Search Results for Medical Obituaries - Narrowed by: Psychiatrist

First Title value, for Searching Jaskowski, Andrzej Piotr Ludwik ( - 1993)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

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/380286380286
Occupation Psychiatrist
Details After qualifying in 1983 Jaskowski spent some time in the department of human anatomy at Oxford. He was later senior house officer at Battledown Hospital, Cheltenham and then held a similar post in psychiatry at Oxford and Banbury Hospitals and in 1992 was clinical research fellow in psychiatry at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. The College was notified of his death in August 1993.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008103
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First Title value, for Searching Ehrlich, Frederick (1932 - 2017)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

by Sarah Gillam
Publication Date 2020-08-12
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009700-E009799
Occupation Specialist in rehabilitative medicine Medico-legal specialist Psychiatrist Geriatrician Orthopaedic surgeon
Details Fred Ehrlich was a professor of rehabilitation, aged and extended care at the University of New South Wales: his career in medicine and academia spanned orthopaedic surgery, psychiatry, geriatrics and rehabilitation. He was born on 23 March 1923 in Czernowitz, Bukovina (now divided between Romania and Ukraine). His father, Alexander Ehrlich, was a businessman; his mother, Klara Ehrlich née Schneider, was the daughter of a court official. He was a distant relative of the Nobel prize-winning physician and scientist Paul Ehrlich. Ehrlich attended primary and Yiddish schools in Czernowitz. A Holocaust survivor, in 1947 he immigrated with his parents to Sydney, Australia, not speaking a word of English. He attended North Sydney Technical High School, where he was *dux*. He went on to study medicine at Sydney University, where he was an exhibitioner, and qualified in 1955. While at Sydney University he was a flight lieutenant in the university air squadron. He spent eight years as a resident and registrar at the Royal Newcastle Hospital, New South Wales, and then a year there as a surgical registrar. For nine years he was a full-time staff surgeon at the Psychiatric Centre, North Ryde, New South Wales. He was also a lecturer in clinical surgery at the University of Sydney. In 1958 he gained his fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and, a year later, of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. He was subsequently appointed as a professor at the University of New South Wales. Interested in sociology and social medicine, he held a holistic view that medicine should be about helping people and not just treating disease. He advocated a ‘total care’ approach to medicine and encouraged social intervention. He served as president of the Gerontological Society of New South Wales. He finished his medical career as a specialist in the medico-legal field. He was an active member of the Jewish community. He was a founding parent of Masada College, a Jewish co-educational school in Sydney, and served as president from 1967 to 1970. He was on the boards of the North Shore Synagogue, the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, JCA and Mandelbaum House, a college affiliated to the University of Sydney. In 1959 he married Shirley Rose Eastbourne. They had six children – Paul, Rachel, Simon, Adam, Miriam and Avrum – 19 grandchildren and one great grandchild. Fred Ehrlich died on 2 November 2017. He was 85.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009771
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First Title value, for Searching Waddelow-Smith, Thomas (1866 - 1928)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-01-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E003000-E003999/E003300-E003399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/375548375548
Occupation Psychiatrist
Details Born on August 18th, 1866, at Bredgar, near Sittingbourne, Kent, the son of James Freeman Smith, MRCS. He was educated at Clifton Down School, where he gained a scholarship, and afterwards entered King's College Hospital as a medical student. He served as House Accoucheur at King's College Hospital and as House Surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital. He then acted as Anaesthetist, Pathologist, and Registrar at the Evelina Hospital for Children before turning his attention to mental disease. In 1912 he obtained the certificate of the Medico-Psychological Association after being second Assistant Medical Officer at the Devon County Mental Hospital, Exminster. He transferred to Nottingham Mental Hospital as Senior Assistant Medical Officer, and at the time of his death was Superintendent of the City Mental Hospital, Mapperley Hill, Nottingham. He died on May 13th, 1928, and was buried at Holcombe, Somerset. Publication: *The Mind in Health and Disease*.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003365
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First Title value, for Searching Wolseley-Lewis, Herbert (1868 - 1959)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-23
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005500-E005599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377688377688
Occupation Psychiatrist
Details Born on 29 November 1868 the second son and fourth of the five children of the Rev Thomas Wolseley-Lewis, a school-master, and his wife née Bowen, he was educated at Cheltenham College and the Westminster Hospital, where he was a house surgeon. He specialised in mental diseases, and served at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Horton Manor Asylum, Epsom, and Banstead Mental Hospital before becoming Medical Superintendent of the Kent County Mental Hospital at Barming near Maidstone. He was interested in the social aspect of mental care and in the training and status of mental nurses. The nurses' home at Barming was built at his instigation. He retired to Dormers, Wimborne, Dorset. He married in 1907 Ruth Fremlin, who died a few hours before him on 26 June 1959, survived by their son and two daughters; he was aged 90. A memorial service was held in Wimborne Minster on 1 July 1959. Publications: *Syphilis in general paralysis of the insane*. 1901. The dangerous lunatic. *Westminster Hosp Rep* 1902. Mental state in myxoedema. *Lancet*, 1904, 1, 1117.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005505
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First Title value, for Searching Rawes, William (1862 - 1917)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-10-31
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/375228375228
Occupation Alienist Psychiatrist Physician
Details Studied at the London Hospital, where he was Scholar in medicine, surgery, and obstetric medicine from 1882. In 1885 he became House Physician to Hughlings Jackson and to Stephen Mackenzie; then House Surgeon to John Couper; afterwards Demonstrator of Physiology. His first appointment was that of Medical Officer at the General Post Office. In July, 1891, he became Assistant Medical Officer, and on Dec 26th, 1898, was appointed Medical Superintendent to St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics in succession to George Mickley. There he devoted his life to a study of his patients, and published a short "History of St Luke's Hospital" in the *Journal of Mental Science*, 1904 (vol 1, 37). He became well known from his practical experience as an alienist, and for detached views, but did not interest himself in Continental literature on mental disease and criminal insanity. He was an excellent companion, beloved alike by his patients, fellow-workers, and friends. He had a fund of humour, travelled widely on holiday, read travels and history, was a Freemason, and Treasurer of the London Hospital Lodge No 2845. His work was brought to an end by the closing down of St Luke's Hospital, which was taken over in 1916 first by the Bank of England and then by the Post Office for official purposes. Rawes felt the termination keenly. He died at a nursing home in London on March 6th, 1917.
Resource Identifier RCS: E003045
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First Title value, for Searching Bates, Ralph Marshall (1902 - 1978)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-11-06
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/378476378476
Occupation General practitioner Psychiatrist
Details Ralph Marshall Bates was born in 1902. He was educated at Plymouth College and qualified with the Conjoint Diploma at the London Hospital, where he held several resident appointments. He was a first assistant to Sir Hugh Cairns, the neurosurgeon, and was also a member of the Middle Temple. He spent a short period in general practice and became interested in psychiatry. He was then appointed medical superintendent at the Stoke Park Colony, Bristol, and in 1946 he became medical superintendent at the Royal Eastern Counties Hospital, Colchester. He modernised and upgraded the hospital, developed the training school for nurses, opened new hostels, provided better amenities for staff and patients and encouraged parole and licence. The management committee and staff fully recognised his judgement in organisation and administration and the hospital which he had developed to such high standards was visited by many psychiatrists from overseas. Marshall Bates married Lilian, a doctor, and they had a son and two daughters. He was essentially a family man with deep religious feelings, devoted to duty and a staunch friend for those in adversity. He had a full and busy professional life but found time and relaxation in painting in oils and in gardening where he specialised in orchids and daffodils. His large and beautiful garden delighted many people who enjoyed his warm hospitality. He died at his home in Colchester on 28 August 1978.
Resource Identifier RCS: E006293
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First Title value, for Searching Partridge, Eleanor Joyce (1893 - 1956)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-04-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005200-E005299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377422377422
Occupation General surgeon Psychiatrist
Details Born in Devonshire on 7 November 1893, she was educated at the London School of Medicine for Women, where she served as demonstrator and junior lecturer in anatomy. After qualifying in 1917 she was house surgeon at the Royal Free Hospital and the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital. Subsequently she was clinical assistant at both those hospitals and at the West London Hospital. For fifteen years her interests lay in surgery and anatomical research, but she then turned to psychiatry. After being a clinical assistant at the Institute of Medical Psychology (The Tavistock Clinic), she was appointed psychiatrist there. She was a member of the British Psychological Society and the Society of Analytical Psychologists. At that time she lived at 2 Eaton Terrace, London, but shortly before the war of 1939-45 she returned to Devonshire. She had consulting rooms at 3 Barnfield Crescent, Exeter, and was for a time medical director of the Lympstone Grange Nursing Home, and visiting psychiatrist to the Withymead Centre, Exeter. After her marriage to Edward Wenham, formerly of Los Angeles, California, they lived at Thorp Lympstone, near Exeter. She died suddenly on 11 May 1956 aged 62, the day after arriving in Switzerland to recoup from a long illness. She was survived by her husband and daughter. Publications: The relations of the glosso-pharyngeal nerve at its exit from the cranial cavity. *J Anat* 1918, 52, 332. Joints, the limitations of their range of movement, and an explanation of certain surgical conditions. *J Anat* 1924, 58, 346. *Baby's point of view, the psychology of early babyhood*. 1937.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005239
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First Title value, for Searching Vaughan, Sir Gerard Folliott (1923 - 2003)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2005-11-02 2006-10-11
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/372345372345
Occupation Politician Psychiatrist
Details Sir Gerard Vaughan was a former Minister of State for Health in the Thatcher government. He was born on 11 June 1923 in Mozambique, Portugese East Africa, the son of a Welsh sugar planter who was more interested in big game hunting than sugar and was later killed in the RAF. Gerry was educated by a series of governesses, notably one Mafeta, who coached him through the matriculation at the age of 14. At first he wanted to become an artist and enrolled at the Slade and St Martin’s School of Art, but as war broke out he entered Guy’s Hospital to study medicine, helping in the casualty department during the Blitz. After qualifying, he became a house surgeon to Russell Brock, who encouraged him to become a surgeon, but suggested he learn some medicine first and take the MRCP. While doing a medical registrar job at the York clinic he became fascinated by psychiatry and went on to the Maudsley Hospital, returning to Guy’s as a consultant psychiatrist. There he became interested in the treatment of children and adolescents, particularly those with anorexia, and was responsible for the establishment of the Bloomfield clinic at Guy’s. Always interested in politics, Gerry sat on the London County Council as alderman for Streatham, becoming chairman of the strategy and planning group, and in 1970 he was elected MP for Reading. He was one of Ted Heath’s whips, and was Minister of State for Health for five years, first under Patrick Jenkin and later under Norman Fowler. He was knighted in 1984 on being dropped from the government. His views were on the extreme right, and among other things he championed homoeopathy. He died after a long illness on 29 July 2003, leaving a wife, Joyce Thurle, whom he married in 1955, and a son and daughter.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000158
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First Title value, for Searching Mapother, Edward (1881 - 1940)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

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/376733376733
Occupation Psychiatrist
Details Born at 6 Merrion Square, Dublin, on 12 July 1881, the only son of the seven children of Edward Dillon Mapother and his wife, Ellen, daughter of John Tobin, MP, of Halifax, Nova Scotia. His father, surgeon to St Vincent's Hospital, Dublin, professor of anatomy and physiology, and president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland 1879-80, was for many years one of the most successful teachers in Dublin. The family moved to London about 1888 and his father practised at 32 Cavendish Square. Edward, the son, was educated at University College School and at University College Hospital, where he gained the medals in anatomy and physiology and graduated at London University with medals in medicine and pathology at the MB examination. He then acted as house physician to Dr Risien Russell at the National Hospital in Queen Square, Bloomsbury. During 1908-14 he was a medical officer at the Long Grove Mental Hospital, Epsom. He was gazetted a temporary lieutenant, RAMC, on 14 April 1915, and served in Mesopotamia and France until he was recalled to the neurological division of the Second Western General Hospital, which had its headquarters at Manchester. As the neurologist he organized and opened two hospitals at Stockport, acting as officer in command until they were closed in March 1919. From September 1919 to November 1920 he was medical superintendent of the Maudsley Hospital during its tenure by the Ministry of Pensions. In 1923 the Maudsley Hospital was opened by the London County Council to fulfil the purposes for which its founder, Henry Maudsley, had endowed it. Mapother was placed in charge and held office until he resigned on account of ill health in 1939. The hospital became an undisputed success as a centre of teaching, treatment, and research, owing largely to Mapother's initiative and foresight. For some years he was physician in psychological medicine at King's College Hospital, London, and he was elected professor of clinical psychiatry in the University of London, when the chair was established in 1937 and was made tenable at the Maudsley Hospital. At the Royal College of Physicians he served on the Council in 1937 and 1938, and delivered the Bradshaw lecture in 1936. He also gave the Norman Kerr lecture at the Society for the Study of Inebriety in 1938. He was president of the section of psychiatry, Royal Society of Medicine, in 1933, and vice-president of the section of neurology and psychiatry of the British Medical Association in 1934. He married in 1915 Barbara Mary, daughter of Charles H Reynolds; she survived him, but without children. Mrs Mapother died on 21 August 1945. He died on 20 March 1940, after a long illness due to asthma and pulmonary fibrosis, at Mill Hill Emergency Hospital, which was then a branch of St Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Mapother did much to develop and stabilize psychological medicine in this country. He used scientific methods and adhered to the principles of sound clinical medicine. He was entirely out of sympathy with extreme psycho-analysis and with the tendency to divorce psychotherapy from medicine. He was however in no sense a reactionary, for he was at once receptive and original, quick to see and patient to bring about the development of psychological medicine in hitherto neglected fields. He was insistent too that psychiatrists should have a sound training in general medicine. Publications: Manic-depressive psychosis. *Brit med J* 1926, 2, 872. Assessment of alcoholic morbidity. *Mott memorial volume*. London, 1929. Tough or tender, a plea for nominalism in psychiatry. *Proc Roy Soc Med* 1933-4, 27, 1687. Mental symptoms associated with head injury. *Brit med J* 1937, 2, 1055. The physical basis of alcoholic mental disorders. (17th Norman Kerr memorial lecture, 1938). *Brit J Inebr* 1938-9, 36, 103. The integration of neurology and psychiatry (Bradshaw lecture, Royal College of Physicians, 1936). Not published.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004550
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First Title value, for Searching Culpin, Millais (1874 - 1952)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-02-05
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/377166377166
Occupation General surgeon Neurologist Psychiatrist
Details Born on 6 January 1874 at Ware, second child and eldest son of Millice Culpin LRCP & SEd, and Hannah Munsey his wife. He was educated at the Grocers Company's School, where he acquired his life-long interest in entomology. His father emigrated to Taringa, Queensland, Australia in search of health and practised there from about 1890. Culpin as a young man worked in gold mines, travelled to Cape York peninsula, and was for four years a schoolmaster there and at Townsville. In his late twenties he came home and entered the London Hospital Medical College. He was Buxton scholar in 1897, won the junior Letheby prize in 1898 and the senior in 1900, when he took first-class honours at the intermediate MB examination. He served as house surgeon, orthopaedic house surgeon, and resident anaesthetist at the London Hospital, and then went back to Queensland to practise. From 1908 to 1913 he practised successfully in China, and was very busy as a surgeon at various hospitals during the revolution of 1911-12, working particularly at the Shanghai-Nanking Railway Hospital. On the outbreak of war in 1914 he was commissioned a Captain in the RAMC, and served as a surgical specialist at the Alexandra Hospital, Portsmouth in 1915 and in France 1916-17. Culpin was among the first who realised that "shell-shock" and the deep effects of fear in war, such as disordered action of the heart, were emotional disturbances, more acute than the anxiety neuroses of peace. His views were accepted and from 1917 till the end of the war he was a neurological specialist in the Army, and subsequently under the Ministry of Pensions. He did excellent work in this field, practising at Maghull near Liverpool, and collaborating with Drs Bernard Hart, T H Pear, and Aldren Turner. He wrote his thesis for the London doctorate on psychoneuroses of war. After his earlier experience in surgery and tropical medicine, Culpin proved a highly original and successful psychiatrist. He was appointed lecturer in psychoneurosis at the London Hospital in 1920, and built up a large private practice at 1 Queen Street. His methods were never spectacular, but he was a pioneer of dynamic psychology. He gave much time and thought for various public bodies. He acted for the Industrial Health Research Board in 1923 as an independent referee on the Report on telegraphists' cramp drawn up by Eric Farmer and May Smith. He helped to solve the problem of the causation of miners' nystagmus when serving on the British Medical Association's special committee on the subject; he also served on the committee of the psychological medicine group of the Association and on its committee on mental health. He was a frequent contributor to the professional journals and wrote several useful books. He was appointed lecturer in 1933 and professor in 1934 of medical and industrial psychology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and resigned in 1939. He was President of the British Psychological Society. His work on war neuroses was extensively used during the second world war. Culpin married in 1913 Ethel Maude daughter of E Dimery Bennett. They lived at Loughton and Park Village East, and latterly at 17a Hatfield Road, St Albans. He died suddenly on 14 September 1952 aged 78, survived by his wife and their daughter Frances, Mrs Stephen MacKeith. For all his love of controversy Culpin was a humble man, of strong moral and humanitarian compulsion, who achieved remarkable advances in psychology after an earlier period as a successful surgeon. His sound sense and wit endeared him to a group of colleagues, with whom he regularly lunched at the Royal Society of Medicine, for he was a first-rate talker. The natural history of birds and insects was his chief non-professional interest. Publications: *Psychoneuroses of war and peace*, London MD thesis. Cambridge University Press 1920. *Spiritualism and the new psychology*. London: E. Arnold 1920. *The nervous patient*. London: H. K. Lewis 1924. *Medicine and the man*. London: Kegan Paul 1927. *The nervous temperament*, with May Smith. Industrial Health Research Board, Report 61. HM Stationery Office, 1930. *Recent advances in the study of the psychoneuroses*. London: Churchill 1931. *Mental abnormality, facts and theories*. London: Hutchinson 1948.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004983
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First Title value, for Searching Graves, Thomas Chivers (1883 - 1964)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2014-06-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E005000-E005999/E005500-E005599
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/377710377710
Occupation Psychiatrist
Details Born at Histon, Cambridge on 11 May 1883, the son of Wright Graves, a veterinary surgeon, and the grandson of the founder of the firm of Chivers, food and preserve manufacturers, he received his education at the Perse School, Cambridge, and the Royal Veterinary College, London. He was encouraged to take up medicine, but his financial resources were limited after his veterinary training. However, he won the Bucknill scholarship at University College, London and this, with what he earned by giving veterinary tuition in his spare time, enabled him to complete his medical training. At University College and Hospital he won several medals, including the Liston gold medal for surgery, before qualifying in 1912 and becoming house surgeon to Bilton Pollard. He served in the RAMC through the war of 1914-18, but on demobilisation he decided to specialise in psychiatry, though it had been his ambition to become a surgeon. He married in 1916 Evelyn Dorothy, daughter of Colonel J W Lang, who was a member of Queen Alexandra's Royal Military Nursing Service and had previously been Sister in charge of out-patients at the West London Hospital. He was appointed medical superintendent of the Burghill Mental Hospital, Hereford, in 1920 and by 1922 medical superintendent of the Rubery Hill and Hollymoor Mental Hospitals, Birmingham, where the rest of his life's work was done. He had noticed how patients afflicted with mental disease returned to normal when organic disorders, particularly focal sepsis of the ear nose and throat, dental sepsis, and gynaecological sepsis, particularly following childbirth, were cured. Similar observation had been made by Dr Henry Cotton, of the Trenton Hospital, New Jersey, and after an interchange of visits they became close friends. Graves's ambition was to bring the study of pathology and the basic principles of medicine into the practise of psychiatry, and he founded a research unit with a laboratory at Hollymoor Hospital, gathering around him a team of consultants in otolaryngology, dental surgery, and gynaecology. In the early 1920s he had built at both his hospitals a theatre for surgical treatment of focal sepsis, and in those years such equipment in mental hospitals was rare. The programme of these investigations received the full support of the Mental Hospitals Committee of the Birmingham City Council, of Sir Gilbert Barling, Bart, FRCS, Vice-Chancellor of the University, and of other leaders of the medical profession in Birmingham, and eventually he was appointed chief medical officer of all the mental hospitals controlled by the City Corporation. In 1940 he was elected president of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association and continued in his office for the next four years. During the second world war, in addition to his psychiatric work, he was Commandant of the combined civil and military hospital which was set up at Hollymoor, which gave him the opportunity for further research, and in October 1941 he published a symposium on "Ear, Nose and Throat Disease in Mental Disorder", together with "the Psychiatric Sequelae following Head Injuries". He founded a school of approach to the treatment of mental disorder, which was taken up by H F Fenton, the medical superintendent of Powick Mental Hospital, Worcestershire; he also worked with Professor Gjessing of Oslo, Norway. He lived at 94 Middleton Hall Road, Birmingham and died on 6 June 1964, aged 81, survived by his wife, herself a consultant in psychiatry, and their children. He was buried near Histon Baptist Church, Cambridge, where his grandfather had been a founder deacon.
Resource Identifier RCS: E005527
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First Title value, for Searching Verbiest, Henk (1909 - 1997)

2024-05-07T10:07:23Z

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
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