Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon - General surgeon

First Title value, for Searching Wells, Sir Thomas Spencer (1818 - 1897)

2024-05-16T07:12:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-03-22 2012-03-14
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372395372395
Occupation General surgeon Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Born at St. Albans, Hertfordshire, on February 3rd, 1818, the son of William Wells, a builder, by his wife Harriet, daughter of William Wright, of Bermondsey. He soon showed a marked interest in natural science and was sent as a pupil, without being formally apprenticed, to Michael Thomas Sadler, a general practitioner at Barnsley in Yorkshire. He afterwards lived for a year with one of the parish surgeons at Leeds, where he attended the lectures of William Hey II (q.v.) and Thomas Pridgin Teale the elder (q.v.), and saw much practice at the Leeds infirmary. In 1836 he went to Trinity College, Dublin, where he learnt more surgery from Whitley Stokes, Sir Philip Crampton, and Arthur Jacob. In 1839 he entered St. Thomas's Hospital, London, to complete his education under Joseph Henry Green (q.v.), Benjamin Travers, senr. (q.v.), and Frederick Tyrell. Here, at the end of the first session, he was awarded the prize for the most complete and detailed account of the post-mortem examinations made in the Hospital during the time of his attendance. He joined the Navy as an Assistant Surgeon as soon as he had qualified, and served for six years in the Naval Hospital at Malta. He combined a civil practice with his naval duties, and was so highly spoken of that the Royal College of Surgeons of England elected him a Fellow in 1844. His term of service at Malta being completed, he left the Navy in 1848, having been promoted Surgeon on Feb. 3rd of that year. He then proceeded to Paris to study pathology under Magendie and to see the gunshot wounds which filled the hospitals after the struggle in June, 1848. He afterwards accompanied the Marquis of Northampton on a journey to Egypt, where he made some valuable observations on malarial fever. Wells settled in practice at 30 Brook Street, London, in 1853 and devoted himself at first to ophthalmic surgery. In 1854 he was elected Surgeon to the Samaritan Free Hospital for Women and Children, which was then an ordinary dwelling-house - 27 Orchard Street, Portman Square - with hardly any equipment. It had been established for seven years and was little more than a dispensary, as there was no accommodation for in-patients. About the same time he was editor of the *Medical Times* and *Gazette* for seven years (1851 ?-1858). Wells temporarily abandoned his work in London on the outbreak of the Crimean War, volunteered, and was sent first to Smyrna, where he was attached as Surgeon to the British Civil Hospital, and afterwards to Renkioi in the Dardanelles. He returned to London in 1856, and in 1857 lectured on surgery at the School of Anatomy and Medicine adjoining St. George's Hospital, which was commonly known as 'Lane's School'. Wells did an unusual amount of midwifery in his youth, but never thought seriously about ovariotomy until one day in 1848 when he discussed the matter at Paris with Dr. Edward Waters, afterwards of Chester. Both surgeons came to the conclusion that, as surgery then stood, ovariotomy was an unjustifiable operation. Spencer Wells and Thomas Nunn (q.v.) of the Middlesex Hospital assisted Baker Brown (q.v.) in his eighth ovariotomy in April, 1854. This was the first time that Wells had seen the operation, and he admitted afterwards that the fatal result discouraged him. The ninth ovariotomy was equally unsuccessful, and Baker Brown himself ceased to operate on these cases from March, 1856, until October, 1858, when Wells's success encouraged him to recommence. The experience of abdominal wounds in the Crimea had shown Wells that the peritoneum was much more tolerant of injury than was generally supposed. He therefore proceeded to do his first ovariotomy in 1858 and was not disheartened although the patient died. He devoted himself assiduously to perfect the technique, and the rest of his life is practically a history of the operation from its earliest and imperfect stage, through its polemical period, to the position it now occupies as a well-recognized and most serviceable operation, still capable perhaps of improvement, but advantageous alike to the individual, the family, and the State. It has saved many lives throughout the world, has opened up the field of abdominal surgery, and has thereby revolutionized surgical practice. Wells completed his first successful ovariotomy in February, 1858, but it was not until 1864 that the operation was generally accepted by the medical profession. This acceptance was due chiefly to the wise manner in which Wells conducted his earlier operations. He persistently invited medical men in authority to see him operate. He published series after series of cases, giving full accounts of the unsuccessful as well as the successful cases, until in 1880 he had performed his thousandth ovariotomy. He had operated at the Samaritan Free Hospital for exactly twenty years when he resigned his office of Surgeon in 1878 and was appointed Consulting Surgeon. He frequently modified his methods throughout the whole of this time, and always towards greater simplicity. The hospital never contained more than twenty beds, and of these no more than four or five were ever available for patients needing ovariotomy. At the Royal College of Surgeons Spencer Wells was a Member of Council from 1871-1895; Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology, 1877-1888, his lectures dealing with "The Diagnosis and Surgical Treatment of Abdominal Tumours"; Vice-President, 1880-1881 ; President, 1882 ; Hunterian Orator, 1883 ; Morton Lecturer "On Cancer and Cancerous Diseases", 1888 ; and Bradshaw Lecturer "On Modern Abdominal Surgery" in 1890. He received many honours, acting as Surgeon to the Household of Queen Victoria from 1863-1896 ; he was created a baronet on May 11th, 1883, and he was a Knight Commander of the Norwegian Order of St. Olaf. He married in 1853 Elizabeth Lucas (*d*. 1886), daughter of James Wright, solicitor, of New Inn and of Sydenham, by whom he left five daughters and one son, Arthur Spencer Wells, who was Private Secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 1893-1895. Spencer Wells's operations were models of surgical procedure. He worked in absolute silence, he took the greatest care in the selection of his instruments, and he submitted his assistants to a rigorous discipline which proved of the highest value to them in after-life. At the end of every operation he personally superintended the cleaning and drying of each instrument. He was an ardent advocate of cremation, and it was chiefly due to his efforts and to those of Sir Henry Thompson (q.v.) that this method of disposing of the dead was brought into early use in England. Almost to the last Wells had the appearance of a healthy, vigorous country gentleman, with much of the frankness and bonhomie of a sailor. He was an excellent rider, driver, and judge of horseflesh. Besides his London residence, 3 Upper Grosvenor Street, he owned the house and fine gardens at Golder's Green, Hampstead, which were bought for public recreation in 1898. He drove himself daily in a mail phaeton with a splendid pair of horses down the Finchley Road from one house to the other, dressed in a grey frock-coat with a flower in the buttonhole and a tall white top hat. A half-length oil painting by Rudolph Lehmann executed in 1884 represents Wells sitting in the robes of a President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It was bequeathed to the Royal College of Surgeons at his death. A bust executed in 1879 by Oscar Liebreich is in possession of the family. He appears in Jamyn Brookes's portrait group of the Council. PUBLICATIONS:- *The Scale of Medicines with which Merchant Vessels are to be Furnished…with Observations on the Means of Preserving the Health and Increasing the Comforts of Seaman*, 12 mo, London, 1851 ; 2nd ed., 8vo, 1861. *Practical Observations on Gout and its Complications,* 8vo, London, 1854. *Cancer Cures and Cancer Curers*, 8vo, London, 1860. *Diseases of the Ovaries : their Diagnosis and Treatment,* 8vo, London - vol. i, 1865 ; vol. ii, 1872. It was also issued in America, and was translated into German, Leipzig, 1866 and 1874. *Note-book for Cases of Ovarian and other Abdominal Tumours*, 8vo, London, 1865 ; 2nd ed., 1868 ; 7th ed., 1887. Translated into Italian, Milan, 12mo, 1882. *On Ovarian and Uterine Tumours, their Diagnosis and Treatment*, 8vo, London, 1882. Translated into Italian, 8vo, Milan, 1882. *Diagnosis and Surgical Treatment of Abdominal Tumours*, 8vo, London, 1885. Translated into French, 8vo, Paris, 1886.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000208
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bland-Sutton, Sir John (1855 - 1936)

2024-05-16T07:12:34Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2006-05-18 2012-03-22
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Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000200-E000299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372412372412
Occupation Anatomist General surgeon Obstetric and gynaecological surgeon Obstetrician and gynaecologist
Details Born at Enfield Highway on 21 April 1855, eldest son and second of the nine children of Charles William Sutton, who had a farm where he fattened stock, killed it and sold it in Formosa Street, Maida Hill. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Joseph Wadsworth, a Northamptonshire farmer. Bland-Sutton says that he learnt from his father to stuff birds, beasts, and fishes, to charm warts and to pull teeth; from his mother an intimate knowledge of the Bible. Educated at the local school, he acted there for two years as pupil teacher with the intention of becoming a schoolmaster, but being a biologist at heart he determined to become a doctor as soon as he had the money necessary to pay the fees. He attached himself therefore to the private school of anatomy kept by Thomas Cooke, F.R.C.S., which then occupied a tin shed in a disused churchyard in Handel Street, just off Mecklenburgh Square. Here he learnt anatomy, and taught it to lazy and backward medical students until he had earned enough to pay the fees at the Middlesex Hospital. He entered there as a student in October 1878 and was immediately appointed prosector of anatomy, (Sir) Henry Morris being lecturer on the subject. In 1879 he was advanced to be junior demonstrator, became senior demonstrator in 1883 and lecturer 1886-96. In 1884 he was Murchison scholar at the Royal College of Physicians. Two years later he was elected assistant surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital, with the proviso that he should remain in London during the months of August and September, when the senior surgeons were accustomed to take their annual holiday. He performed his duties thoroughly, and devoted himself especially to pelvic operations upon women. In 1886 he became assistant surgeon to the hospital for women, then a small institution in the Fulham Road, and was promoted surgeon six months later with charge of fifteen beds. Here he soon acquired fame as an operating surgeon, and disarmed criticism by welcoming professional men and women to the operating theatre and by publishing his results widely in the medical papers. In 1889 he changed his name by deed pool from J. B. Sutton to John Bland-Sutton. In 1905 he became surgeon to the Middlesex Hospital and filled the post until 1920, when he resigned and was made consulting surgeon. During his tenure of office he was a most liberal supporter of the hospital. In 1913 he presented to it the Institute of Pathology, which was built on the site of the museum, of which he had been curator from 1883 to 1886. To the hospital chapel he gave a beautiful ambry, a piscina, and a font, and made considerable contributions towards the cost of the mosaic pavement in the baptistry. He also assisted largely in the purchase of a playing field for the students of the medical school. At the Royal College of Surgeons he won the Jacksonian prize in 1892 with his essay on diseases of the ovaries and the uterine appendages, their pathology, diagnosis and treatment. In 1885, 1886, 1887 and 1889-91 he gave the Erasmus Wilson lectures on the evolution of pathology. He was elected a member of the Pathological Society in 1882, and served on the council of the society from 1887 to 1890 but held no other office. He was an examiner in anatomy for the Fellowship in 1895. He was a Hunterian professor of comparative anatomy and physiology for the years 1888-89 and gave a lecture again as Hunterian professor in 1916; was Bradshaw lecturer in 1917; and Hunterian orator in 1923. Elected to the Council in 1910, he was vice-president in 1918, 1919, and 1920, and was President for the years 1923, 1924, and 1925, being preceded by Sir Anthony Bowlby and succeeded by Lord Moynihan. In 1927 he was elected a trustee of the Hunterian collection. During the war he was gazetted major, R.A.M.C.(T.) on 16 September 1916 and was attached to the 3rd London General Hospital at Denmark Hill. The surroundings and discipline of a military hospital proved uncongenial, and in 1916 he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel, placed upon an appeal board, and directed to collect he specimens of gunshot wounds which formed a unique display in the museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, till they were destroyed by the bombing of 1941. Always interested in animals, their habits and diseases, Bland-Sutton became a prosector at the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park in 1881 whilst he was still a student at the Middlesex Hospital. He retained his interest in the gardens throughout his life, and in 1928 was made vice-president of the Zoological Society of London. In 1891-92 he lectured on comparative pathology at the Royal Veterinary College in Camden Town in succession to Prof. John Penberthy, F.R.C.V.S. He was president of the Medical Society of London 1914; president of the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland 1929; president of the Royal Society of Medicine 1929; president of the International Cancer Conference held in London in 1928. He was, too, a Knight of Grace of the Order of St John of Jerusalem from 1924. He married: (1) in 1886 Agnes Hobbs of Didcot, who died in 1898; and (2) in 1899 Edith, the younger daughter of Henry Heather Bigg. She survived him but there were no children by either wife. Lady Bland-Sutton died in 1943 and was by her will a most generous benefactress to the College. She founded a research scholarship in memory of her husband, and also bequeathed a suite of Chippendale furniture for the president's room, and the silver table ornaments made for the dining hall at 47 Brook Street, mentioned below, as well as much other furniture. Bland-Sutton died after a short period of failing powers at 29 Hertford Street, Mayfair on Sunday, 20 December 1936. His body was cremated, and memorial services were held in the chapel at the Middlesex Hospital on the 23rd and in Westminster Abbey on 29 December. *Portraits*: Three-quarter length, sitting, in presidential robes, by the Hon. John Collier, R.A., hangs in the Royal College of Surgeons of England. It is a good likeness and is well reproduced in black and white in Sir A. E. Webb-Johnson's eulogy in the *Middlesex Hospital Journal*, 1937, 37, 4, and in the *Annals* of the College, 1950, 6, 362. An earlier portrait by Collier is at the Royal Society of Medicine. The Middlesex Hospital has a marble bust by Sir George Frampton, and a drawing by George Belcher. Bland-Sutton's professional life was typical of his generation. Born into a large middle-class family where money was not too abundant, he had to rely entirely upon himself. This he did, as was then usual amongst the younger men who aspired to the staff of a teaching hospital, by coaching. Some did this by taking a house, marrying, and securing as many resident pupils as possible, each of whom paid an inclusive fee of £126 a year. The less fortunate, like Bland-Sutton, had to content themselves with private classes at £8 to £10 a head, for a three months' course of tuition. The direct way to promotion was through the dissecting room, for as yet pathology was little more than morbid anatomy. Sutton was a first-rate teacher and soon made enough money to travel as far as Vienna. He climbed the ladder by the ordinary steps, slowly at first as a junior demonstrator of anatomy, then as curator of the hospital museum, next as assistant surgeon to a small special hospital, finally as assistant surgeon, surgeon, and consulting surgeon to his own hospital, the Middlesex. He had to fight every step of the way, for there was plenty of competition and continuous opposition, but he had good health, a constant fund of humour, was a loyal friend, and was generous in giving both publicly and in private. He had hobbies, too, which sustained him: a love of travel, a curiosity about animal life and a certain artistic sense. Throughout his life he was a general surgeon, more especially skilled in abdominal operations. Of slight physique and with very small and bright eyes, he had a curious bird-like habit of rapidly cocking his head sideways when he wished to emphasize a joke or a witty remark. A fluent writer and an entertaining after-dinner speaker, he retained and perhaps cultivated his native and marked cockney accent. He lived at 22 Gordon Street, Gordon Square, from 1883 to 1890; at 48 Queen Anne Street, 1890 to 1902, and thereafter at 47 Brook Street, Grosvenor Square. Here he built in 1905, at the back of the house, a copy, reduced by one-third, of the Apodama or audience chamber at Susa or Shushan (in Persia) where it is recorded in the Book of Esther that Ahasuerus gave the great feast and afterwards invited Vashti to show her beauty to the assembled princes and people. In the reduced copy of this splendid hall Bland-Sutton and his gifted wife delighted to exercise a generous hospitality; Rudyard Kipling, and old and intimate friend, was a frequent guest. The house and the hall were pulled down for an extension of Claridge's Hotel, and Bland-Sutton moved finally to 29 Hertford Street, Mayfair. *Publications*: Comparative dental pathology, in J. Walker *Valedictory address*, Odontological Society, 1884. *A descriptive catalogue of the pathological museum of the Middlesex Hospital*, with J. K. Fowler. London, 1884. *An introduction to general pathology*, founded on lectures at R.C.S. London, 1886. *Ligaments, their nature and morphology*. London, 1887; 4th ed. 1920. *Dermoids*. London, 1889. *Surgical diseases of the ovaries and Fallopian tubes*. London, 1891. *Evolution and disease*. London, 1890. *Tumours innocent and malignant*. London, 1893; 7th ed. 1922. Osteology in H. Morris *Treatise of anatomy*, 1893. Tumours, and Diseases of the jaws in Sir F. Treves *System of surgery*, 1895, 1. *The diseases of women*, with A. E. Giles. London, 1897, 8th ed. 1926. Tumours in Warren and Gould *International textbook of surgery*, 1899, 1. *Essays on Hysterectomy*. London, 1904. *Gall-stones and diseases of the bile-ducts*. London, 1907; 2nd ed. 1910. Tumours in W. W. Keen *Surgery*, 1907, 1 and 1913, 6. *Cancer clinically considered*. London, 1909. *Essays on the position of abdominal hysterectomy in London*. London, 1909; 2nd ed. 1910. *Fibroids of the uterus*. London, 1913. *Misplaced and missing organs* (Bradshaw lecture R.C.S.). London, 1917. *Selected lectures and essays*. London, 1920. *John Hunter, his affairs, habits and opinions (the Hunterian Oration)*. London, 1923. *Orations and addresses*. London, 1924. *The story of a surgeon*. London, 1930. *On faith and science in surgery*. London, 1930. *Man and beast in eastern Ethiopia*. London, 1911. *Men and creatures in Uganda*. London, 1933.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000225
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset