Sydney in 1914 but shortly after the outbreak of war he interrupted his course and enlisted as a gunner in the First Australian Imperial Force. He was later commissioned as Lieutenant in the Field Artillery and was awarded the Military Cross. After demobilisation he returned to his medical studies and qualified in 1923 with first class honours, having been awarded the Mills Prize for surgery and the Sandes Prize for medicine. He served as resident medical officer, registrar and medical superintendent at Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, before being appointed assistant surgeon and tutor in surgery from 1928 to 1937. He passed the FRACS in 1931 and the FRCS in the following year. Visiting the United States at this time he was greatly inspired by the work of Dr Howard Naffziger in California, operating on the brain using the new techniques of Dr Harvey Cushing. He decided to specialise in neurosurgery and gained further experience visiting Harvey Cushing in Boston, A W Adson at the Mayo Clinic, Hugh Cairns at the London Hospital and de Martel in Paris. In 1937 he was appointed honorary assistant surgeon and lecturer in traumatic neurosurgery at the Royal Alfred Hospital, Sydney, and in the following year was additionally honorary surgeon at the Royal North Shore Hospital. He was instrumental in setting up the first fully equipped department of neurosurgery in Australia at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1938. Shortly after the outbreak of the second world war he again joined the services and was Colonel in the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps, commanding the 2nd/6th Australian General Hospital in the Middle East, Greece and Crete before returning to Northern Australia. His services were recognised by his appointment as Commander of the Order of the British Empire and the award of the Efficiency Decoration. At the end of the war he returned to his hospital appointments in Sydney and served twice as President of the Neurosurgical Society of Australia in 1953 and 1965. He was made a director on the board of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in 1953 and served as Vice-Chairman from 1968 to 1973. Retiring from the active staff of the hospital he was appointed consulting neurosurgeon in 1957. His professional interests continued and from 1961 to 1969 he served as a member of the Traffic Injury Committee of the National Health and Medical Research Council of the Commonwealth of Australia. He contributed extensively to professional journals about his military and civilian experience. Apart from his neurosurgical commitments he was interested in farming, horse-racing, tennis and golf. He married Dorothy Jean Wilkinson in 1937 and they had two daughters, Angela (Raymond) and Carole (Roussel) neither of whom has taken up medicine. Towards the end of his life when the department of neurosurgery at Prince Alfred Hospital moved from its original site to a new building, the board of the Hospital named it the R A Money department of neurosurgery in recognition of his contributions to the Hospital and to neurosurgery. He died on 16 January 1984, aged 86, survived by his wife, daughters and two grandsons.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007523
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Eden, Kenneth Christie (1910 - 1943)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-05-21
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004000-E004099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376192376192
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Born 18 December 1910, son of Edwin Albert Eden, MA, BSc, Head Master of Devizes Secondary School, who died at Letchworth in 1938, and of Monti Alston Christie, his wife. He was educated at his father's school and at University College, London, before entering University College Hospital Medical School, where he was Bucknill scholar and Cluff memorial prizeman in 1932. He won the Lister gold medal in surgery in 1933 and the Leslie Pearce Gould scholarship. With a travelling scholarship he worked in the surgical clinics of Berlin, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, and Paris. On his return to University College Hospital he was appointed Harker Smith cancer and radium registrar, assistant to Wilfred Trotter in the surgical unit, and John Marshall Fellow in surgi pathology. Eden edited the *UCH Magazine*, played association football for the hospital and took a full share in many undergraduate social activities. In 1939 he was appointed to the Emergency Medical Service neurological unit of University College Hospital at Hayward's Heath, Sussex and in 1941 he was appointed surgical registrar of the hospital. He collaborated with his master's son, W R Trotter, MRCP, in the hospital's thyroid clinic, and they made several important joint publications. In 1940 he was a Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons, lecturing on dumb-bell tumours of the spine. In spite of his great abilities, or perhaps because of an air of charming indolence, Eden, during this period, was looked upon as a capable rather than a brilliant surgeon. In April 1942 he was commissioned in the RAMC and served for four months at St Hugh's Military Hospital at Oxford. Eden found his métier when appointed leader of a neurosurgical unit in the Eighth Army, with the rank of major. He served all through the victorious North African campaign from Alamein to Tunis (winter 1942 to spring 1943). In the fast-moving tank battles of Tripolitania he found that head injuries were coming back to his station at the advance base too late for satisfactory intervention. He therefore split his unit into a base and a forward team, and himself went right forward to the battlefield. He converted a captured Italian motor-coach into a mobile operating theatre and worked in closest touch with the most forward casualty clearing station. He excised or closed the majority of head wounds within twenty-four hours of injury and achieved ninety per cent primary healing where the incidence of abscess had previously been very high. In the more favourable conditions of battle between Mareth and Tunis he made the most of his opportunities for forward area segregation of wounded. He had an exceptional capacity for operating continuously without sleep through long hours, and proved himself as fine a commander as a surgeon. His account of these war experiences with his surgical results was published posthumously in The Lancet. He went forward with the Eighth Army through the invasion of Sicily (summer 1943) into Italy, where he died of poliomyelitis at Naples on 21 October 1943. Eden married in 1936 Margaret Avis Jones, who survived him with a son and a daughter; his mother also outlived him. His widow married secondly James Carson, MD. He was a well-informed and cultivated man, with a good singing voice and a talent for drawing. Publications:- Case of lead encephalopathy. *Lancet*, 1935, 1, 490. Pseudotuberculoma silicoticum, with J Herbert-Burns. *Brit J Surg*. 1936-37, 24, 346. Dissemination of glioma of spinal cord in leptomeninges. *Brain*, 1938, 61, 398. Vascular complications of cervical ribs and first thoracic rib abnormalities. *Brit J Surg*. 1939-40, 27, 111. Benign fibro-osseous tumours of skull and facial bones. *Ibid* p 323. Dumb-bell tumours of the spine (Hunterian lectures). *Brit J Surg*. 1940-41, 28, 549. Xanthomatosis of skeleton in adult (bipoidosis of Schuller-Christian type), with E L G Hilton. *Lancet*, 1941, 1, 782. Plump type of Graves' disease, with W R Trotter. *Lancet*, 1941, 2, 335. Total thyroidectomy for heart failure, unusual case, with W R Trotter. *Brit Heart J*. 1941, 3, 200. Loss of consciousness in different types of head injury, with J W A Turner. *Proc Roy Soc Med*. 1940-41, 34, 685. Traumatic cerebrospinal rhinorrhoea: repair of fistula by transfrontal intradural operation. *Brit J Surg*. 1941-42, 29, 299. Case of lymphadenoid goitre associated with full clinical picture of Graves' disease, with W R Trotter. *Brit J Surg*. 1941-42, 29, 320. Lid retraction in toxic diffuse goitre, with W R Trotter. *Lancet*, 1942, 2, 385. Localized pretibial myxoedema in association with toxic goitre, with W R Trotter. *Quart J Med*. 1942, 11, 229. Mobile neurosurgery in warfare; experiences in the Eighth Army's campaign in Cyrenaica, Tripolitania and Tunisia. *Lancet*, 1943, 2, 689 and *Brit J Surg*. 1944, 31, 324.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004009
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Drake, Charles George (1920 - 1998)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-23 2020-08-05
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008500-E008599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380753380753
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Charles George Drake (Charlie), neurosurgeon, was born on 21 July 1920 in Windsor, Ontario. His father had died of Spanish influenza two months earlier. He was educated locally, but later moved to London, Ontario, receiving his medical education at the University of Western Ontario, from which he graduated in 1944. He did a rotating internship, shortened by the war to nine months, at Toronto General Hospital, where his last appointment was to the neurosurgical department under Kenneth McKenzie. The senior intern fell ill and Drake was left alone in the service. He was greatly influenced by McKenzie, a pioneer in, among other things, the removal of acoustic nerve tumours with a low mortality. McKenzie, in turn, was impressed by Drake and, finding he was interested in neurosurgery as a career, suggested that he come back to see him after the war. Under McKenzie's influence, Drake studied neuroanatomy at Western Hospital and also neurophysiology, the latter ultimately at Yale under John Fulton, with whom he worked on functional localisation in the anterior cerebellum. After two years of surgical training at the Victoria Hospital, London, Ontario, he returned to McKenzie at the Toronto General Hospital where, almost inadvertently, he operated on his first intracranial aneurysm, admitted under the care of E H Botterell, somewhat to the latter's displeasure. This incident ignited the interest of both McKenzie and Drake in the possibility of surgery for aneurysms, the patients of which were mainly at this time in Toronto cared for by physicians and treated with daily lumbar punctures. In 1950 McKenzie arranged for Drake to go to Europe, where he did a clerkship at the National Hospital, Queen Square, and spent time with Sir Hugh Cairns at Oxford, Olivecrona in Stockholm and Guiot in Paris. He took note of Olivecrona's preservation of the facial nerve in removal of acoustic nerve tumour and that the procedure was terminated by extensive coagulation of the inside of the porus acusticus. In all, his neurosurgical training occupied one and a half years, not enough to satisfy the American Board of Neurosurgery. McKenzie wanted him to continue at Toronto, but Drake was persuaded to return to London, Ontario, and set up a neurosurgical service. He had many offers from elsewhere for the rest of his career, but refused them. He was recognised from the beginning as an extremely skilled neurosurgeon and his early writings include an important paper on his results of removal of acoustic nerve tumours and repair of the facial nerve, but his great achievements were in the vascular field: intracranial aneurysms, especially those of the posterior cerebral circulation, of which he dealt with 1,700 cases, and arteriovenous malformation. His pre-eminence in the field brought him great renown, not only for the thoughtfulness and skill he brought to the management of these formidable lesions, but because of his honesty and self-criticism in presenting his experience. His work was completely trusted. His application to the problems presented by vascular lesions of this sort, in which he had the help of skilled radiologists and anaesthetists, resulted in the establishment of the subtemporal surgical approach to basilar bifurcation aneurysms, recognition of the value of magnification during surgery, study of the problems of cerebral arterial spasm in aneurysm surgery, and of the outcome in incomplete clipping of an aneurysm and, therefore, the value of post-operative angiography, the development of special aneurysm clips and assessment of the use and shortcomings of deep hypotensive anaesthesia. Regarded as the finest aneurysm surgeon in the world, Drake was also an excellent neurologist and had the foresight, with his friend Henry Barnett, to set up a joint department of clinical neurological sciences at London. He was much involved in the wider field of surgery and neurosurgery, being President of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (from 1971 to 1973), the American Association of Neurological Surgeons (1977), the World Federation of Neurological Science Societies (1977 to 1981) and the American College of Surgeons in 1984. He was awarded the Order of Canada and, shortly before his death, was elevated to its highest rank. Drake and his wife Ruth, formerly a nurse, had four sons, one of whom is a paediatric surgeon in Toronto. He was interested in outdoor pursuits and nature, being keen on shooting and fishing and, in his later years, he became an enthusiastic golfer. He flew his own aeroplane. He died on 15 September 1998 of the effects of carcinoma of the lung.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008570
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Andrew, John (1922 - 1999)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-09-27 2015-12-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004400-E004499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376600376600
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John Andrew, also known as 'Tony', was born on 2 February 1922 in Poulton-le-Flyde, Lancashire. He was the son of Percy Andrew, a general practitioner, and Ida Louise née Rishworth, a first-generation American, whom his father had met as a nurse in France during the first world war. His grandfather had been house surgeon to Sir James Paget at St Bartholomew's and later worked in Monte Carlo. Andrew was educated at the Perse School, Cambridge, and at first wished to be a classicist, but his father persuaded him to follow the family tradition and go to Bart's. After junior osts, his training in neurosurgery was mainly at Bart's under J E A O'Connell, but he spent a year in Chicago working with Percival Bailey. Afterwards, he was appointed consultant neurosurgeon at Oldchurch Hospital, Romford, a post he relinquished on his appointment to the Middlesex Hospital and the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases. Tony Andrew was a man of meticulous habits, demanding the highest medical standards from his staff. Though he was an extremely skilful general neurosurgeon and wrote on lumbar spinal canal stenosis, his special interest was in stereotaxic surgery. In 1969 he published, with E S Watkins, an atlas based on detailed anatomical work, which provided quantitative information about the variability of the position of nuclei within the basal ganglia. This was a valuable practical tool. Other important research work was done with P W Nathan on the site within the frontal lobes, damage to which resulted in impaired bladder function. Andrew combined a keen if acerbic sense of humour with his conscientious, careful and even intolerant personality. His premature retirement from the Middlesex Hospital was precipitated by the noise in the operating theatre resulting from the temporary accommodation of orthopaedic surgery from the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital. Andrew had a busy private practice, mainly from the Middle East and Mediterranean, which he valued for the interesting clinical material it provided. After a time he set up a neurosurgical service in Abu Dhabi. In later life he built a house in Cyprus, where he spent much of his time. He spoke Greek, as well as German and French. In 1974 he married Margaret Morrell, a widow. There were no children. In his youth he had been a keen mountaineer and rock climber. Later in life he took up wind-surfing. He was fond of music, was an enthusiastic pianist, and a painter. He was a Catholic and his religion meant much to him. His last years were clouded by illness, by low pressure hydrocephalus, Parkinsonism and prostatic cancer. He eventually succumbed to a stroke and died on 30 May 1999. The following obituary was provided at a later date by a member of Mr Andrew's family. John Andrew was a consultant neurosurgeon at the Middlesex Hospital. His mother, an American, met his father during the First World War in France where she was a nurse, and he a doctor. They married and he went into general practice. When John was born, his mother really wanted to call him Anthony, but, thinking that Anthony Andrew would sound rather odd, he was christened just John. He was known officially as John, but 'Tony' to his friends. He attended the Perse School in Cambridge and wanted to read classics but, as his grandfather and father were doctors, there was pressure on him to follow suit. When he subsequently became a fellow of the RCS, he was the youngest and his grandfather the eldest. He received his medical training at Bart's and, when he first qualified, he went as an assistant doctor on a brides' ship to Australia and the Caribbean. He was then appointed as a registrar to John O'Connell at Bart's. JOC was a great character and excellent teacher. John subsequently went to Chicago on a Fulbright scholarship. For a time he was a consultant at Oldchurch Hospital, Romford, and then a consultant neurosurgeon at the Middlesex Hospital. He was very encouraging to his registrars and gave them every opportunity to acquire surgical skills. Like most doctors, he expected nightly reports on the patients and was readily available for visits to the hospital of any time. He had a special interest in tremor and published in 1969 *A stereotaxic atlas of the human thalamus and adjacent structures* (Baltimore, Williams and Wilkins Company) with E S Watkins. The work that gave him the most satisfaction was the discovery, with Peter Nathan, of the area of the brain that governed the bladder. He was totally dedicated to his NHS work, and his private practice provided him with much interest in view of the unusual cases that presented themselves. He spoke Greek and had many patients from Greece and Cyprus, where he subsequently built a house and enjoyed playing the piano and sitting on the veranda, watching the stars in the wonderfully clear sky. Watching birds and identifying them by their song was another hobby. In Romford he had worked with Nikos Spanos, a well-respected neurosurgeon in Cyprus, and with Jesus Lofuente, from Barcelona. Said El Gindi from Egypt worked with him for a time in London, and John had many patients from Egypt. He learnt some Arabic, and this was to prove useful when he went to Abu Dhabi to set up neurosurgery on his retirement from the Middlesex Hospital. He spent some happy years there and learned to windsurf, which was an achievement requiring great tenacity. John really was a Renaissance man with many interests. When young, he was a member of a climbing club and had a climb named after him in Cornwall. He was also a keen sailor and owned a squib, a small racing keelboat, which was moored at Burnham-on-Crouch, and he and his wife headed there every Sunday when the weather was fine and after the patients had been visited (he operated on a Saturday morning and enjoyed tea in the afternoon whilst watching the wrestling). When these physical activities were curtailed by ill health, he was able to spend many quiet hours painting. He had never had the opportunity to do this when he was young, but he had lessons with the painter Conchita Moore and, in Cyprus, with Nicolas Panayi. He was a member of the Medical Art Society and went with them to Morocco. His painting of a rough sea in Essaouira was shown at their annual exhibition at the Royal Society of Medicine. He was happily surprised by this. He also played the piano and made a good curry! Finally, one must also add that he had a keen sense of humour, rather acerbic at times, and had a stock of limericks. Margaret Andrew
Resource Identifier RCS: E004417
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching O'Connell, John Eugene Anthony (1906 - 2001)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-11-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008800-E008899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381007381007
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details John O'Connell was a consultant neurosurgeon at St Bartholomew's. He was born in Manchester on 16 September 1906, to Irish parents. His father, Thomas Henry O'Connell, was a civil servant. His mother was Catherine Mary née O'Sullivan. He was educated by the Jesuits at Clongowes and later at Wimbledon College, before entering St Bartholomew's Hospital. There he won a junior scholarship in 1926, the Brackenbury surgical scholarship and the Wickes medal. After qualifying in 1931, he did junior posts at Bart's, was a demonstrator in anatomy and made a study of the anatomy of the cerebral veins and peripheral nerves, on which his later publications were to become the standard references. He became surgical chief assistant in 1937 under Geoffrey Keynes and Thomas Dunhill, an experience which convinced him of the value of extensive basic training in general surgery for future neurosurgeons, a view not shared by all his contemporaries. In 1935, a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship took him to the United States, where he worked at Ann Arbor with Max Peet and in Chicago with Percival Bailey, and during this visit was proud to have met Harvey Cushing, considered the father of neurosurgery. He suffered an attack of sciatica whilst in the States and learned of the work of Mixter and Barr on prolapsed lumbar intervertebral discs. On his return, he was one of the first to carry out their operation at Bart's, although he continued to be very conservative in its use. During the second world war he was in charge of the Emergency Medical Service neurosurgical unit at Hill End Hospital. Shortly before D-day he took his unit near to Portsmouth, where they treated more than 200 neurosurgical casualties. He was appointed to the staff of St Bartholomew's in 1946, but continued to work at Hill End until his new block could be built. There O'Connell became celebrated for the successful separation of three pairs of craniopagus Siamese twins in 1958, 1961 and 1964. He followed all his patients up indefinitely, so that his clinic was an interesting source of information about the long-term outlook for various conditions, especially acoustic nerve tumours, which he thought should only be removed when causing serious symptoms. He made a number of important and original contributions: on cordotomy for pain relief; a post-mortem study of the anatomy of the chiasm, explaining the loss of visual fields in pituitary tumours; and on the role of cervical spondylosis in cervical cord disease. He was twice an Hunterian Professor, President of his section of the Royal Society of Medicine and civilian consultant to the Royal Navy. Conservative in all things, O'Connell was President of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons at a time when formalised surgical training and the inspection of units was being mooted, to both of which he was steadfastly opposed. A quiet, private man with a strong Roman Catholic faith, John had a courteous and old-fashioned manner, was a keen follower of cricket and rugby, and a devoted fly-fisherman. He married his theatre sister, Marjorie Cook, in 1973. He died on 27 April 2001, aged 94.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008824
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Northfield, Douglas William Claridge (1902 - 1976)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-02-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E006000-E006999/E006800-E006899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379002379002
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Douglas William Claridge Northfield was born in London in February 1902. He received his medical training at Guy's Hospital, where he also qualified in dentistry. After qualification he did general surgery at Guy's where he was demonstrator in anatomy. He obtained the MB BS (London) with the Gold Medal and proceeded MS in 1931; he had previously become FRCS in 1928. Northfield's life work may be said to have begun in 1934 when he joined Hugh Cairns as house surgeon at the London Hospital. In 1938 he was elected consultant neurosurgeon and he continued in this post until his retirement in 1967. During the second world war he operated at Chase Farm Hospital, returning to the London in 1946, where he remained until retirement in 1967. He rapidly gained an international reputation as a highly skilled neurosurgeon, and there were many overseas visitors to the London Hospital who came to watch him operate and to discuss neurological problems. He was however, essentially a surgical neurologist, the title he preferred, and his great strength lay in his immense clinical capacity. Careful and painstaking in examination and decisive in opinion, his aid was sought by patients from far and near. Although surrounded by devoted colleagues, Northfield headed no school, nor did he develop a large department. His contribution to his subject lay in his own professional skills and the carefully observed clinical studies which formed the basis of his many papers and communications. In his earlier days Northfield worked on headache, making observations on the contribution of pain-bearing structures within the head, also on the thalamus. He was a pioneer in the surgery of epilepsy and characteristically versed himself in electroencephalography, including electrocorticography and the use of deep electrodes. His results were good, owing to his great sense of what could or could not be done. Right up to his retirement he was in touch with surgical advance and was quick to employ new techniques and methods. At times severe in manner to those who could not see into the man, for the humorous twinkle in the eye was never far away, he expected dedication from his juniors. He could never understand why anyone might wish to play rugger or row on a Wednesday or Saturday when there was work to be done. He drove himself hard, working late at hospital and far into the night at home, and he expected others to follow his example. His book *The surgery of the nervous system* (1973), provides a lasting memorial to his professional achievement. He was past President of the Neurological Section of the Royal Society of Medicine, the Electro-Encephalographic Society, the British Section of the International League against Epilepsy, past President and past secretary of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons and past secretary of the International Congress of Neurological Surgery. Douglas Northfield had an international reputation and received many honours, but his work remained centred at the London Hospital. The abiding memory of him at the London will be his regular attendance at the weekly neurological sciences meeting where, until four days before the stroke which ultimately proved fatal, his alert enquiring figure was the source of a stream of pertinent, well informed and sometimes devastating comment on the matter in hand. His work was his life and his outside interests were few, though he loved music. He had a delightful sense of humour and was a generous host and friend. His retirement was clouded by the prolonged, crippling illness which afflicted his wife. He nursed her devotedly, and after her death, in 1974, he gradually recovered from the loss and pursued life alone with the courage he had always displayed. They had a son, who is a physician, and a daughter. He died on 15 July 1976, aged 74 years.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006819
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Rack, Peter Michael Horsman (1928 - 1994)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-10-01
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008200-E008299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380472380472
Occupation Neurosurgeon Physiologist
Details Peter Rack was born in Grimsby of Quaker stock on 27 October 1928. His father, Ralph Skinner Rack, was a chemical engineer, and his mother Elsie, née Horsman, was a marine biologist. His early education was at Society of Friends Schools in Wigton, Ackworth and Bootham between 1936 and 1946, following which he went up to Clare College, Cambridge, to read medicine, taking his BA in 1949 and graduating in 1952. While at medical school he won the Anderson prize in 1949. After a period as house physician at the London Hospital, he spent two years doing his National Service with the RAMC between 1954 and 1956. During that time he decided that surgery was where his future lay and from 1956 he set about learning the necessary skills in periods at various hospitals, gaining his FRCS in 1959. It was then that an interest in neuroscience began to emerge and as a junior doctor he worked with three of the leading neurosurgeons of the day - Douglas Northfield at the London, Walpole Lewin in the Army Head Injuries Unit and Brodie Hughes at Birmingham. He had been a registrar in Cardiff but it was as senior registrar at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Birmingham, that the time came that most influenced the direction of his career. The group in Birmingham, under the direction of Professor Brodie Hughes, was pioneering the use of surgical techniques to alleviate the symptoms of Parkinson's Disease. Rack was struck by the lack of physiological knowledge regarding the way the brain controlled muscles and movements. He then spent six months in Oslo with Professor Jan Jansen conducting physiological experiments and possibly building on his experiences as a Part II student in the neurophysiological heyday of the Cambridge department of physiology. His experiments showed for the first time how, by using precisely quantified and applied movements, the control of muscles was modified by the brain. It was at the age of 37, on the threshold of a highly promising career as a consultant neurosurgeon, that he took a major step which was highly unusual, becoming a lecturer in the department of physiology in the Medical School at Birmingham in 1965. In 1975 he was made reader in experimental neurology and in 1983 his distinction in research and teaching led to the award of a personal chair. He retired in 1992. In 1972 he had been awarded a Royal Society Travelling Fellowship, enabling him to take a sabbatical year of studying at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. Here he worked with Professor Robert Porter, studying the way the brain responded to unexpected movements, the measurement of the physical properties of muscles and tendons and the nervous control of muscles. All this provided a key insight into the origin of tremor in both normal and in Parkinson's Disease patients. Remarkably, he had the skill to construct precision machinery when this was not available to make the necessary measurements, and his manual skill was further put to good use in one of his hobbies, which was the making of beautiful furniture and clavichords to a professional standard. He was also a keen amateur flautist. A keen mountaineer, in the 1950s he was one of a British group which began to climb the harder Alpine routes, and he climbed intensively in the British Isles and in the Alps up to the highest standard of the time. He was a member of the Climbers' Club and he and his family spent much time in the Lake District. It was through his love of music that he came to meet Brenda, whom he married in 1956. She survives him, together with their four daughters - Mary, an anthropologist, Jane, a nurse, Lucy, a social administrator and Eleanor, a computer consultant. Peter Rack was killed in a climbing accident in the Lake District on 18 July 1994. There is a list of 39 publications with which he was associated, mainly on neuroscience subjects.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008289
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Rogers, Lambert Charles (1897 - 1961)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-05-06
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005300-E005399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377504377504
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Born on 8 April 1897 in Melbourne son of Charles Robert Rogers and Janet Chant, he was educated in Melbourne until 1915, when at the age of 18 he joined the Australian Naval Transport Service in which he served until 1917. He then came to the Middlesex Hospital to resume his interrupted medical studies only to enable him to join the RNVR as a surgeon probationer and to serve in destroyers until the end of the war. Returning to the Middlesex he qualified in July 1920 and became a house surgeon to John Murray. During this time he was awarded a certificate of distinction as a prosector for the College and the University of London, which interest in anatomy he maintained for the rest of his life, becoming a Fellow of the Anatomical Society. This was followed by a period of five years taken up with time in general practice, as a ship's surgeon, and in visiting clinics abroad. In January 1926 he was appointed the first full-time assistant in the surgical unit of the Welsh National School of Medicine, being promoted to senior assistant in June 1929, and subsequently assistant director under Professor A W Sheen first occupant of the chair of surgery. In 1934 he went to the British Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith, working for a year under Professor Grey Turner, and returned to Cardiff in 1935 to succeed Professor Sheen as professor, the post he occupied from then on until the time of his death. His surgical interests tended to be more and more in the field of neuro-surgery, in which he built up a world-wide reputation, particularly in connection with the surgery of spinal tumours. The achievement of which he was most proud was his founding of the Welsh Surgical Society, of which he was President from 1953 to 1958, which brought together the surgeons of Wales and made him their beloved and respected friend. He had always maintained his connection with the medical branch of the RNVR by holding a permanent commission, so that on the outbreak of war in 1939 he was mobilised and for a considerable time served at the Royal Naval Hospital at Barrow Gurney near Bristol. Later in the war he went to the Far East including the Australian station as a Surgeon-Captain. In May 1946 he returned to civilian life in Cardiff. He continued his connection with the Royal Navy as civilian consultant in neurosurgery. As a provincial surgeon he was for many years a member of the Moynihan Club, being its secretary 1940-50 and ultimately its President 1950-52. At the College he was a member of Council 1943-59, being Vice-President for 1953-55, a member of the Court of Examiners in 1943-44 and from 1946 to 1951 an examiner in anatomy for the Primary, a Hunterian Pro-fessor in 1935, an Arris and Gale lecturer in 1947, an Arnott demonstrator in 1952, and Bradshaw lecturer in 1954. He was President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1951-52, of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons 1948-54, of the Surgical Section of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1960-61, of the Section of Surgery of the British Medical Association in 1953, and of the Cardiff Medical Society in 1954-55. He was particularly pleased when in 1952 the University of Melbourne conferred on him the degree of MD *honoris causa*. Always a keen supporter of the International Society of Surgery, he was British delegate from 1947 and finally Vice-President. He examined in surgery for the Universities of Cardiff, London, Glasgow, Belfast, Bristol, the National University of Ireland and for Trinity College, Dublin. Surgeon to the United Cardiff Hospitals, he was also adviser in surgery to the Welsh Regional Hospital Board. Most methodical and hard working he contributed extensively to medical literature and acted as editor of Treves's *Surgical Applied Anatomy* for four editions between 1939 and 1955 and of Grey Turner's *Modern Operative Surgery* 4th edition in 1955. A quiet man of strong religious convictions, his innate kindliness and unfailing courtesy gained for him the implicit trust and affection not only of his patients but also of his colleagues and a wide circle of friends from many walks of life. It led him to give unsparingly of his time and substance to many charitable causes, and he was for many years medical officer of the Glamorgan Branch of the British Red Cross. An Australian by birth, he made so notable a place for himself in British surgery that people often forgot a fact of which he was naturally proud. A keen motorist he delighted in all forms of travel. He married in 1952, comparatively late in life, Mrs Barbara Ainsley the widow of Lt-Col J K Ainsley, Royal Artillery. They had a daughter, Anne. He died on 10 October 1961 aged 64 survived by his wife, his daughter Anne and his stepson Clive.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005321
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Jefferson, Sir Geoffrey (1886 - 1961)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-03-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005000-E005099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377264377264
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Born on 10 April 1886, son of Arthur John Jefferson MD of Rochdale, who was trained at St Thomas's and became honorary medical officer to Rochdale Infirmary, he received a classical education at Manchester Grammar School, as did his younger brother J C Jefferson FRCS (1888-1954). Proceeding to Manchester University in 1904 he entered the medical faculty as a contemporary of Twistington Higgins and Harry Platt. He was awarded the Sidney Renshaw Prize in Physiology at Manchester, and in 1907 the University of London Gold Medal in Anatomy at the 2nd MB Examination. His clinical training was carried out at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, with the exception of obstetrics for which he attended the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin. He qualified in 1909 with the conjoint diploma and the MB BS London, in which he gained honours in surgery. In December of the same year he was appointed house surgeon at the Manchester Royal Infirmary to Professor G A Wright, whilst Harry Platt was appointed house surgeon to Sir William Thorburn, a neurosurgeon. An appointment at Tite Street Children's Hospital in Chelsea followed, working under Sir Herbert Waterhouse, after which he returned to Manchester as a demonstrator of anatomy for Professor Elliot Smith. During this period a paper written in conjunction with Harry Platt on the anatomy of the parotid gland was published, and two papers on the cerebrum. Next, further surgical study at the Royal Cancer Hospital took him to London again, and in 1913 he obtained the MS degree with a gold medal. While at Manchester he had formed an attachment for a Canadian medical student, Gertrude Flumerfelt, and in 1914 they were married and he decided to emigrate to British Columbia and set up as a surgeon in Vancouver. On the outbreak of war, however, he returned to England, joined the RAMC and was posted to the 2nd Western General Hospital. In 1916 Sir Herbert Waterhouse was asked to organise a Red Cross Hospital to go to Russia, and he invited Jefferson to form one of the group. After the revolution in 1917 on regaining England Jefferson was sent to the 14th General Hospital of the BEF at Boulogne, and in 1918 was given charge of all cases of head injury. On demobilisation he went to Boston to work under Harvey Cushing, and on his return in 1919 was appointed to the Ministry of Pensions Hospital at Grangethorpe, and shortly after elected to the Salford Royal Hospital, the birth-place in Manchester of modern neurosurgery. A few years later he was appointed as a neurosurgeon to the Manchester Royal Infirmary with four beds, but it was not until 1934 that a full neurosurgical department was established with thirty-four beds, constituting a University department with Jefferson as professor of neurosurgery. The Manchester school rapidly acquired world-wide reputation as a centre for clinical research, and Jefferson was made an honorary surgeon to the National Hospital, Queen Square, London. In 1940 he was made adviser in neurosurgery to the Ministry of Health, involving travel to all parts of the country served by the Emergency Medical Service. After the war his professorial term was extended for five years, at the end of which time he was created emeritus professor. He was president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain, and a member of surgical societies in Paris, the United States, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, and Estonia. He was a member of the Medical Research Council 1948-52 and Chairman of the Clinical Research Board 1953-59. He was elected to a Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1947, a rare distinction for one who had done no experimental research. In 1949 he was Lister medallist; in 1956 Hughlings Jackson medallist of the Royal Society of Medicine, having been president of the section of neurology in 1949; Doyne medallist in 1945; Bowman medallist in 1953; and in 1960 Fedor Krauser medallist. At the College he was a Hunterian Professor in 1923, and at Cambridge was an examiner in surgery. He contributed freely to professional literature and many of his papers are outstanding presentations of clinical subjects in their relation to physiological problems. A founder member, he became president of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons, and in the USA was a member of the American Neurological Association and the Harvey Cushing Society. His catalogue of lectureships included the Martin lecture to the American College, the Balfour lecture to Toronto University, Macewen, Marnoch, and Purser lectures, Doyne lecture 1946, Cavendish lecture 1952, Rickman Godlee and Ludwig Mond lectures 1955, and Sir Victor Horsley lecture 1957. Jefferson was an exceptional man in that he combined a scholarly, precise approach to clinical problems with a tolerant, unerring judgment of men, mellowed by a rather impish wit. He married Gertrude, daughter of A C Flumerfelt of Victoria, British Columbia, who qualified with the conjoint diploma in 1912 and took the DPM in 1937, becoming director of a family welfare service in Manchester; she died on 10 February 1961. They had two sons: John Michael DM MRCP, lecturer in neurology at Birmingham, and Anthony Andrew FRCS 1950, consulting neurosurgeon at Sheffield. Jefferson died on 29 January 1961 aged 74.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005081
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Langford, Keith Howard (1925 - 2015)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2016-01-20 2016-05-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009000-E009099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381210381210
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Keith was born in Melbourne October 2, 1925 and died in Birmingham, Alabama on August 28, 2015. He was a man of enormous zest for life with a wide range of interests and friends that he maintained until the end which came rather suddenly when an infection supervened on top of a long battle with cancer. Keith's education was at Melbourne Grammar then RMIT where he studied metallurgy before going into medicine which he studied at Melbourne University. As a resident at Royal Melbourne Hospital he was mentored by John Curtis (who he later joined in partnership) and encouraged to enter the field of neurosurgery with which he remained fascinated for the rest of his life. With his wife, Dorothy, and three young children he went to the UK to complete his FRCS from 1956. Returning with now four children in 1960 he obtained his FRACS and went into practice as honorary surgeon. These were early days in the development of Melbourne neurosurgery and Keith had several honorary and visiting appointments, including Prince Henry's, Footscray, Box Hill, and the Epworth as well as consulting in Ballarat, and later taking over from John Curtis at the Royal Melbourne. In 1974 he moved with his second wife, Marilyn, to Alabama in the USA where he served for 20 years from 1974 as a professor of neurosurgery with a particular interest in pain management. With Marilyn he had two sons. After retiring from the University of Alabama, Birmingham, Keith continued to see patients at the Birmingham Neurosurgery & Spine Group, a private practice, up until a couple years ago. He maintained a day or two of work until earlier this year at Alabama's Disability Determination Services. Keith had a deep fascination with people and their stories and was loved by his patients as a doctor who enjoyed listening to them so that when he stopped operating he was happy to consult with patients and work them up for partners who had been former trainees of his. Keith was known to friends in his early days as "Tarz" for his monumental energy, playing football and cricket, tennis, golf and squash at a competitive level at school, university and beyond. He would often do rounds at several hospitals early on a Saturday with his yawning offspring in tow, then run around 18 holes at the Metropolitan Golf Course in two hours before returning to have "forty winks" (his name for a power nap) and then playing tennis or operating in the afternoon. Keith maintained contact with family and friends in the US and Australia with regular visits to Australia and a much loved family beach house at Sorrento. He continued to be an avid reader all his life and liked nothing better than a contested debate over a glass of wine on a political or philosophical matter late into the evening. He would then be up early the next morning cooking bacon and eggs and praising the sunrise. Keith loved dogs, music, poetry and art, travel and sport. He played golf well into his eighties. He loved his children and grandchildren who he encouraged in their pursuits and remained proud of in their various endeavours. Keith was a brave man who stared down pain in his own life making light of his cancer and his joints which gave him great trouble. I know he would have been pleased to have passed quickly through the terminal phases of his life without giving trouble to his family. Keith is survived by Marilyn, Justin and Amy, Craig and Jon, Clements and Ella in the US and Jonathan, Michael and Debra, Simone and Brad, Timothy and Siobhan in Australia. He was preceded in death by his daughters Jennifer and Lynette whose tragic deaths were always a source of grief to him. It is perplexing for us who knew him that death has taken such a man of boundless enthusiasm but he gave life his all, enjoyed and was grateful for its many wonderful blessings and endured its griefs, disappointments and pain with grace and courage. Well done Keith, you used all that you were granted, to leave the world better for your being part of it. Michael Langford Keith Langford was born on 2 October 1925 in Melbourne. He attended Melbourne Grammar School and subsequently studied Medicine at the University of Melbourne. He trained in neurosurgery in Australia and obtained the FRACS in neurosurgery. He worked at Prince Henry's Hospital and the Royal Melbourne Hospital. In 1974 he moved to Alabama, USA. For twenty years, Keith practiced neurosurgery and served as a distinguished professor at the University of Alabama Medical School, where he helped to establish the Pain Center. Although Keith retired from UAB in 1994, he continued to work in the field of medicine for two decades. Most recently, Keith worked for Alabama's Disability Determination Services. Keith enjoyed gardening, poetry, art, travel, his dogs, golf, and a good bottle of wine. An avid reader, he did not shy away from political conversation and debate, and he approached life with intellectual curiosity and good humour. Although he played Australian Rules Football for Melbourne University, Keith adopted the Crimson Tide (the UAB team) as his home team when he moved to the US. He was beloved by many, including countless patients he helped throughout his career. Most of all, Keith loved his family. He is survived by his second wife Marilyn, sons Michael, Jonathan, Justin, and Craig, and their partners Debbie, Amy and Jon. He leaves behind four grandchildren - Simone, Timothy, Clements and Ella. He was preceded in death by two daughters, Lynette and Jennifer. Glenn McCulloch FRACS
Resource Identifier RCS: E009027
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Hooper, Reginald Smyth (1909 - 1991)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-09
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E008000-E008999/E008000-E008099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380193380193
Occupation General practitioner Neurosurgeon
Details Reginald Hooper, neurosurgeon and radiologist, was born on 8 October 1909, the youngest of six children. He was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne, where he rowed and won a scholarship to Ormond College, Melbourne University. During his medical course he won the Baldwin Spencer prize in zoology, and continued to row. He was a resident medical officer at the (Royal) Melbourne Hospital between 1933 and 1936, obtaining the MS and the primary FRCS during this period. For two years he was in general practice in Colac in the country west of Melbourne, before leaving, without his family, for the United Kingdom in 1939. After posts as orthopaedic registrar at St Olave's Hospital in South London and clinical clerk at Queen Square in 1940, he obtained the final Fellowship and was appointed neurosurgical house surgeon to Hugh Cairns at the Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford. With the war in progress, towards the end of 1940 he joined the RAMC and, as a lieutenant, was attached to No. 1 Mobile Neurosurgical Unit. This, one of a number organised by Cairns, was mobilised in February 1941 and, under the command of Major P B Ashcroft, was sent to the Western Desert where it accompanied the 8th army on its campaigns. Though there was much idleness - they worked on only nine of the twenty six days of battle - interspersed with periods of activity, Ashcroft reported that Hooper was a 'tower of strength'. Not all the work was neurosurgical, other wounds being treated if the occasion arose, for Hooper had considerable general surgical experience. He was appointed, with the rank of major, Commanding Officer of No 2 Mobile Neurosurgical Unit, which was formed in Cairo in January 1942. After wangling an additional 3 ton truck, Hooper and the unit sailed to India, reaching Poona and finally joining Slim's 14th army in Burma. Subsequently he returned to the Mediterranean theatre, seeing service in Italy and Yugoslavia. According to Ashcroft who was directing neurosurgery there, Hooper was 'the best man in the Mediterranean theatre, an excellent brain, a skillful operator, a hard worker and full of resource'. At the end of the war Hooper returned to Melbourne where he was appointed neurosurgeon to the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1946. He and his brother-in-law, E Graeme Robertson, a distinguished neurologist and pioneer in the development of pneumo-encephalography, established the departments of neurosurgery and neurology at that hospital. He was also appointed to the staff of the Royal Children's Hospital and the Repatriation General Hospital. Hooper was particularly interested in head injuries. His article in the *British Journal of Surgery* in 1959 on extradural haematoma remains an important study. In it he analysed the results of the condition as well as its pathology and mechanisms, and drew attention to the high mortality in all reported series. He concluded that this ought to be reducible to 10% with proper education and organisation. The article has provided a standard against which present performance may be judged. He wrote two books, one on neurosurgical nursing and the other entitled *Patterns of acute head injury*. The latter was an original and brilliant attempt to refine the clinical diagnosis of head injury and the early recognition of complications needing surgery by paying particular attention to the way in which the head had been injured. With the appearance of scanning techniques, this skill, regrettably, has been almost forgotten. Hooper was a skillful and meticulous operator. His resourcefulness and originality were shown in his development of a special operating chair, or wheel, manufactured by Downs, for positioning children for cranial surgery, and in the design of his own stereotaxic machine, developed in conjunction with the engineers of the Royal Australian Air Force. He was also an accomplished artist and photographer, using these gifts to illustrate his articles, books and lectures. In a diary of his Burma experiences he included line drawings and watercolours. Under a rule operating at the time Hooper was, to his dismay, retired from the Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1966, aged 57, but he continued at the Royal Children's Hospital until he was 65. He then trained as a radiologist, being registrar at Preston and Northcote Community Hospital. He obtained the DDR in 1978 and held visiting appointments thereafter at that hospital, as well as at the Royal Children's and Mount Royal Hospitals, and continued to do some private radiological practice until quite late in his life. On the basis of his published work he was awarded an MD from Melbourne University in 1978. For his care of partisans during the war he received an award from the Yugoslav army. He was President of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia from 1954 to 1955, gave the inaugural Jamieson lecture of that society in 1977, was elected member of the American Association of Neurosurgical Surgeons and was Blackfan Lecturer at Harvard. In appearance Hooper was distinguished and elegant. Quiet and something of a loner, his determination and capacity for outspokenness were evident during his period in the British army and occasioned a sermon from Cairns, suggesting that he avoid 'letting off steam to the brass hats'. In committee he had some difficulty in accepting majority decisions if he thought them wrong. Hooper married Elwyn Masters of Castlemaine in 1936. They had a son, Robert, who became an ENT surgeon in Melbourne, and a daughter, Elizabeth. Having recovered well from a chronic subdural haematoma late in life, he eventually suffered a cerebral haemmorhage from which he died on 7 December 1991.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008010
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Wilson, Peter John Edgar Malyan (1933 - 2019)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Robert M Redfern
Publication Date 2020-10-02
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009700-E009799
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Peter Wilson was a meticulous neurosurgeon at Swansea who was committed to the highest standards of clinical care and fostered the same work ethic in his colleagues. He was born in Portsmouth on 8 April in 1933, the elder son of Herbert Wilson and Kathleen Wilson née Humphries. His father was an engineer who served in the Royal Navy and then, for a time, worked at the National Physical Laboratory in Teddington. Peter and his younger brother, Martin, were raised in Tolworth in south London. He was educated at Surbiton County Grammar School, where he was particularly interested in the arts. He wrote and performed in school plays and was editor of the school magazine. Despite these artistic interests, however, his intention had always been to pursue a medical career. In 1950 Peter started training at Guy’s Hospital Medical School and qualified in 1956. Following a year as a house officer at Guy’s and in Putney, he undertook a National Service commission in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1957 to 1959. While stationed at Le Marchant barracks in Wiltshire he showed considerable courage in dealing with a dangerous situation. A corporal under arrest, having escaped from his escort, locked himself into an arms store for several hours, refusing to come out, and had fired shots through a wooden door. Peter approached the room and, after talking quietly to the man for some time, managed to persuade him to hand out the weapons and ammunition through a small window; he was then able to escort him back to his cell. Peter commenced a period of neurosurgical training at the Maudsley Hospital in 1959 and, having then undertaken registrar posts in other surgical specialties, obtained the FRCS (Edinburgh) and FRCS (England) in 1962. He entered post-fellowship neurosurgical training at the Guy’s-Maudsley unit in 1963, as both a registrar and a senior registrar, on a programme which rotated annually with the Brook Hospital, Shooter’s Hill. He was trained by Murray Falconer, Peter Schurr and Jeffrey Maccabe at the Maudsley, and by Geoffrey Knight, John Gibbs and George Northcroft at the Brook; and also by the renowned neuroradiologist, Richard Hoare. During this time, he was remembered not only as a highly-regarded trainee by his consultants, but also as a marvellous draughtsman whose meticulous drawings in the operation notes and in the clinical records were admired by his contemporaries. It should be recalled that this was before the introduction of computerised neuro-radiological imaging, so that such illustrations formed an important part of clinical practice. It was also during this time that he developed his clinical skills, in large measure as a consequence of regular Saturday morning training sessions (almost compulsory for trainees and consultant staff alike) with neurologists at Guy’s Hospital. Knowledge acquired from such sources led to his later description of himself as a ‘surgical neurologist’ rather than as a neurosurgeon. During the Second World War, neurosurgical care in the south west of England was provided in Bristol, with cases from south Wales also being transferred there. Subsequently, regional centres were developed in Cardiff and at Morriston Hospital, Swansea. When the original consultant neurosurgeon, Charles Langmaid, moved back to Cardiff he was replaced by Norman Whalley, who was subsequently joined by Donald Provan. Sadly, both surgeons died at a young age. They were replaced by Peter Wilson (in 1968) and Ian Cast (in 1970). Between them they laid the foundations for, and developed, a thriving department, which covered a wide range of adult and paediatric neurosurgical practice in what was perhaps the ‘golden age’ of the generalist. In keeping with their Maudsley Hospital training close links were developed with the departments of neurology and radiology. Contact with referring hospitals was established by the introduction of peripheral clinics in Neath, Bridgend, Aberystwyth and Carmarthen. Theatre and ward standards had always been high and, in 1975, Peter, together with Ian Cast, managed to establish one of the earliest neurointensive care units in the UK by setting aside several dedicated beds on the neurosurgical ward. In 1976 Morriston Hospital had its first CT scanner, but this was used as an adjunct to, rather than as a replacement for, clinical assessment. In 1977, a dedicated spina bifida unit was opened in collaboration with the department of neurosurgery, a development which came about as a result of the high incidence of neural tube defects at that time. Peter is remembered as a methodical and painstaking clinician who showed great attention to detail and as a writer of copious notes in a beautiful script. Whilst at times he could appear a somewhat imposing figure, he showed great commitment to the welfare of patients and to the training of medical and nursing staff, and allied professions. In particular, he recognised the importance of neuropsychology in the management and rehabilitation of head injured patients, and he gave encouragement and training opportunities to neuropsychology trainees. Indeed, the unit which he helped to develop was one of the first to have a ward-based neuropsychologist. He had a particular interest in surgery for spinal stenosis and in the management of cerebral aneurysms for which treatment options included proximal (Hunterian) carotid ligation (a technique he had learned from John Gibbs), wrapping or clipping. At the time of his retirement his legacy was of an active training unit with a well-motivated team of ward and theatre staff. Over many years, Peter had numerous letters published in the *British Medical Journal*. The subject matter of these contributions was diverse, a reflection of his own broad-ranging intellectual interests. A short list should give a sense of the variety of his contributions: nail-gun injuries; a possible diagnosis of ulcerative colitis in Bonnie Prince Charlie; functional budgeting in the NHS; diagnosis of brain death, the effects of hemispherectomy for epilepsy in children; and (leaning heavily upon his classical education and with tongue definitely in cheek) a learned contribution on ‘the humble fart’. A contemporary consultant colleague who remembers him with affection provides further insight into his character: ‘Peter was an erudite consultant colleague who was always logical, precise and highly articulate, and these qualities made him stand out in such a way that some colleagues found it difficult to get close to him. However, these qualities were overridden by kindness in his relationship with his patients in whose company he often appeared to be a different man. … He was not a committee man, but when there was an issue debated at the Swansea medical staff committee which could have adverse consequences for neuroscience he was a formidable advocate, ably supported by his close colleague Ian Cast. He was a man who was able to engineer and lead changes in a complex clinical scenario, embracing the amazing radiological developments that were occurring.’ He continued with his medico-legal practice long into retirement but found more time to indulge other intellectual pursuits, including music, literature, Scrabble, crosswords and gardening. Throughout his career, he had collected material focusing on how developments in philosophy had influenced western medical practice and had latterly embarked on putting this together as a PhD thesis. His interests were far-reaching and he was always keen to expand his range of knowledge so he was ever the ‘go to’ person for family, particularly for grandchildren looking for help with homework. Peter died on 15 December 2019 at the age of 86 and was survived by his wife of 55 years, Patience (née Wood). They had met on a general surgical ward at the Royal West Sussex Hospital in Chichester, where he was working as a surgical registrar in 1961. He made his first move by kissing her whilst dressed as Father Christmas. They were married the following July and three children soon followed, two of whom survive him. Mark, the eldest, trained as a primary school teacher but is now an artist. James trained as a physiotherapist but tragically died of leukaemia in 2002. Felicity, the youngest, was also a primary school teacher. He was also survived by seven grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009799
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Willway, Francis Wilfred (1907 - 1944)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-12-18
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004700-E004799
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376982376982
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Born 28 August 1907 at Gorleston, near Great Yarmouth, the third child and second son of Frederick William Willway, MRCS 1894, superintendent of the National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, who afterwards lived at Streatham, and of Margaret, his wife, daughter of William Allison, MD Edinburgh 1865, who practised at Killaloo, Co Derry, Ireland. He was educated at Trent College and University College School, London, and at King's College, Strand, where he graduated in science in 1928 and was later elected an Associate, and at King's College Hospital, where he won the Jelf medal in 1930. After serving as house surgeon at the Ross Institute for Tropical Diseases and senior house surgeon at the Royal East Sussex Hospital, Hastings, he was resident surgical officer at the Royal Manchester Children's Hospital, and then came back to King's College Hospital, where he served as casualty officer and as surgical registrar. He took the Conjoint qualification, the London Bachelorships, the Fellowship, the Mastership, and the Doctorate in successive years, 1930-34. Willway was at first interested chiefly in the surgery of fractures, but after his appointment in 1936 as surgical registrar at the Royal Infirmary, Bristol, he turned to neurosurgery and was a pioneer of this specialty in the west country. He was subsequently (1942) elected assistant surgeon on the staff of the Bristol Royal Hospital, of which the Royal Infirmary is a constituent, and was also assistant surgeon at the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Welbeck Street, W, and had consulting rooms both at 62 Queen Anne Street, London, and in Bristol, where he lived at 2 Clifton Park, and later at 31 Queen's Court, Clifton. During the war he was appointed surgeon to the Neurosurgical Centre at the Burden Neurological Institute, Bristol, under the Ministry of Health's emergency medical service, and deputy regional adviser on head injuries. At the time of the severe air-raids on Bristol in 1940-41 he organized a mobile surgical unit, and devised a working scheme for the rapid reception of casualties. He also took charge of the emergency arrangements at the Royal Infirmary, and proved himself as brilliant an organizer as he was intellectually. Willway was one of the first in England to perform W Freeman's modification of Egas Moniz's operation of prefrontal leucotomy for mental illness, and based his Hunterian lecture of 1942, "The role of surgery in mental disease", on his results. He professed to have no special knowledge of psychology, but showed great interest in the mental progress of these patients. The treatment consists essentially in passage of a hollow needle with a stiletto into the white matter of the frontal lobes on either side the mid-line, and in section of the white matter so as to interfere extensively with the frontal-thalamic connexions. Invented by Egas Moniz of Lisbon, following his observation that euphoria follows injury to the frontal lobes (*Amer J Psych* 1936-37, 93, 1379), the operation was adapted by W Freeman of Washington (*Med Ann District of Columbia*, 1939, 8, 345), who obtained some successes in chronic depressed obsessional states. It was developed in England by Willway and others for chronic depression, involutional melancholia, and schizophrenia. Willway was sceptical of its scientific basis. (See papers by G W T H Fleming, F E Fox, E L Hutton, J S McGregor, and J R Crumbie in *Lancet*, 1941, 2, 3 and 7; 1943, 1, 361; *J merit Sci* 1942, 88, 275 and 282; also R D Gillespie in *Brit Encyc of med Pract, Med Progress*, 1944, page 72, "Mental diseases".) In the later years of his short life Willway carried on a very active professional career with great gallantry, while suffering from Hodgkin's disease, of which he died at Bristol on 6 January 1944, aged 36. He was buried at Arnos Vale, after a funeral service in the chapel of the Royal Infirmary. He was unmarried. Wilfred Willway was a man of courage and initiative, with great intellectual activity, and a good talker on the many subjects which interested him. He could play four games of chess and converse at the same time. Publications: Detection of lactosuria by Castellani-Taylor mycological methods. *J trop Med* 1931, 34, 133. Follow-up of a series of cases of obscure chronic malaria treated at the Ross Institute for Tropical Diseases. *J trop Med* 1933, 36, 42. Treatment of dislocations from the point of view of the general practitioner. *Med Press*, 1933, 187, 566. Treatment of fractures of the neck of the femur. *Med Press*, 1934, 188, 312. Plaster of Paris in treatment of Colles's fracture, simple technique used in 50 consecutive cases, with H Blauvelt. *Lancet*, 1935, 1, 609. Ether convulsions with normal behaviour during subsequent ether anaesthesia. *Brit med J* 1935, 1, 764. Intestinal obstruction by gallstones, with C P G Wakeley. *Brit J Surg* 1935-36, 23, 377-394. *Neurosurgery, in Rose and Carless Manual of surgery*, 15th edition by Wakeley, 1937. Modern views on head injuries. *Malayan med J* 1937, 12, 88. Clinical features and treatment of injuries to brain. *Malayan med J* 1937, 12, 119. Progressive post-operative gangrene of skin; recovery without operation, with C P G Wakeley. *Brit J Surg* 1937-38, 25, 451. The modern treatment of spina bifida. *Med Press*, 1938, 197, 210. Some problems in the diagnosis and treatment of intracranial tumours. *Bristol med-chir J* 1938, 55, 151. A guide-dog for the blind. *Bristol med-chir J* 1938, 55, 235. Head injuries in war-time. *Bristol med-chir J* 1940, 57, 91. Some observations on sending assistance to bombed towns. *Brit med J* 1942, 2, 552. The role of surgery in mental disease, Hunterian lecture RCS 1942. Technique of prefrontal leucotomy. *J ment Sci* 1943, 89, 192.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004799
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Thorburn, Sir William (1861 - 1923)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-12-20 2017-05-22
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003200-E003299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375450375450
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Born in Manchester on April 7th, 1861, the son of John Thorburn, Professor of Obstetric Medicine at Owens College, Manchester, and Physician to the Manchester Royal Infirmary. He was educated at Owens College, and received his professional training at the Infirmary and in London, where his passage through the examinations of London University was brilliant. In 1884, on passing the BS, he obtained the gold medal in surgery, and on passing the MB he obtained the scholarship and gold medal for medicine and obstetric medicine. After admission as FRCS in 1886, he brought out the posthumous *Treatise on the Diseases of Women*, which his father, then recently dead, had already begun to pass through the press. In 1883 he became House Surgeon to James Hardie (qv) at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, and so stimulated that rather retiring surgeon that his classes at once became famous. On obtaining the Surgical Registrarship at the Infirmary he came under the influence of Dr James Ross, who inspired him to investigate the distribution of the spinal sensory roots. His first articles, dealing with the cervical roots, were published in *Brain* in January, 1887, and October, 1888. Subsequently, in the *Medical Chronicle* of April, 1889, he dealt with the lumbosacral roots and first described the anaesthetic 'saddle-shaped' area on the buttocks and thighs caused by lesions of the lowest part of the spinal cord and its roots. In June, 1889, a tumour of the cauda equina was investigated by him, confirming his previous views. Subsequently, as years went by and clinical opportunities arose (for he never did animal experiments), he was able to map out the whole body in the sensory areas proper to each sensory root. Although slight correcting modifications in these areas have been made by others, yet Thorburn's work on this all-important part of neurology was not only pioneer work, but was a complete work. Thorburn had already ventured a prediction which his own investigations and successful operations did much to verify - namely that, acting under strict antiseptic precautions and aided by modern knowledge, surgeons would probably, in the near future, open the spinal cord with as little danger and as little hesitation as they operated upon the cavity of the cranium. All of which has come to pass, but under the proviso laid down by Thorburn that the accuracy of diagnostic methods must be increased. Thorburn also early investigated the nervous symptoms following accidents of various kinds - what was called 'traumatic hysteria', especially in relation to railway accidents, and in which no organic changes had been produced or were observable. The terms 'railway spine' and 'concussed spine' were then common, but are now assessed at their true clinical value (*see* PAGE, HERBERT WILLIAM). These early observations led directly to his great life work, and resulted in his reaching one of the highest positions as a sagacious, reliable, and successful surgeon, and he became well known as an authoritative referee in railway cases. He won the Jacksonian Prize in 1890 with his essay on "The Nature and Treatment of Injuries of the Spinal Column and the Consequences arising there from". In 1894, as Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology, he delivered a masterly course of lectures at the College entitled, "The Surgery of the Spinal Cord and its Appendages". In December, 1922, as Bradshaw Lecturer, he summed up his operative experience during thirty years and the modifications in his views thereby entailed. After serving as House Surgeon in the Manchester Royal Infirmary, Thorburn filled various offices, and in 1889 was elected Assistant Surgeon, and succeeded Walter Whitehead (qv) as Surgeon in 1900. He retired in 1921 and became Consulting Surgeon. In the University of Manchester he was Professor of Clinical Surgery (Emeritus at the time of his death), and in the Council and Senate a trusted adviser. At the Royal College of Surgeons his career was distinguished. He was a Member of Council from 1914-1923, and a Member of the Court of Examiners from 1913-1923. He was at one time Examiner in Surgery at the University of London. As President of the Manchester Medical Society he brought the Library of that body and the Medical Library of the Manchester University into closer touch. As a Member of the British Medical Association he was Vice-President of the Section of Surgery at the Manchester Meeting of 1902, and at the Cambridge Meeting of 1920 he opened the discussion on the end-results of injuries to the peripheral nerves treated by operation. On the outbreak of the Great War he was placed in charge of the Surgical Division at the 2nd Western General Hospital. In 1915 he went out as Consulting Surgeon to the Expeditionary Force in the Mediterranean, and saw service in Malta, Gallipoli, and Salonika. At a later date he was Consulting Surgeon to the Forces at Le Treport, in the Rouen area, and proved a source of strength to the officers about him. For these services he was decorated in 1919 a Knight Commander of the Military Division of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. In 1890 he married Miss Augusta Melland of Manchester (d1922), by whom he had three sons and three daughters. All his sons were killed in the Great War, the last in Gallipoli in 1915. Thorburn died at his London address, York Gate, Regent's Park, on March 18th, 1923, and was survived by three daughters. He was a precise thinker and speaker who would probably have done equally well had he chosen the Bar as his profession. He possessed the faculty of summing up the points of a difficult subject and could crystallize the ideas expressed in a debate in a few well-chosen and clear words. Publications: *A Contribution to the Surgery of the Spinal Cord*, 8vo, illustrated, and a bibliography, London, 1889; American edition, 1889. "The Nature and Treatment of Injuries to the Spinal Column, and the Consequences arising therefrom" (Jacksonian Prize Essay, 1890), MS, 4to, plates, 1890. *Course of Instruction in Operative Surgery in the University of Manchester*, 12mo, Manchester, 1906. *The Evolution of Surgery*, 8vo, Manchester, 1910. "Operations upon the Spinal Cord" in Burghard's *System of Operative Surgery*, iii. "On Injuries of the Cauda Equina." - *Brain*, 1887-8, x, 381. "Spinal Localizations as illustrated by Spinal Injuries." - *Ibid*, 1888-9, xi, 289. "Hypertrophic Pulmonary Osteo-arthropathy." - *Brit Med Jour*, 1893, i, 1155. "Symptoms due to Cervical Ribs." - *Med Chronicle*, 1907-8, xiv, 165. "The Sensory Distribution of Spinal Nerves." - *Brain*, 1893, xvi, 355. "Cases of Injury to the Cervical Region of the Spinal Cord." - *Ibid*, 1886-7, ix, 510.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003267
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Stammers, Francis Alan Roland (1898 - 1982)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

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/379154379154
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details There was always something of a military bearing about Alan Stammers. Handsome, upright, level-headed, he had an able and generous mind and was always to be counted on to do the right thing by his patients, his medical students, young aspiring surgeons and his colleagues. It was characteristic that when joining a colleague or junior walking a hospital corridor he would always adjust his step to be in accord with that person. This military trait could be attributed to his involvement in two world wars. In 1913, in the new cadet corps of Dudley Grammar School, he was one of the first Corporals and at summer camp in 1914, with three other schools, he became Sergeant-Major. He used to say that it was the brass bands which encouraged him to enlist at the age of 18 and to set aside his entry to the Birmingham Medical School. After being a cadet in the Artists Rifles, he became a gunner in the Royal Garrison Artillery and as Lieutenant commanded a railway mounted 12" howitzer on Kummel Hill, Belgium, where he was wounded in the leg in 1918. He recalled how painless was the moment of wounding and how incredibly painful that wound became. After the war he returned to the Birmingham Medical School gaining before qualification a BSc of which he was proud. It was undoubtedly the touchstone for academic and professional achievement in later years. The 1920's were years of training in the Birmingham General Hospital and Children's Hospital under Gamgee, Barling, Sampson and Leather, interspersed by attendance at the notable FRCS course at the London Hospital in 1925, while in 1929 he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship at the Mayo Clinic, USA. Here he studied neurosurgery under Adson and after visiting other neurosurgical centres returned home to become Birmingham's first neurosurgeon. With appointments to the Birmingham General and Children's Hospitals he rapidly built up a large consulting practice. Besides becoming adept in the injection and operative procedures for trigeminal neuralgia, he developed those recently discovered by Hunter and Royle for sympathetic nervous system, particularly peripheral vascular conditions of the hand and leg. Retaining his Territorial Army commitment as a Major in 14 General Hospital by 1938, he was recalled immediately in September 1939, becoming Lieutenant-Colonel and 2nd I/C 89 General Hospital. After 2 years in Sierra Leone he returned to become Brigadier, consultant surgeon Western Command. He was remembered with admiration and gratitude when as consulting surgeon to forward areas of the Allied Armies in Italy and Austria, 1944-45, he and his jeep were constantly noticed well forward giving support to the surgical teams at the front. He was twice mentioned in despatches and was appointed CBE (Mil) and also Hon Colonel (TARO) RAMC in 1945. He received the Territorial Decoration and clasp. Returning from the war to his old neurosurgical and general surgical practice he became a candidate for the first full time Chair of Surgery at Birmingham University. Once appointed he committed everything to establish one of the finest professorial surgical units in the country, with special interests in gastroenterology, vascular surgery, cancer surgery and follow-up, thoracic and the emergent heart and transplant surgery. Besides the 60-bedded clinical facilities with undergraduate teaching and examination commitments he developed a research laboratory on a scale new to the UK. He attracted aspiring surgeons from the whole country and overseas. The results of his remarkable ability as a leader in surgical practice and surgical training became clear when of his assistants, six became Professors of Surgery or headed specialist units, while at the College one became President, three Vice-Presidents, six members of Council and four served on the Court of Examiners. One was a Jacksonian Prizewinner and several were Hunterian Professors. His contribution to the practice of surgery included work on trigeminal neuralgia, sympathectomy for peripheral vascular conditions (also for hypertension in those days), the costoclavicular syndrome, and in particular gastric surgery. His literary contributions were noted for his work on the results of surgery for peptic ulcer and gastric cancer. He was also recognised for his contributions in respect of war surgery. He was a pioneer of surgical audit and began 'deaths and complications' meetings in 1950. He served the College as an elected member of Council (1957-65), member of the Court of Examiners (1950-56), examiner in physiology for the Primary FRCS (1963-65) and besides overseas examinerships was the Conjoint Board inspector of the University of Khartoum and the Medical Services of Equatoria. His service to other bodies included membership and Presidencies of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, the Section of Surgery of the Royal Society of Medicine, the West Midlands Surgical Society, the Midland Medical Society. He was Visiting Professor of Surgery to Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School 1950. He was much involved in the medical educational development in Birmingham and after retirement the Regional Hospital Board. In 1933 he married Lois Marris, the daughter of a Birmingham general practitioner and herself a Birmingham Medical School graduate. It was a marriage of continued mutual support and happiness. They had one son and two daughters, one of whom became a physiotherapist. Rather unexpectedly Lois died in 1978 and Alan, stunned by the loss of his partner, died on 12 December 1982. As Jenner said of Hunter, he was a 'dear man'.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006971
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Dinning, Trevor Alfred Ridley (1919 - 2003)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-09-23 2010-01-27
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000000-E000099
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372237372237
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Trevor Dinning, known since childhood as ‘Jim’, was the architect of neurosurgical services in South Australia and the creator of a very successful research foundation. He was born in Dulwich, Adelaide, on 16 February 1919, the second child of Alfred Ernest Dinning, a school inspector and later headmaster of Adelaide Boys High School, and Maud Isabel née Ridley, who died two years after his birth. He was educated at his father’s school and then went on to study medicine at the University of Adelaide, qualifying in 1942 in the top three of the year after completing a shortened wartime course. In 1943 he joined the Army, serving as a captain in the Northern Australia Observer Unit and then in the 2nd 17th Australian Infantry Battalion. He developed pulmonary tuberculosis, which incapacitated him for some two years. He was discharged from the Army in 1946. It was at this time that he decided to make a career in neurosurgery. After his recovery, he took an appointment as lecturer in anatomy at the University of Adelaide, under the brilliant neuro-anatomist Andrew Abbie. During this time he wrote a paper on healed fractures in aborigines, based on the collection of skeletons in the South Australian Museum. Work as an anatomist doubtless contributed to his success as a surgeon: as an operator he was at his best in procedures demanding exceptional anatomical skill. At that time, it was virtually impossible to train as a specialist neurosurgeon in Australia, so, on a grant from the Royal Adelaide Hospital, Jim went to the UK. He entered neurosurgical training at Guy’s Hospital under Murray Falconer. During this appointment he was first author of a paper on ruptured intracranial aneurysm as a cause of sudden death, the work being based on forensic cases. Falconer had been a pupil of Sir Hugh Cairns, who was a pupil of the pioneering American neurosurgeon Harvey Cushing. Jim was to exemplify the best qualities of the Cushing/Cairns school – great interest in the neurosciences, unhurried and meticulous operative technique and total commitment to the welfare of patients. Jim returned to Australia in 1953 and took up an appointment in the Royal Adelaide Hospital, where he was to work for the next 30 years under a variety of titles – first as a member of the honorary staff, then from 1970 as full-time director of neurosurgery. After his resignation in 1979 he remained as a visiting consultant until 1983. He was also chief of neurosurgery in what is now the Women’s and Children’s Hospital. In both hospitals he rapidly established modern neurosurgical units, with rigorous attention to quality control and case audits. He was not the first neurosurgeon to serve these two hospitals – he was preceded Sir Leonard Lindon, one of the founders of Australian neurosurgery. Sir Leonard welcomed and supported Jim, but it is true to say that the development of an integrated state-wide neurosurgical service was very largely Jim’s achievement. He gave special attention to the needs of South Australians living in country areas, and in the 1960s persuaded the then minister of health to equip country hospitals with instruments to care for head injuries. Although he was happiest in his work in public hospitals, he ran a well-organised private service, chiefly at the Memorial Hospital, where after his retirement he treated cases of intractable pain. As a consultant neurosurgeon, Jim was liked and trusted by his colleagues, and admired as a superb diagnostician. As a doctor, he was warm and compassionate. Jim planned his unit with research in mind. When he had promising trainees, he placed them in overseas units with good research facilities, where they learned the skills that have since helped to make Adelaide a leader in head injury research. Most imaginatively, he created in 1964 what is now the Neurosurgical Research Foundation (NRF) to raise funds to sustain research work. The foundation received support because community leaders knew Jim and trusted him, and it received donations from those who knew him as a good doctor. In 1988, when Jim was president of the NRF, fundraising for an academic chair in surgical neuroscience was initiated, and in 1992 the University of Adelaide established a chair of neurosurgery research. This very productive chair is one of Jim’s greatest achievements. Jim was a master of bedside teaching, and he also taught by example. No one who worked with Jim could fail to know that he practised medicine according to the highest ethical standards and expected that his pupils would do the same. His teaching was fruitful. Today, Adelaide’s neurosurgeons are all in a sense his pupils. Some were directly recruited and trained by him. Others came to him trained elsewhere but are proud to have learned from him. Even those who came after his retirement were taught by his trainees and worked in the environment that he made. On a national level, Jim was a major force in the creation of neurosurgical training systems in Australia, which began around 1970, when he was president of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia. Outside Australia, some of Jim’s pupils now hold distinguished neurosurgical positions in Scotland, England and New Zealand. One of his earliest interns, J K A Clezy, was the first professor of surgery in Papua New Guinea, and brought neurosurgery to that country. Jim married Beatrice Margaret née Hay in 1943 and they had one son, Andrew, and three daughters – Anthea, Josephine and Nadia. He had many interests outside his profession, including photography, farming, stock-breeding, bee-keeping and sailing. He died on 22 September 2003 from chronic renal failure after a long illness. He has many memorials. He is commemorated by the Dinning Science Library at the Royal Adelaide Hospital, which is appropriate – he was a very scholarly man. He is remembered in the research foundation that he created. And, lastly, his example and his teaching have entered into the fabric of Australian neurosurgery.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000050
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Evans, Sir Charles Robert (1918 - 1995)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-09-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007900-E007999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/380107380107
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 Sargent, Sir Percy William George (1873 - 1933)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-10-30
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004500-E004599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376756376756
Occupation General surgeon Neurosurgeon
Details Born at Chester on 8 May 1873, the second child and eldest son of Edward George Sargent, a bank manager, and Emily Grose, his wife. His brothers were Dr Eric Sargent, the Rev D H G. Sargent (who died 19 July 1935), and the Rev E H Gladstone Sargent, and he had four sisters. He was educated at Clifton College and at St John's College, Cambridge. In 1895 he competed for the University entrance scholarships at St Mary's Hospital and at St Thomas's, and having been elected to both he chose to go to St Thomas's Hospital. Here he acted as house surgeon to William Anderson in 1899, was elected surgical registrar in 1901, resident assistant surgeon in 1903, assistant surgeon in succession to F C Abbott and demonstrator of anatomy in 1905, surgeon and lecturer on surgery in 1916, and part-time, unpaid director of the surgical unit in 1930. In 1905 he was appointed assistant surgeon at the Victoria Hospital for Children, Tite Street, Chelsea, becoming surgeon in the following year. On 15 May 1906 he was elected assistant surgeon to the National Hospital, Queen Square, for the Relief and Cure of Diseases of the Nervous System including Paralysis and Epilepsy, where he became surgeon on 19 January 1909. From 30 March 1912 he held a commission as medical officer in the First County of London Middlesex Yeomanry (T) and on the outbreak of the war he was gazetted captain, RAMC (T), and went to France. His services as a specialist were quickly recognized, and with Dr Gordon Holmes he was employed, with the rank of temporary honorary lieutenant-colonel from 13 December 1914, to form a small neurological unit, whose aid could be invoked in difficult cases throughout the whole British Expeditionary Force in France. The work they did was not only invaluable to their colleagues but materially advanced knowledge about the localization of function in certain areas of the brain. He took charge at a later period of a department established for the treatment of those still suffering from remote injuries of the nervous system, and rendered much assistance to the Ministry of Pensions. For his services he was rewarded with the DSO in 1917 and with the CMG in 1919, and was created a Knight Bachelor in 1928. At the Royal College of Surgeons he delivered the Erasmus Wilson lecture in 1905 taking as his subject "Peritonitis, a bacteriological study", and in 1928 he acted as Hunterian professor of surgery and pathology, when he lectured on the "Surgery of the posterior cerebral fossa". In 1923 he was elected a member of Council, and at the time of his death he was acting as junior vice-president. He married in 1907 Mary Louise (d 1932), daughter of Sir Herbert Ashman, Bt, the first Lord Mayor of Bristol, who had received the honour of knighthood on the steps of the Council House when Queen Victoria visited Bristol on 15 November 1899. He died in London after an acute attack of influenza on 22 January 1933 survived by his father, two sons and a daughter, and was buried at Redland Green cemetery, Bristol. As a surgeon, Sargent operated with great dexterity, rapidity, and gentleness. His operations were models of skill and almost perfect restraint. He did not restrict himself to the surgery of the brain, but throughout his professional life he performed his duties at St Thomas's Hospital as a general surgeon. As a teacher he was brilliant, and made his rounds in the wards so interesting and amusing that one of his pupils described them as being a succession of social gatherings. As a man he was slightly above middle height with a well modelled figure and keen intellectual features, soft voiced and somewhat caustic in speech, though his remarks were always tempered with a pleasant and disarming smile. He was possessed of a strong vein of benevolence and charity, which was perhaps inherited, for two of his brothers were ordained in the Church of England, to which he himself, though born a nonconformist, was admitted late in life. His father was well known for half a century in the religious life of Bristol, and Percy Sargent was interested in the welfare of children from an early period in his career and did much work for the Children's Invalid Aid Society, where he succeeded Sir D'Arcy Power as chairman of the Battersea branch. Later in life he was the active and useful secretary of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund. Early initiated in the Cheselden lodge, he made rapid progress in masonry, took high rank in many of its branches and was appointed a senior grand deacon in the United Grand Lodge of England in 1915. Lionel Horton- Smith published two copies of Latin verses addressed to him, one a birthday greeting on his coming of age, the other a mock elegy upon him as slain in a combat of wit. Publications: *The bacteriology of peritonitis*, with L S Dudgeon. London, 1905. *Surgical emergencies*. London, 1907. *Emergencies in general practice*, with A E Russell. London, 1910. Closure of cavities in bone. *J Roy Army med Cps*, 1919, 32, 83. Diseases of the appendix. Choyce's *System of surgery*, 1912; 2nd edition, 1923. Haemangiomatous cysts of the cerebellum, with J Godwin Greenfield. *Brit J Surg* 1929-30, 17, 84. Treatment of gliomata and pituitary tumours with radium, with Stanford Cade. *Ibid* 1930-31, 18, 501.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004573
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Learmonth, Sir James Rognvald (1895 - 1967)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-08-26
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005800-E005899
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/378067378067
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details James Learmonth was born on 23 March 1895 at Gatehouse-of-Fleet, in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, the elder son of William Learmonth and Kathleen Macosquin Craig. His father, a native of Edinburgh, was the headmaster of the parish school of Girthon, having previously spend many years in Orkney. His mother came from Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Learmonth's second Christian name, with its Scandinavian spelling, was used by his family and his contemporaries for many years. His scholastic training began under favourable auspices, for his father was a typical Scots dominie with a wide range of scholarship, and gave him by his example and influence a powerful intellectual stimulus. He continued his education at Kilmarnock Academy, and in April 1913 he entered the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Glasgow. His medical studies were interrupted by the first world war in which he saw active combatant service, having been commissioned to the King's Own Scottish Borderers. A gruelling period in France was followed by a tour of duty as officer-in-charge of the Anti-Gas School, Scottish Command. He returned to the University of Glasgow in October 1918 graduating MB ChB with Honours in June 1921; he gained the Brunton Memorial Prize as the most distinguished graduate of the year. After holding the posts of house physician and house surgeon at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow, he was appointed assistant to Professor Archibald Young, first at the Anderson College of Medicine and later at Glasgow University. In the interval, during the year 1924-1925, he made his first visit to the United States, having been elected to a Rockefeller Fellowship of the Medical Research Council to be spent at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota. Here he came under the aegis of Dr Alfred W Adson in the section of neurosurgery, an experience which was to influence much of his surgical life. Returning to Scotland he obtained his ChM degree with high commendation in 1927 with a thesis on the pathology of spinal tumours, and in the following year his FRCS Edinburgh. This was succeeded by an invitation from Dr Will Mayo to join the permanent staff of the Mayo Clinic. From 1928 to 1932 his work was concentrated on his chosen specialty, and he was appointed Associate Professor of Neurological Surgery in the University of Minnesota. Much time was also spent in research, mainly on the innervation of the bladder. His interest was greatly aroused in the role of surgery of the sympathetic nervous system in treatment of peripheral vascular disease and pelvic dysfunction. In October 1932 he was appointed to the Regius Chair of Surgery in the University of Aberdeen in succession to Sir John Marnoch. He remained a faithful alumnus of the Mayo Clinic, however, and was gratified when some thirty years later, in 1964, he received a Mayo Centennial Outstanding Achievement Award. In Aberdeen he still retained his special interest in surgical neurology but his clinical range was widely extended, both in teaching and in practice, to include all fields of surgery. He became increasingly involved also in the tasks of administration and medical school planning at Foresterhill, the new home of the Aberdeen School. In 1935 he was honorary surgeon to HM The King in Scotland. He was Vice-President of the Section of Surgery at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association that year, and President of the Section in 1939. In 1939 he succeeded Sir David Wilkie as Professor of Systematic Surgery in the University of Edinburgh. The onerous duties which now confronted Learmonth, especially anxious to justify his election to this chair, were not lessened by the outbreak of war which considerably disrupted the work of his department. Learmonth and his depleted staff made an important contribution to the care of the wounded by organising a unit at Gogarburn Hospital for the treatment of peripheral nerve and vascular injuries, as well as meeting the demands of the civilian population at the Royal Infirmary. For his wartime services he was appointed CBE in 1945. In 1946 he took over the Regius Chair of Clinical Surgery vacated by Sir John Fraser. As the holder of both Edinburgh chairs he was fully engaged in teaching and administration as well as his own practical surgery. He organised the rapidly-developing units in vascular, thoracic, paediatric, plastic, and urological surgery, and he instituted, as a forum for surgical discussion, a Saturday morning departmental meeting, which has become a regular feature of the Edinburgh scene and a valuable training ground for young surgeons. He was elected President of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland in 1948. In that year he was called in to attend King George VI at Buckingham Palace. On 12 March 1949, assisted by James Paterson Ross and others, he carried out a successful lumbar sympathectomy for the relief of impaired circulation of the King's right leg. He later received the accolade of KCVO at the Sovereign's hands. In 1950 he was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. In 1951 he was appointed a member of the Medical Research Council and in the same year was awarded the Lister Medal "in recognition of his distinguished contribution to surgical science". In 1954 he made a tour of Australia as a Sims Travelling Professor. His international reputation was attested by his election to Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and of the American College of Surgeons in 1949, of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons in 1954, and of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1954. In addition he was made, *honoris causa*, a Doctor of Medicine of the University of Oslo in 1947, a Doctor of Laws of the Universities of Glasgow (1949), St Andrews (1956), and Edinburgh (1965). He was a member or an honorary member of many surgical societies including the International Surgical Society, the Academies of Surgery of Paris, of Lyons, of Belgium, and of Denmark, and an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Medical Society of Edinburgh. In September 1956 he decided to retire from Edinburgh University. He had found the pace becoming too fast and the strain increasingly severe. He chose to live in the pleasant village of Broughton, in Peebleshire, resisting the call to return to his native Galloway. Now within convenient reach of both Edinburgh and Glasgow he was able to indulge in the quiet pleasures of the countryside, tending his modest garden with scientific care and reading the classics of English and ancient literature, biographies and history. From 1960 to 1966 he served as Assessor of the General Council of the Court of the University of Glasgow, an appointment which gave him much satisfaction. He died on 27 September 1967, of bronchial carcinoma, at the age of seventh-two and was cremated privately in Edinburgh. He was survived by his wife, Charlotte Newell Bundy of St Johnsbury, Vermont, USA whom he first met at the Mayo Clinic and married in 1925. There were two children, Jean Katherine Bundy born 1929, and James William Frederick born 1939. Learmonth's literary output was considerable; 118 papers stood in his name as author or co-author. The impressive list of his publications covered a wide range but were mainly concerned with his specialties, vascular and neurological surgery. Notable amongst his contributions were the Heath Clark Lectures (1947) on the *Contribution of surgery to public health*, the Harveian Oration on the *Surgery of the spleen* (1951) and the Linacre Lecture on the *Fabric of surgery* (1953). He was the MacEwan Lecturer in 1956 and the John Fraser Lecturer in 1961. In 1954 he delivered the Stephen Paget Lecture on the *Surgeon's debt to animal experiment*. Learmonth had an intellectual appearance, studious and alert, not tall but of sturdy physique; purposeful, quiet-spoken with a quick wit and a dry humour. His eyes had a quizzical, if at times a searching and slightly disapproving look, often modified by a shy disarming smile. If under stress he seemed austere and even brusque, in his relaxed moments he had a boyish gaiety and was warm-hearted and kind. He was held to be supremely competent as a surgeon of the academic type, his skill being based on his profound knowledge of anatomy and pathology and his wide scholarship. Meticulous and painstaking to a degree, he was careful and delicate in the handling of human tissue. He was gentle, reassuring and courteous to his patients. He was a fine teacher and gave much encouragement to research projects, not only in the subject under investigation but on the literary standard to be attained on publication; if his comments were sometimes outspoken, they were always fair. He maintained the highest ethical standards of the profession. His hobbies were few and he never indulged actively in sports, but he played an occasional game of golf; he had the rare pleasure once of doing a hole in one at Spey Bay. He also enjoyed watching cricket. When pressed to contribute his "scientific philosophy" to a Mayo Clinic publication in the year of his death, he summed it up characteristically by quoting the principles which Francis Bacon declared should guide the ideal scientist. To these he added Sydenham's comment that "he had weighed in a nice and scrupulous manner whether it be better to serve men or to be praised by them" and, as Learmonth wrote, "decided on the former". Selected publications: Leptomengiomas (endotheliomas) of the spinal cord. *Brit J Surg* 1927, 14, 397. The innervation of the bladder. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1932, 25, 24. The surgery of the sympathetic nervous system. *Brit J Surg* 1937, 15, 426. *The contribution of surgery to preventive medicine*. Heath Clark Lectures, 1949. London, 1951. *The fabric of surgery*. Linacre Lecture, 1952. *The Eagle*, 1953, 55, 119. *A search for similarities*. Macewen Memorial Lecture. Glasgow, 1956. *Surgery and the community*. Maurice Bloch Lecture. Glasgow, 1960.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005884
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Cushing, Harvey Williams (1869 - 1939)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-06-20 2020-08-05
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004100-E004199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376315376315
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details Born in Cleveland, Ohio on 8 April 1869, the youngest of the nine children of Henry Kirke Cushing (1827-1910), MD, LLD, professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at Western Reserve Medical School, and Betsey Wilkinson, his wife. His grandfather and great-grandfather had both been members of the medical profession. The family was of puritan English stock and had been in New England from 1638 till the migration to Ohio in the mid-nineteenth century. Cushing dropped the use of his second name, Williams, to avoid confusion with his Harvard con¬temporary Dr Hayward Warren Cushing who also practised at Boston; the confusion first became inconvenient in 1895, Harvey Cushing dropped the W from his publications in 1900 and gave up the name completely in 1912 when he settled at Boston. Cushing took his bachelor of arts degree at Yale University in 1891, when Chittenden was teaching nutritional physiology, and graduated master of arts and doctor of medicine at Harvard in 1895. He acted as house officer at the Massachu-setts General Hospital during the year 1895-6. He then went to Johns Hopkins Hospital at Baltimore, serving as assistant resident surgeon to William S Halsted 1896; resident surgeon 1897-1900; instructor in surgery 1897-98; assistant in surgery 1898-99; and associate in surgery 1899-1900. During this period he came under the influence of William Osler, who did much to stimulate his abilities and something to mould his character. During the year 1900-1901 he visited Europe and studied surgery under Theodor Kocher and physiology under Hugo Kronecker in Switzerland, under Mosso at Turin, and under Charles Sherrington and A S F Grunbaum (from 1915 A S F Leyton) at Liverpool. Returning to Baltimore he resumed his former position as associate in surgery at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and Medical School 1901-02, becoming associate professor of surgery 1903-12. He migrated to Boston in 1912, where he was Moseley professor of surgery in the Harvard University Medical School 1912-32, and emeritus professor 1932-39; surgeon-in-chief at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital 1912-32, and surgeon-in-chief emeritus 1932-39. He gave up active surgical practice in 1932, and went to New Haven as Sterling professor of neurology at Yale University 1933-37, emeritus professor 1937-39, and associate Fellow of Trumbull College 1933-39. From 1937 until his death he filled the post of director of studies in the history of medicine at the Yale School of Medicine. During the first world war he left Boston for France in March 1915 with the Harvard unit to serve in the American ambulance at Neuilly, was director of the United States army base hospital No 5 from May 1917 to November 1918, served as an operating surgeon with the British Expeditionary Force, and in 1919 was transferred to the medical headquarters of the American Expeditionary Force as senior consultant in neurological surgery. For his services he was made a military Companion of the Bath 1919, Chevalier, Légion d'Honneur 1922 and Officier 1927, and received the United States Distinguished Service Medal in 1923. He gave accounts of his war experiences in several articles (Nos 147, 148, 152, 157, 158, 165, 168, 169, 170, 113 in the *Bibliography* of Cushing's writings issued by the Harvey Cushing Society in 1939) and in greater detail in his book *From a surgeon's Journal* 1915-1918, Boston and London 1936 (Nos 22, 23). There were five printings of the Boston volume and one issue for England and Canada, 16,460 copies in all. In October 1918 he had a severe attack of acute polyneuritis, but recovered sufficiently to reach England in January and the United States in February, and was discharged at Washington 9 April 1919. Early in 1920 Lady Osler asked him to write a life of her husband Sir William Osler who had died on 29 December 1919. The work was a labour of love. Cushing never once mentioned himself in *The Life*, though he had been an intimate friend for more than thirty years. It took five years to complete, and the two volumes were published at Oxford by the Clarendon Press in 1925 (No 6). *The Life of Sir William Osler* was a great success and was awarded the Pulitzer prize as the best biography of the year. A one-volume edition was printed on India paper (No 7), and was reissued in 1941 on ordinary paper. From 1920 to 1933 Cushing worked at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, having a suite of rooms in which he lived, going home occasionally to see his wife and children. Operations and consultations both on private and hospital patients were undertaken in the hospital but a theatre was not specially reserved for the use of "The Chief", as he was called affectionately by the students and his assistants. In 1931 he was offered the post of professor of the history of medicine in the Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, in succession to Professor W H Welch who had resigned. He accepted the invitation but afterwards withdrew, and Professor H E Sigerist was appointed. His term of service as surgeon-in-chief at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital came to an end in 1932, and he returned to Yale as professor of neurology, and was appointed consulting neurologist to the New Haven Hospital. Failing health made him resign these posts and for the last two years of his life he employed himself in completing for the press his magnum opus *Meningiomas* (No 24) which represents twenty-five years of work, an also worked at his *Biobibliography of Andreas Vesalius* published posthumously in 1943. He married in 1902 Katherine Stone Crowell Cleveland. She survived him with one son and three daughters. The elder son was killed in a motor accident in 1926 while he was a student at Yale; the second daughter Betsey married James Roosevelt, son of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States 1932-45. Cushing died of coronary thrombosis on 7 October 1939. Harvey Cushing was the founder of neurosurgery. He began his professional life as a general surgeon, perhaps with a slight bias in favour of abdominal surgery, but from 1902 onwards he devoted himself to the surgery of the brain, and ended by specializing in the operative treatment of cerebral tumours. It is said that when he retired from Boston in 1932 he was removing nearly two hundred tumours a year, with a very low rate of mortality. He had then educated a school of pupils, and their pupils in turn had made his methods known throughout the world. As an operator he was satisfied with nothing less than perfection. He worked very slowly, in complete silence, and a single operation might take from three to six hours. He was particularly careful to keep the field of operation free from blood and had invented a suction apparatus for the purpose, which in his hands was very efficient. The blood thus saved was stored and was used for transfusion at the end of the operation if it was required. Late in life he also adopted the electric knife. As a man he was slightly above middle height, 5 ft 9 in, of spare build, with pleasant and clean-cut features. He spoke quietly and without emphasis. His wit was quick and ready, and his repartee, though effective and sometimes dictatorial, left no sting. He moved quickly and almost with a dancing gait. He was equally at home in the United States and in Great Britain and was ever welcomed with enthusiasm by his many friends. He was deeply cultivated in the *literae humaniores*, a lover of good books and the collector of a very fine library, which he bequeathed to Yale. The catalogue of it was published in 1943. He had a genius for friendship, saw the best points in everyone, and was wholly free from malice. Full of ideas, he grasped the need for using the talents of everyone. A supreme individualist, he had learnt on the Yale baseball team, in which he played for three years, the value of team work and of the necessity for men in one centre to know by practical experience what was being done elsewhere. With this desire he instituted at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital the practice of inviting surgeons to take charge for a few weeks annually. In 1922 he came to London as visiting surgeon at St Bartholo¬mew's Hospital, while Sir Cuthbert Wallace of St Thomas's Hospital took his place in Boston. Always generous, he asked that the income derived from the Charles Mickle Fellowship, which had been awarded him by the University of Toronto in 1923, should be given to some brilliant undergraduate to enable him to study cerebral surgery in Boston. Unsought honours were showered upon him both at home and abroad. At the Royal College of Surgeons of England, in addition to receiving the Honorary Fellowship in 1913, he delivered the Lister memorial lecture in 1930 and was awarded the Lister medal and prize. He paid several visits to the College, the last in July 1938 when he was on his way to Oxford to receive the honorary degree of DSc from the university. On the occasion of this visit several pleasing photographs were taken by Professor John Beattie of him talking to Sir Charles Sherrington, Sir D'Arcy Power, Dr Arnold Klebs, and Professor Lynn Thorndike, over the College's collection of books by Vesalius. His seventieth birthday was celebrated at New Haven on 8 April 1939 by the presentation of a bibliography of his writings, prepared by the Harvey Cushing Society. It shows that he had written thirteen books and 330 articles. The portrait which appears as the frontispiece is a speaking likeness. Sir D'Arcy Power, who wrote the foregoing, confessed himself "too sad" at Cushing's death to write adequately about him. The following sketch of Cushing's activities is therefore added to his memoir: While at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cushing had been taught the necessity for speed in operating, and he retained through life the ability to work brilliantly at high speed in emergency, but he learnt from Halsted the greater needs of gentleness, scrupulosity, and avoidance of blood-loss. His interest began to turn to neurosurgery in his first years at Baltimore, and during his year of travel he completed at Bern an experi-mental investigation (No 50) of the effects of increased intracranial tension on arterial blood pressure. Next, under Sherrington, he took part in comparative studies of the anthropoid brain. During this year he also found time for the first, and in some ways the most charming, of his historical essays: "Haller and his native town" (No 47) dated from "Bern, March 20, 1901", and re-issued posthumously in the volume of essays called *The medical career* 1940. He had become convinced of the necessity for the surgeon to base his work on wide scientific knowledge, and for this end he founded on getting back to Baltimore the "Hunterian laboratory" for "comparative surgery". He later organized a similar laboratory of surgical research at the Brigham Hospital, Boston. He also educated himself very thoroughly as a general neurologist, before undertaking to advance the more technical operative side of his chosen specialty. Cushing had an iron constitution and his operations, often lasting many hours, wore out all his assistants, but only failure depressed him. A few hard games of tennis were all the recreation he sought. He kept elaborate notes and drawings of his work, and published them with scrupulous honesty. The series of his books on brain surgery and brain tumours, and his annual reports, with his numerous clinical articles, form perhaps the most remarkable record of a surgical career ever penned. He was able to record an ever-growing practice and an ever-decreasing mortality. His annual reports of later years at the Brigham and many of his public addresses, at least from his address at the last International Medical Congress in 1913, also carry a forthright expression of his decided views on wider social and cultural aspects of practice. The most brilliant students flocked to his clinic, and though severe in his demands and his criticism he knew the importance of training disciples and had, unconsciously, the power of evoking affection as well as admiration. Already in 1898 he had begun to experiment in cocaine anaesthesia (No 28) and nerve blocking, unaware of the dramatic history of his master Halsted's own experiments of fifteen years before. And in 1902 he was early in the field afterwards so fully exploited by G W Crile, of Cushing's native Cleveland, of avoidance of shock in surgical cases (No 51). At that time he was also a pioneer in America of the study of blood-pressure changes, at which he had worked in Switzerland and Italy (Nos 50, 51, 52 and especially 55). By 1904 he had begun to operate for cerebral tumours (No 62), the field which he afterwards made peculiarly his own and which he published his great series of books: *Tumors of the nervus acusti* 1917 (No 3), *Classification of gliomas* 1926 (No 8), *Tumors arising from blood-vessels* 1928 (No 13), *Intracranial tumors: 2000 cases* 1932 (No 16 and *Meningiomas* 1938 (No 24). His more strictly laboratory work concerned itself chiefly with the physiology of the hypophysis. His first book *The pituitary body and its disorders* 1912 (No 1) was the first clinical monograph on the hypophysis and a landmark in modern endocrinology It was followed by his *Studies in intracranial physiology: The thin circulation; The hypophysis; The gliomas* (Cameron prize lecture, Edinburgh 1926 (No 10); *Pathological findings in acromegaly* 1927 (No 12 issued by the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research, and containing the most detailed pathological study of individual cases of acromegaly ever made; *Pituitary body, hypothalamus, and parasympathetic nervous system* 1932 (No. 20): this includes a reprinting, without addition, of his original description earlier in the same year (No. 298) of the syndrome of pituitary basophilism, which came to be generally known as "the Cushing syndrome". In 1928 he began to introduce electro-surgical methods into his armamentarium (No 269). At his sixtieth birthday in 1929 he was presented with a Festschrift of papers by his pupils and disciples, *The Harvey Cushing birthday volume*. His war years were equally well documented. In 1918 he contributed to the *British Journal of Surgery*, v 5, a study of wounds involving the brain (No 169), and he edited his private war diaries, which had been published already in part, in 1936: the book became a best-seller (see above). At page 197 he records the death from wounds of Revere Osler, only son of Sir William on 30 August 1917. The tragedy is recorded also in his *Life of Osler* at vol 2, page 576, though there without mention of Cushing's having been with Revere at the end. Cushing had formed close friendships with Osler, Halsted, and Wm H Welch while at Baltimore, and after Osler's translation to Oxford in 1908 he was a frequent visitor to "The Open Arms" in Norham Gardens. He formed many English friendships, of which the warmest was perhaps with Sir D'Arcy Power his senior by fourteen years. They had a common interest, encouraged by Osler, in their love for medical books. This interest also brought Cushing into friendship with F H Garrison, MD, assistant librarian of the Army Medical Library and the authoritative historian of medicine, and with Arnold C Klebs, MD, the Swiss-American humanist, who became the most intimate friend and constant adviser in the collecting of renaissance and other historical scientific books. On moving from Boston to New Haven in 1932 Cushing unfortunately sold his fine collection of modern neurological books, as he had suffered severely from the financial depression. But his main library, which he had for long thought of selling, "so that others might repeat the pleasure he had had in bidding for the books", perhaps the richest in renaissance science ever collected by a private man, he bequeathed with endowment to Yale where it has been joined by the collections of Dr Klebs and Dr John F Fulton. On this library he based a number of essays and historical studies (eg Nos 224, 246, 247, 260, 277, 279, 295, 319, 323, 325). He did not live to complete his greatest undertaking in this field, *The Biobibliography of Andreas Vesalius*, which was published with splendour in 1943; Cushing had made himself the leading authority on Vesalius and amassed the finest Vesalius library ever brought together. His "popular" writings were collected into two charming books *Consecratio medici* 1925 (No 15) and *The medical career* (posthumously published) 1940. While of tireless energy and brilliantly alert, Cushing suffered from several severe illnesses. The polyneuritis which supervened on his war work has been mentioned; he also developed a gastric ulcer for which operation was necessary, and suffered from a painful inflammation of the surface blood-vessels, especially of the feet. Cushing aimed at perfection in all his activities: he was in a rank by himself as a surgeon and teacher, the results of his scientific researches were of first importance, he was an accomplished writer, a skilled draughtsman, and an expert bibliographer. His commanding manner was softened by his zest and humour, and the Sunday afternoon tea-parties, at which he dominated and charmed the company, were eagerly frequented. Publications:- Cushing's writings are recorded in *A bibliography of the writings of Harvey Cushing* Menasha, Wisconsin: George Banta publishing Co for the Harvey Cushing Society 1939. The College library has a copy of the special issue, inscribed by Cushing. His principal writings have been mentioned in the memoir above; the following were published posthumously:- *Harvey Cushing's seventieth birthday party, April 8, 1939, Speeches, letters and tributes*. Menasha, C C Thomas for the Harvey Ching Society 1939. *A bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius* edited by John F Fulton, MD New York: Schuman's, 1943. *The Harvey Cushing collection of books and manuscripts* Catalogue by Margaret Brinton and Henrietta Perkins. Yale medical library, Historical library, publication No 1 New York: Schuman's, 1943. *A visit to Le Puy-en-Velay: an illustrated diary* [August 1900]. Cleveland: The Rowfant Club, 1944. Limited edition, with facsimiles.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004132
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Cairns, Sir Hugh William Bell (1896 - 1952)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-02-03
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004900-E004999
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377123377123
Occupation Neurosurgeon
Details He was born in South Australia 26 June 1896 son of William Cairns, a carpenter and builder of Port Pirie near Adelaide, and Amy Florence Bell his wife; both parents survived their son. William Cairns was a collateral relative of the Ulster family, whose most famous member Hugh, 1st Earl Cairns (1819-85), was twice Lord Chancellor of England; but he himself was a man of humble means who emigrated from Glasgow to Australia in search of health; his wife was of Australian descent in the third generation; she died near Oxford on 18 October 1964 aged 97. Hugh Cairns was educated at the High School and the University, Adelaide, qualifying in 1917. He had already served in the ranks of the Australian Army since the outbreak of war in 1914, and now was commissioned in the Australian Army Medical Corps and went on active service to the Middle East and France. In January 1919 he entered Balliol College, Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, and rowed against Cambridge in the boat-race of 1920. He took the Fellowship at the end of 1921 and held resident appointments at the Radcliffe Infirmary under E C Bevers, and the London Hospital, where he was house officer to Henry Souttar and George Riddoch. He was a Hunterian Professor at the College in 1926, lecturing on neoplasms of the testicle. At this time he was chiefly interested in genito-urinary surgery, but during a long visit to America with a Rockefeller Fellowship he came under the influence of Harvey Cushing and turned to neuro-surgery. At about the same time Geoffrey Jefferson at Manchester and Norman Dott at Edinburgh were specialising in the same field. Cairns was elected an assistant surgeon to the London Hospital in 1926, became neuro-surgeon in 1933, and was afterwards a consulting surgeon. Cairns was interested in the advancement of knowledge, and in developing the new method of practice based on the team or unit at the hospital. He made all his patients, and they were very numerous, consult him at the London Hospital in the East-end, and kept no West-end consulting room. His mastery of surgery was matched by the personal gifts of the complete physician. Cairns's heart was at Oxford, and it was his vision and advice, in cordial co-operation with that of the Regius Professor Sir F Buzzard, which are believed to have determined the form taken by Lord Nuffield's benefactions to the Oxford medical school. Some have doubted whether Oxford is a city large enough to provide material for a number of professors at the highest clinical level, but in Cairns's case there could be no question of the mutual fitness of the task and the man. At the age of 41 he gave up the prospect of a great metropolitan career, and set about creating a school of neuro-surgery at Oxford. He was appointed the first Nuffield Professor of Surgery with a unit at the Radcliffe Infirmary in 1937, and was elected a Fellow of Balliol; he proceeded to the DM degree in 1938. He already had an international reputation as a brain surgeon, and could have won the widest fame and a large fortune by devoting himself entirely to practice; or he might have enjoyed the comparative leisure of pure scientific research for which he was thoroughly equipped. He preferred however a third, more arduous and less profitable, choice: a combination of research and teaching. This brought its own reward in the creation of a school in which, by strenuous activity, he won the devotion of several generations of students in the few years that fate allowed to him. He picked his students and drove them almost as hard as he drove himself. Within two years of his starting work at Oxford war again broke out, and Cairns threw himself with characteristic energy into new spheres. His work during the war was notable not only for its surgical achievement, but for the vision with which he advocated and used the newest advances of medicine and organisation. He devised a crash-helmet and a leg-shield for motor cyclists, which saved innumerable lives and prevented countless fractures among dispatch riders. He also planned the mobile operating theatres for neuro-surgery, which proved of the greatest value in the fast-moving battles of the North African deserts. From Cushing he had learnt that the surgeon himself ought to master the various specialties which in practice are provided by the different members of his team. He also learnt from Cushing to record every case with as much precision and detail as if it were to be written up and published. The German neuro-surgeon and physiologist Otfrid Foerster, who similarly combined clinical and research work, also influenced him deeply. He collaborated closely with his physician colleagues, when surgeon to the Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy, Maida Vale, 1931-34, and to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, 1934-37, where he was associated with Sir Charles Symonds FRCP; this association was renewed during the war years, when St Hugh's College, Oxford was converted into a neuro-surgical hospital. He collaborated with Dorothy Russell in studying the neuropathology of gliomas and of subdural haematoma, and after the introduction of penicillin he took a major part in its rapid adoption, collaborating with Honor Smith in a study of the application of antibiotics to pyogenic and tuberculous meningitis; this fundamental research was undertaken during busy clinical and administrative war-work. He collaborated with M H Jupe FRCS in a study of neuro-radiology; he himself studied akinetic mutism, the experimental physiology of leucotomy, and neuro-ophthalmology; in this last field he made considerable personal observations, charting his patients' visual fields. At the end of his life he was working on the problem of consciousness. Russell Brain his one-time colleague at the London pointed out that "while he made no great discoveries in the field of disordered function under conditions accessible only to the neuro-surgeon, his keen observations were an education to his colleagues as well as to his pupils". Cairns's experience during the war was summarised in the chapters which he contributed to the *War Supplement* No 1, *Wounds of the head*, which he compiled and edited for the *British Journal of Surgery*. His statesmanlike outlook and his war experience led him to advocate a combined medical service for the Navy, Army, and Air Force. He served with the rank of Brigadier AMS, and was created KBE in 1946. This wide outlook, combined with his Australian birth, won him appointment as the first Sims Travelling Professor, when Sir Arthur Sims endowed his great foundation in 1948; Cairns visited Africa, Australia, and New Zealand. He not only lectured and visited hospitals, he entered with his characteristic friendliness into the medical life of the communities he visited, and he gave much thought to the future development of inter-commonwealth medical education. In his report he suggested that the time was ripe for "Rhodes scholarships in reverse"; this prophecy was fulfilled when the State of Victoria's "British Memorial Fund", for scholarships for British scientists and scholars to visit Australia, was announced on the day of his death. He visited America again in 1950 and quickly familiarised himself with the latest developments of neuro-surgery there. In particular he became interested in the use of surgical intervention for alleviation of mental disease. He advocated and developed the operation of hemispherectomy, devised by his pupil Rowland Krynauw of Johannesburg, which gave promise of being more selective and less damaging than others then in use. Cairns seemed to be endowed with perpetual youth; strongly built, vigorous, handsome, he radiated encouragement and energy. But he was struck down by malignant disease and died a few weeks after his fifty-sixth birthday, on 18 July 1952, at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. Cairns married in 1921 Barbara Foster, youngest daughter of Arthur Lionel Smith, Master of Balliol. They lived at 24 St John's Wood Park, London, and later at 29 Charlbury Road, Oxford, with a country home at The Old Rectory, South Stoke, near Arundel, Sussex. The marriage was singularly happy, and brought Cairns into a large and distinguished family circle. Lady Cairns survived him with two sons and two daughters; his parents also outlived him. The funeral service was at the University Church of St Mary the Virgin, Oxford on 22 July, and a memorial service was held in the same church on the 25th. At St Philip's Church, London Hospital, Whitechapel, a memorial service was held on 30 July, when Sir Russell Brain PRCP delivered the funeral oration. Towards the end of his life Cairns filled many arduous offices and delivered a number of important lectures. He served on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, 1942-50. The West London Medico-chirurgical Society awarded him its triennial medal in 1935. He gave the Lister lecture of Adelaide during his Australian visit of 1948, when he was elected MD ad eundem, and the Horsley lecture at University College, London, in 1949. He was President of the Section of Neurology at the Royal Society of Medicine in 1944, of the Society of British Neurological Surgeons in 1946-48, the Association of Surgeons in 1947, and the Section of Neurology at the annual meeting of the British Medical Association at Liverpool in 1950. He was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons at Melbourne in 1948, an Honorary Doctor of Science of Northwestern University, Chicago in 1950, and a Corresponding Member of the Académie de Chirurgie at Paris. He visited Louvain in November 1951, while his friend Professor John Fulton of Yale was there as temporary professor of physiology; Fulton noticed that the Belgian students flocked about him "enthralled by his magnetism and fire". In April 1952 he was elected a member of the Academy of Arts and Sciences of Portugal. His interest in rowing and cricket, in music and books, and his fund of anecdote made him a delightful companion. His success in affairs was partly due to his enthusiasm, always expressed in clear and logical argument. At the suggestion and with the support of Lord Nuffield the University of Oxford in 1957 established a fund for neurological research in Cairns's memory. Principal Publications: Neoplasms of the testicle. Hunterian lectures, RCS. *Lancet* 1926, 1, 845. Study of intracranial surgery. *Spec Rept ser, Med Res Counc*, 125, 1928. Observations on localisation of intracranial tumours; disclosure of localising signs following decompression or ventriculography. *Lancet* 1929, 1, 600-603; *Arch Surg* 1929, 18, 1936-44. Ocular manisfestations of head njuries, with C Goulden and others. *Trans Ophthal Soc UK* 1929, 49, 314-352. Observations on treatment of ependymal gliomas of spinal cord, with G Riddoch. *Brain* 1931, 54, 117-146. Intracranial and spinal metastases in gliomas of brain, with D S Russell. *Brain* 1931, 54, 377-420. Subdural false membrane or haematoma (pachymeningitis interna haemorrhagica) in carcinomatosis and sarcomata of dura mater, with D S Russell. *Brain* 1934, 57, 32-48. Accessory methods of diagnosis in intracranial tumours and allied diseases. *Trans Med Soc Lond* 1935, 58, 50-74. Ultimate results of operations for intracranial tumours; study of series of cases after nine year interval. *Yale J Biol Med* 1936, 8, 421-492. Injuries of frontal and ethmoidal sinuses with special reference to cerebrospinal rhinorrhoea and aeroceles. *J Laryng* 1937, 52, 589-623. Observations on pathology of Ménières syndrome, with C S Hallpike. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1938, 31, 1317-1336, and *J Laryng* 1938, 53, 625-654. [The first demonstration that dilatation of the membranous labyrinth is a proximate cause of the disease.] Peripheral ocular palsies from the neurosurgical point of view. *Trans Ophthal Soc UK* 1938, 58, 464-482. Investigation of war wounds: penicillin; a preliminary report, with H W Florey, K C Eden, and J Shoreston. *War Office publication*, AMD 7-90 D, 1943. Head injuries in motor cyclists, with special reference to crash helmets. *Brit med J* 1943, 1, 591. Penicillin in head and spinal wounds. *Brit J Surg* 1944, 32, 199. Wounds of the head. *Brit J Surg, War supplement*, 1, 1947, edited by Cairns and including his papers: Neurosurgery in the British Army 1939-45, pp 9-26. Localized hydrocephalus following penetrating wounds of the ventricle, with Peter Daniel, R T Johnson, and G B Northcroft, p 187. Delayed complications after head wounds, with especial reference to intracranial infection, with C A Calvert, Peter Daniel, and G B Northcroft, p 198. Disturbances of consciousness with lesions of the brain-stem and diencephalon. Victor Horsley memorial lecture, University College Hospital, 8 December 1949. *Brain*. 1952, 75, 109-145, published posthumously.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004940
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset

First Title value, for Searching Horsley, Sir Victor Alexander Haden (1857 - 1916)

2024-05-07T11:46:02Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-04-25
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002200-E002299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374450374450
Occupation Neurosurgeon Pathologist Politician
Details Born at 128 Church Street, Kensington, on April 14th, 1857. His grandfather was William Horsley, musician; his father, John Callcott Horsley (1817-1903), RA, and Treasurer 1882-1897, author of *Recollections of a RA*, an opponent of the Pre-Raphaelites, of the Paris Salon, and of the nude model of his day, a persona grata to Queen Victoria - hence the name Victor. His mother was Rosamund, sister of Sir Francis Seymour Haden (qv), etcher and surgeon, second wife of Victor's father, Victor being the third child. The sister of his father, Miss Sophy Horsley, was a distinguished pianist and a friend of Mendelssohn, who dedicated to her some of his pieces. One of the grandfather's daughters married Isambard Brunel, the engineer, who by inhaling a half-sovereign became a remarkable surgical case. Horsley inherited from his father a fine figure and face, had a rather dolichocephalic head, and the hands of an artist, musician, and surgeon. He was brought up largely at his father's country house, Willesby, near Cranbrook, Kent, where he had the opportunities afforded by country life which early drew him towards natural history. He began to learn French from his governess, and then from 1866-1873 attended as a day-boy the Elizabethan school at Cranbrook. But Cranbrook made no impression on him, nor he on Cranbrook. "He ought to have gone to some great public school far from home" (*see* Paget's biography, p14). But Horsley's peculiar intellect would have rebelled against being drilled into uniformity, and he went on to University College, into the atmosphere which distinguished the University of London from Oxford and Cambridge. He learnt enough of the classics at Cranbrook to excite the strong love of archaeology he exhibited throughout life. His genius as a reformer was early exhibited in his sketch of a reformed dress for women which his sister pronounced hideous. He saw something of the local medical practice of Dr T Joyce. He matriculated in 1874 after being coached by Mr (later Sir) Philip Magnus, later MP for the University. He attended University College for the Preliminary Scientific MB course, the Professor of Physics being Sir Carey Foster, who had (Sir) Oliver Lodge acting as a Student Assistant for the Junior Physics Course. From 1875-1878 he worked at anatomy and physiology under Viner Ellis, Dancer Thane, Burdon-Sanderson, and Schafer. Burdon-Sanderson combined experimental physiology and experimental pathology in their bearings on medicine and surgery. He thus became the model which directed Horsley's future. Horsley started hospital work in October, 1878; he acted as Physician's Clerk to Charlton Bastian, who influenced him in opposite directions; he was attracted over aphasia and the sensorimotor functions of the cortex; repelled by spontaneous generation based on imperfect bacteriological methods. His first publication was with Bastian on the combination of arrested development in the right ascending parietal convolution and in the left upper limb. With F W Mott in 1882 he proved the absence of micro-organisms in healthy tissues. He was taught surgery by Marcus Beck (qv), the greatest teacher of students of his day, combining the pathology based on Pasteur with the practice of Lister. The strict adherence to Lister's methods, together with general anaesthesia and some addition of morphia, underlay the whole of Horsley's surgery and of his experiments on animals as well, although through von Bergmann (qv) and Arthur Barker (qv) in later years he made some use of sterilizing methods and of topical anaesthetics. He was Resident House Surgeon for six months under John Marshall, who in 1883 gave the Bradshaw Lecture at the College of Surgeons, "On the Operation of Nerve Stretching", at the production of which Horsley assisted, and clinched Marshall's argument by demonstrating *nervi nervorum*. Horsley's delicate nervous mechanism rejected poisons even in infinitesimal doses; he made fifty hazardous self-administrations of anaesthesia, noting the stages of disappearance and vagaries of consciousness, and of the patellar tendon reflex. He made a slashing attack on tobacco in the Students' Club when clay pipes and coarse quids were thought to be causing cancer in the mouth; cigarette-smoking had just come in and was causing amblyopia. He did not live to see women take to mild cigarettes, but found plenty of evidence that nicotine is a cardiac poison. During the six months as Assistant he was able to prepare for the MB BS and to gain the Gold Medal in Surgery in the summer of 1881. In the autumn of 1881 he went to Berlin with introductions from his aunt, Miss Sophy Horsley, as well as to Leipzig. He thus learnt German and formed his German connection. He was inspired by Cohnheim as regards his future lectures on pathology; had a long controversy with Munk over the prefrontal convolutions, and translated Koch's *Investigation of Pathogenic Micro-organisms* for the New Sydenham Society in 1886. From 1882-1884 he was Surgical Registrar, and Assistant Professor of Pathology, 1884-1887; during this period he did most of his elementary clinical teaching to residents, students, and nurses at University College Hospital. EXPERIMENTAL PATHOLOGY - Burdon-Sanderson had been the first Superintendent of the Brown Institute, and especially through him Horsley was appointed, in succession to Roy, Superintendent for the six years 1884-1890. He was thus put into the peculiar position of head of the laboratory of a hospital for the treatment of diseased animals. In the laboratory there were already workers engaged independently in experimental pathology, both human and animal, whilst a first-class veterinary surgeon treated domestic animals, both as in-patients and out-patients, in accordance with progress already made in medicine, by the use of antiseptics and anaesthetics. It brought Horsley into the public arena over questions of health, and at the same time exposed him to malignant attacks concerning animal experiments. Experiments on animals had been properly regulated by Act of Parliament, and Horsley conformed, and saw to it that co-workers did the same, in respect to the licences and supervision under the Act. No sufficient comprehension of Horsley's achievements at the Brown Institution can be formed except after a thorough study of his Annual Reports, preserved in the University of London. In those Reports are placed on record researches made by a number of independent workers and the important results at which they arrived. One example may be given, "The Chemistry of the Blood, and other Scientific Papers by the late L C Wooldridge", edited by Horsley and Starling. Wooldridge, Assistant Physician to Guy's Hospital, died in the midst of his work, bitterly lamented by Horsley, who attributed his death to cigarette-smoking in excess. In 1879 Claude Bernard said that there was nothing known of the thyroid and suprarenal glands; Kocher and Reverdin drew attention to the cachexia strumipriva which followed upon total excision of the thyroid gland for goitre. Schiff confirmed this experimentally on dogs and rodents. Myxoedema had been described clinically by physicians in London, but it was connected with an antiquated pathology until Felix Semon drew the attention of the Clinical Society to the Swiss observations. A committee of investigation was formed, and Horsley was asked to study the matter experimentally in monkeys. His results were most striking; they opened the way to a conservative surgery, and further, after grafting had been tried, to the administration of thyroid gland preparations begun by George Murray, of Newcastle, student and then House Physician at University College Hospital from 1886-1889. Less generally recognized were Horsley's concurrent experiments on the pituitary body, some twenty in number, in dogs; he used a small trephine with a long shank for the approach through the palate. The temporal route which he adopted for human patients, he returned to in 1911 with Handelsmann, making fifty-four further experiments. Rabies was being repeatedly revived in this country by dogs imported from the Continent. Besides cats, deer in Richmond Park were affected, a mare bitten on the muzzle battered to pieces her stall at the Brown Institute, and was covered with blood before she could be got at and killed. A boy bitten behind the knee, after a latent period of two years and four months from the date of the bite, proved at the time to have been caused by a dog affected by rabies, started symptoms in the persisting scar, and there followed death from hydrophobia, completely confirmed by post-mortem examination. Horsley went over to Pasteur, taking with him the laboratory attendant who was accidentally infected with and died in Paris from the variety of hydrophobia known in the dog as 'dumb rabies'. Horsley became the authority through whom Walter Long (later Lord Long of Wraxall), to his eternal credit, was enabled to withstand the opposition which included his own fox-hunting friends. He introduced the universal muzzling order, and the quarantine at the ports, which stamped out both rabies and hydrophobia. Incidentally the order caused a marked diminution in canine distemper and chorea, and Horsley declared in his Report of 1889 that it was an absurd and cruel fallacy that a dog must have distemper. Horsley co-operated with others in his researches on the brain and spinal cord. He began the minute localization of the cortical function of the brain with Schafer, confirming Ferrier's results on monkeys; then with Beevor, who at the same time made an extraordinary collection of the cerebral tumours observed at the National Hospital. The observations were extended to an orang-utan in 1890, and subsequently by Sherrington and Grunbaum to the chimpanzee and gorilla - all serving as a guide to Horsley in his operations on the brain. F W Mott and Howard Tooth with Horsley experimented upon the spinal cord, its posterior columns and posterior roots; with Schafer, Risien Russell, and R H Clarke, Horsley experimented on the cerebellum. At Oxford, with Burdon-Sanderson and Francis Gotch, his brother-in-law, using a special apparatus, there was electrically demonstrated a current in the spinal cord descending when the cerebral cortex was excited. The current was demonstrated in the spinal cord below the upper limb segment, and above the lower limb segment, when the cortical area for the leg was stimulated. The muscular contractions in the lower limb were first persistent, then rhythmic, corresponding to clinical tonic and clonic convulsions - a demonstration included in the Croonian Lecture in 1891 with Gotch, by which Horsley reached the apogee of his genius. With Felix Semon and Risien Russell were carried through experiments connecting the cortex cerebri with the larynx, and with R H Clarke studies directed to relieve roaring in horses. With W G Spencer were made experiments on intracranial tension, on the connection of the cortex of the brain with the respiratory rhythm, and with the circulation through the carotids. This led to an elaborate research with R H Clarke, and with Kramer, of Cincinnati, on gunshot wounds of the head, and the explosive effect of the modern rifle bullet, due to its velocity. At the outbreak of the War Horsley was the one surgeon in the country who might possibly have saved some among early cases of head injuries before other surgeons had gained experience. Thirty years later there appeared disturbances of the respiratory rhythm caused by scattered lesions of the cerebrum in the course of *encephalitis lethargica*. There was one subject to which Horsley devoted an enormous amount of work in early days without success - general epilepsy - subsequent to experiments by Brown-Séquard, Franc, and Pitres. Horsley was optimistic, hoping for discovery developing out of Hughlings Jackson's focal epilepsy; he studied convulsions produced by poisons and by infective agents, by intracranial pressure, by disturbances of the cerebral circulation, by gunshot injury. Kocher was at that time equally hopeful, believing in a cortical congestion rather than in a cortical anaemia as the immediate forerunner of the fit. After 1890 all the above work was continued at University College. In 1887, from Assistant Professor, Horsley became Professor of Pathology, compiled a syllabus of lectures, following Claude Bernard and Cohnheim, to be accompanied as far as possible by practical demonstrations. He had a most brilliant assistant in Rubert Boyce, who later established the School of Tropical Medicine at Liverpool. Vaughan Harley started the teaching of pathological chemistry in the face of much opposition. Horsley held the post until 1896. He made some general statements at the Nottingham Meeting of the British Medical Association as President of the Pathological Section. He was also a leader in the Pathological Club in bringing to a standstill the London Pathological Society because of its limitation of attention to pathological anatomy. The Section of the Royal Society of Medicine was the successor. MARRIAGE AND FAMILY - The families had long been friends when in October, 1883, Horsley became engaged to Miss Eldred Bramwell, daughter of the engineer Sir Frederick Bramwell, and niece of the judge, George, Baron Bramwell, and they were married in October, 1887. She became in the fullest sense his helpmate. There were three children - two sons and a daughter. Shortly afterwards his sister Rosamund married Francis Gotch, his partner in the most important of his experiments, and later Professor of Physiology at Oxford. His wife supported him in directing his future to include surgery. For a few years they lived in Park Street, Grosvenor Square; from 1891 at 25 Cavendish Square. During the War the eldest son became a Captain in the Gordon Highlanders and was wounded three times. Joining the Royal Flying Corps, he was promoted Flight Commander and was killed while flying on Aug 19th, 1918. His second son was wounded in 1914 whilst in charge of bombers; his injuries during the War precipitated his death subsequently. His daughter accompanied her father and mother to Egypt, where she was severely attacked by dysentery. She later married Stanley Robinson. SURGERY - In 1885 Horsley was appointed Assistant Surgeon to University College Hospital, and in 1886 Surgeon to the National Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy, Queen Square. At University College from 1893 he was styled Surgeon to Out-patients without allotted beds. It was only in 1900 that he came into charge of in-patients as Professor of Clinical Surgery. On the one hand his attention had been drawn to novel and special departments of surgery, and he was temperamentally and by circumstances a teacher not of students but rather of post-graduates. His practice of surgery was dictated by the patients of the National Hospital, which included thyroid gland cases. He began operations there, as Spencer Wells had started ovariotomy at the Samaritan Hospital, without an operating theatre, but it was rendered possible by Listerism. Before him, the surgical treatment had been mainly limited to the subcutaneous tenotomy initiated by Stromeyer and Dieffenbach. (*See* ADAMS, WILLIAM.) In 1884 Alexander Hughes Bennett (son of J Hughes Bennett, the Professor of Medicine in Edinburgh), Physician to the Hospital for Paralysis and Epilepsy, Regent's Park, and Assistant Physician at Westminster Hospital, had, in the light of Hughlings Jackson's clinical observations and the experiments of Ferrier, diagnosed a case of localized lesion in the ascending parietal convolutions giving rise to focal epilepsy. At the Regent's Park Hospital Godlee, later Sir Rickman Godlee (qv), trephined at the spot upon which Bennett put his finger, and scooped out a subcortical tumour the size of a pigeon's egg. The actual cautery was applied to the interior of the cavity to arrest haemorrhage, and to this is attributable the hernia cerebri with inflammation which caused the death of the patient on the twenty-third day. Horsley in the discussion mentioned the preliminary use of morphia. His first operation at the National Hospital was for Jacksonian epilepsy on May 15th, 1886; on May 28th at the Clinical Society he mentioned the ligature of the jugular vein for lateral sinus thrombosis, later developed by Arbuthnot Lane and Charles Ballance. The short paper he read at the Brighton Meeting of the British Medical Association in July concerned three cases of Jacksonian epilepsy set up by a scar, a tuberculoma in the thumb area, and a splinter surrounded by a cyst. He made a semilunar flap, replacing the crucial incision handed down from Hippocrates, liable to be followed by a hernia cerebri. More famous still was the case, with Gowers, of spinal-cord tumour. Horsley had prepared himself by experiments on animals and cadavers. Assisted by Charles Ballance, after exposure of the cord, it was necessary to extend the wound upwards two vertebrae. The patient was exhibited at the Medico-Chirurgical Society (*Med-Chir Trans*,1888, lxxi, 377 (paper); discussion in *Proc Med-Chir Soc*, NS ii, 407). In no operation did Horsley exhibit such marvellous skill as in exposing the spinal cord. To him is due the discovery and relief of varieties of circumscribed pachymeningitis and cystic meningitis. Twenty-one cases were described at Queen Square on Feb 27th, 1909. All the laminectomies done during the War originated with Horsley; there were a few successes, although the injury rendered the majority of cases hopeless. For trigeminal neuralgia there was the avulsion of the third or second branches. Horsley's experiments, in which posterior roots were divided, led him to undertake the division of the main root of the fifth nerve, at first behind a screen in a ward. He prepared himself by animal experiments and dissection of the dead body. The operation had to be interrupted owing to haemorrhage from a petrosal sinus. He tried the zygomatic approach used by Rose, then adopted the temporal Hartley-Krause route. He later reserved the division of the main root, which he did better than anyone else, for recurring cases. In 1905 he reported a series of cases with a mortality of 7 per cent among 149 removals of the Gasserian ganglion: all the deaths were in patients over 50 years of age. In his Linacre Lecture in 1909, after twenty-three years' experience, he ascribed the following functions to the gyrus precentralis of man: (1) slight tactility, (2) topognosis, (3) muscular sense, (4) arthritic sense, (5) stereognosis, (6) pain, (7) movement. At the International Medical Congress in London, 1913, he presided over the surgical division. Howard Tooth had analysed 500 cases of cerebral tumour at Queen Square between 1902 and 1911, in connection largely with which Horsley analysed 265 operations. Speaking generally, decompression was preferable to removal; an alternative to removal was not then under consideration, for radiology was still in embryo. POLITICS - Three opinions extracted from obituary notices: "What demon drove a man of this type into the muddy pool of politics? A born reformer, once in a contest, no manna-dropping words come from his tongue, A hard hitter, and always with a fanatical conviction of the justice of his cause. What wonder that the world's coarse thumb and finger could not always plumb the sincerity of his motives? Let us, as dear old Fuller says of Caius, 'leave the heat of his faith to God's sole judgement and the light of his good works to men's imitation'." (OSLER, *Brit Med Jour*.) "Had he lived, he would have seen many of the reforms he was pressing already adopted, and this only shows how inestimable a benefit to others it is that some men should think differently, and act differently, to accepted customs and traditions." (F W MOTT, *Proc Roy Soc*.) "The day will assuredly come when the crowded and eventful life of Sir Victor Horsley will form one of the brightest and most moving pages in the whole history of British Medicine." (ARTHUR KEITH, *Times Lit Supp*.) At the Church Congress in October, 1892, at Folkestone the subject under discussion was, "Do the interests of mankind require experiments on living animals?" Miss Frances Power Cobbe had published, under her own name, a book entitled *The Nine Circles*. This, after exposure, was excused as having been compiled not by her, but for her. Horsley, then as afterwards in many other instances, demonstrated a *suppressio veri* which silenced antagonists. But there continued a repetition of statements proved over and again to be untrue against him and his work. It embittered his manner on the platform, for the natural Horsley was the ideal captain of a team, helpful, encouraging, abounding in praise of those working under him, perhaps sometimes impatient about progress and choleric, yet over tea there would be expostulations, explanations, extenuations, ending in frank accord. He concocted a rebus, a flying horse with V in position on the saddle. He would begin by bald dogmatic assertion of his case along with depreciation of opposite views, so that within five minutes his opponents were upstanding and interrupting. He would not begin with generalities and soothing clearance of objections. But after things had quieted down he would then develop reasons which appealed to his audience. What if he did use the art of rhetoric - which is the art of speaking in language designed to persuade and impress - even the vituperation of Cicero (*tritium paro*, I disparage), and censure seniors of the General Medical Council or of the Council of the British Medical Association who were forgetting the origin in a Provincial Association governed by a Representative Meeting! If he miscalled the Home Secretary (Mr McKenna) Viscount Holloway (the prison in which the Suffragettes were confined), was it not only by sheer luck that the Minister escaped the responsibility of causing the death of women imprisoned there, in the course of being forcibly fed? His attack on tobacco, already mentioned, gained support during the War, by the 'disorderly heart' which caused so much invaliding of young soldiers. The battle about alcohol continued after him, particularly in the United States; he had produced on himself by inhaling ether the temporary loss of control which occurs when a young person with a full circulation takes a minute dose of alcohol on an empty stomach. The Registrar-General continued to report a high death-rate among doctors from alcoholism and cirrhosis. Even in Egypt Horsley sought to collect evidence against alcohol and the rum ration. He began attending the Metropolitan and Marylebone Branches, also the Annual Representative Meetings, of the British Medical Association. He was Chairman of the Representative Meeting from 1902-1906 and continued a member until 1912. Reforms desired by the representatives, advocated by him, have led to an increase of the Association to include more than two-thirds of the whole profession. There was a temporary resignation of consultants over so-called trade-union methods which did not concern consultants personally. Horsley suffered their opposition, but many of them drifted back quietly into the Association after his death. He was elected President of the Medical Defence Union at a critical juncture in 1892, and occupied the Chair until in 1897 he was elected upon the General Medical Council as one of three direct representatives of the profession. He went to it, as he said, to stir it up. He was re-elected for a second term, at the end of which he did not seek re-election, as he deemed that his objectives had been reached. The one lack of success in relation to the Medical Act of 1858 concerned unqualified practice to which the public accorded support. Improved death registration, medical inspection and treatment of school-children, a Ministry of Health, general improvement in the scientific side of medical education, sick medical insurance and an improved contract practice, State registration of nurses referred to in one of his last letters from Mesopotamia - on all these matters Horsley was in the forefront of the battle, and the subsequent victories enhance his fame. The seat in Parliament for which he was most fitted as an independent Member was that at the University of London, but at the general election in 1910 he had to oppose the sitting Member, Sir Philip Magnus, who had coached him for the Matriculation, and the consultants who had seceded from the British Medical Association voted against him. He was adopted by the North Islington Liberals and Radicals and might have been helped by the University College connection and by the women, including the nurses who canvassed for Sir Richard Barnet when he got in for St Pancras. But Horsley retired when adopted by Market Harborough in January, 1913. Unfortunately the apple of discord was thrown by the Suffragettes, then militant, damaging property and getting themselves forcibly fed in prisons. Between January, 1914, and May, 1915, he was approached by four other constituencies, the last being Gateshead, which he declined on May 17th, 1915, as "certainly anxious to get into Parliament" but just leaving for Egypt. His last political service was rendered between January and August 1914 on the Royal Commission on Venereal Diseases which eventuated in the Government subsidy of hospital treatment. Concerning the religion of such a man, the chapter headed "Brotherhood Addresses" in Paget's book is to be noted. At the outbreak of the War in August, 1914, Horsley ranked as Captain RAMC (T), with previous non-commissioned rank in the Artist Volunteers. He was the one surgeon competent, as an experimental pathologist and surgeon, to have saved lives in those suffering from head injuries or tetanus - an attainment which had to await acquirement of knowledge by others before it could take effect - nor later had he opportunity given him of treating head injuries at an early stage, except after one minor affair against the Senussi on the western border of Egypt. In May, 1915, he was appointed Surgeon to the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force with the rank of Colonel AMS. He served at the base in Egypt, and visited Gallipoli and Mudros. Learning of conditions in Mesopotamia, he volunteered and proceeded there in May, 1916. On June 7th he wrote noting the absence of infusion apparatus for the treatment of cholera, having found a medical officer using a teapot as a substitute. He was not foolhardy; he was not boastful of his resistance as a teetotaller and non-smoker; it was his duty to make a round of hospital visits, and as there was no available conveyance he had to walk across sand with a moist temperature above 110° F in the shade. He was taken ill on July 15th at Amerah, with headache and a temperature of 104° F; no malaria organisms were found in the blood, no enteric organisms. The next day he was unconscious, with a temperature of 108° F. After his death there developed the treatment of heat-stroke by venesection and infusion, based on the experiments by Wooldridge which Horsley had watched in the Brown Laboratory twenty-seven years before - namely, the bleeding of a dog and the immediate infusion of an equivalent amount of fluid. He died at 8.30 pm on July 16th, 1916, at the Rawal Pindi Hospital, and was buried in the Amerah Cemetery, some 80 to 100 of the medical staff attending the funeral. Many honours came to Horsley in the course of his life. He was awarded the Cameron Prize by the University of Edinburgh in 1893; a Royal Medal of the Royal Society in 1904; the Fothergillian Gold Medal of the Medical Society of London in 1896; and the Lannelongue Prize and Gold Medal at Paris in 1911. He was elected a Foreign Associate of the French Academy of Medicine in 1910, and a member of the Society of Upsala in succession to Lord Lister in 1912. The Victor Horsley Memorial Lecture was instituted in his memory. The first lecture was delivered at the Royal Society of Medicine on Oct 23rd, 1923, by Sir Edward Sharpey-Schafer, FRS, Professor of Physiology in the University of Edinburgh, and previously Professor of Physiology and a colleague of Horsley at University College, London. This lecture, on "The Relations of Physiology and Surgery", was published in the *British Medical Journal* (1923, ii, 739). The second lecture, by Wilfred Trotter, MS, FRCS, Surgeon to University College Hospital, assistant to and colleague of Horsley, was delivered at the British Medical Association on July 9th, 1926, the title being, "On the Insulation of the Nervous System"; it may be read in the *British Medical Journal* (1926, ii, 103). The third lecture was delivered by Sir Thomas Lewis on July 16th, 1929, on "Observations relating to the Mechanism of Raynaud's Disease" (*Brit Med Jour*, 1929, ii, 111)
Resource Identifier RCS: E002267
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset