Search Results for benjamin rank

First Title value, for Searching Rank, Sir Benjamin Keith (1911 - 2002)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2009-07-10 2017-05-05
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/372810372810
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Benjamin Rank was considered by many to be the father of plastic surgery in Australia. He was born on 14 January 1911 in Heidelberg, Victoria, where his father, Wreghitt Rank, owned a grain store and mill. His mother was Bessie née Smith. He was educated at Scotch College, Melbourne, and Ormond College, University of Melbourne, graduating with many honours and prizes. He did a two-year residency in the Royal Melbourne Hospital before going to London to specialise in surgery. There he did junior posts at St James' Hospital, Balham, but soon became fascinated by the new specialty of plastic surgery and was appointed assistant plastic surgeon at Hill End (Bart's EMS unit). Joining the Royal Australasian Army Medical Corps in 1940, he commanded their plastic surgical unit in Egypt. In 1942, he returned to Australia to set up a plastic and maxillofacial unit at Heidelberg Military Hospital. Among the patients treated there was one Flight Lieutenant John Gorton, who went on to become Prime Minister of Australia. In 1946 he was the first honorary plastic surgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital. He spent much time overseas and was instrumental in setting up the specialty of plastic surgery in India, for which he set up 'Interplast' - a charity supported by the Rotary Clubs to offer training and expertise to Asian and Pacific nations. He was the Sims Commonwealth Travelling Professor of the College in 1958, Moynihan lecturer in 1972, President of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons in 1965 and President of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons from 1966 to 1968. He made important contributions to the study of Marjolin's ulcer, radiation carcinoma, and the transition from benign to malignant melanoma. He also made a major contribution to hand surgery, and his textbook *Surgery of repair as applied to hand injuries* (Livingstone, 1953) ran to four editions. He wrote extensively, including an autobiography, and was a talented painter. He was a tireless campaigner for no-fault motor accident insurance and was President of the St John Ambulance Association. He married Barbara Lyle Facy in 1938. They had one son Andrew, and three daughters, Helen, Julie and Mary (one of whom became a nurse). He died on 26 January 2002.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000627
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Cole, George ( - 1858)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2011-06-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001200-E001299
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373401373401
Occupation General surgeon
Details Educated at St George's Hospital, where he was 'perpetual pupil' to Benjamin Guy or George Gisborne Babington (1795-1856) from September 12th, 1838. He entered the Bengal Army, and on February 29th, 1844, was promoted to the rank of Superintending Surgeon. He died on June 15th, 1858, on board ship in the Red Sea on his way to England.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001218
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Smiley, William Kennedy (1913 - 1996)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

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/380532380532
Occupation Ophthalmic surgeon Ophthalmologist
Details William Smiley was born in 1913 and qualified from St Andrews University in 1937. After service in the RAMC with the rank of major, he worked at the Royal Eye Hospital with Sir Benjamin Ryecroft. He was consultant ophthalmic surgeon to the Windsor Group at Taplow, Maidenhead and Wexham Park, Slough. He became well-known for his work on uveitis in juvenile rheumatism at Taplow, particularly the complicated cases needing removal of the band keratoplasty and complicated cataracts, and combined cataract and glaucoma. This work enabled him, with Jane Schiller, a visiting scientist, to describe iridocyclitis in those with juvenile onset of arthritis (particularly girls), and its association with antinuclear factor in the blood. In retirement his interests were his garden and ornithology. He left his widow, Helen, four children and ten grandchildren. He died in July 1996 of multiple myeloma.
Resource Identifier RCS: E008349
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Jameson, Hugh (1805 - 1881)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2012-05-16
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E002000-E002999/E002300-E002399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/374531374531
Occupation General surgeon
Details Born at Inverness; he studied at Aberdeen University; in London, at St George's and Middlesex Hospitals, and at the Windmill Street School. Entering the Navy he served on the West Coast of Africa, on ships engaged in suppressing the slave trade, then in the Mediterranean on board HM Frigate *Castor*, at the bombardment of St Jean d'Acre in 1840; the *Castor* suffered severely, and Jameson had a special opportunity of exhibiting his skill as a surgeon. He was subsequently on HMS *Winchester* at the Cape of Good Hope, on the *Rodney* and on the *Victory* at Portsmouth. On shore in 1854 he was appointed to the Melville Hospital, Chatham, and was afterwards placed in medical charge of Woolwich Dockyard, a post he held, with the rank of Deputy Inspector-General of Hospitals, until his retirement in 1864. He received three war medals, and his election to FRCS was supported, among others, by Sir Charles Bell and Sir Benjamin Brodie. He died of paralysis at Oakwood Lodge, Belvedere Road, Upper Norwood, on May 16th, 1881. His photograph is in the Fellows' Album.
Resource Identifier RCS: E002348
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Lawrence, John ( - 1863)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-06-12
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/372703372703
Occupation General surgeon
Details Joined the 1st Regiment of Foot Guards as Assistant Surgeon on Aug 10th, 1809, and resigned with the rank of Surgeon before March 28th, 1811. He settled in practice at 74 Grand Parade, Brighton, and was Surgeon Extraordinary to William IV. He was one of the first three Surgeons of the Sussex County Hospital, opened in 1828, the other two being Harry Blaker (q.v.) and Robert Taylor (q.v.). These three Surgeons all resigned on the same day, and the first three House Surgeons, Benjamin Valiance, M E J Furner, and John Lawrence, junr., were appointed to succeed them. The last-named died within two or three months, probably of appendicitis; Sir William Fergusson having decided not to operate on what was then commonly known as the ‘passio iliaca’. John Lawrence, senr., was an excellent surgeon. At the time of his death he was Consulting Surgeon to the Sussex County Hospital, the Lying-in Hospital, and St Mary’s Hall, Brighton. He died in 1863. PUBLICATIONS: Lawrence was a contributor to the *Lancet*, *Med. Gaz.*, and *Guy’s Hosp. Rep.* of papers on “Fractured Skull” and “Compound Comminuted Fracture of the Patella.”
Resource Identifier RCS: E000519
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Travers, Benjamin junior (1808 - 1868)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2008-03-07
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E000000-E000999/E000400-E000499
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/372645372645
Occupation General surgeon
Details The eldest son of Benjamin Travers (q.v.), Surgeon to St Thomas’s Hospital. His mother, Sarah, daughter of William Morgan (1750-1833), who took high rank among the pioneers of life assurance in England and was Actuary of the Equitable Society, was the sister of John Morgan (q.v.), Surgeon to Guy's Hospital. Travers was educated at St Thomas's Hospital and at the Royal College of Surgeons, Dublin. He was appointed Resident Assistant Surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital on July 28th, 1841, on the resignation of his father as Surgeon, and for a time lectured in the Medical School. He was for many years Consulting Surgeon to the Economic Assurance Society. He died at 49 Dover Street, Piccadilly, in 1868, survived by a numerous family, of whom Benjamin Travers III entered the Colonial Service and became a magistrate in Cyprus. Publications:- *Observations in Surgery*, 8vo, London, 1852. *Further Observations in Several Parts of Surgery, with a Memoir on Some Unusual Forms of Eye Disease, by the late Benjamin Travers, dated 1828*, 8vo, London, 1860.
Resource Identifier RCS: E000461
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Wakefield, Alan Ross (1917 - 1985)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

by Brian Morgan
Publication Date 2011-11-30 2013-04-24
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E001000-E001999/E001600-E001699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/373859373859
Occupation Hand surgeon Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Alan Ross Wakefield, known as 'The Vicar', was an Australian plastic and hand surgeon of international renown. He will be particularly remembered for writing, with Sir Benjamin Keith Rank, the classic text *Surgery of repair as applied to hand injuries, etc* (Edinburgh/London, E & S Livingstone), first published in 1953 with three further editions. The importance and value of this book extends beyond 'the hand': the classification the authors introduced of wounds into 'tidy' and 'untidy' continues to be cited in most papers and books on trauma. The son of George Thomas and Florence Ann Wakefield, he was educated at Melbourne Grammar School and then at the medical school at Melbourne, qualifying in 1941. On completion of his basic training, he joined the Royal Australian Army Medical Corps and served in New Guinea, Brisbane and Heidelberg Military Hospital, where he joined the No 2 maxillofacial and plastic unit. It was here he learnt his plastic surgery from Rank. Wakefield ended his military service in 1946 as a captain and with the Pacific Star medal. Following his demobilisation, he became an honorary assistant plastic surgeon at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, and passed his MS and FRACS in 1947. He then travelled to the United Kingdom and spent a year training in plastic surgery. He passed his FRCS in 1948. He returned to Melbourne, as a plastic surgeon at the Royal Children's Hospital and at the Repatriation Hospital, Heidelberg. As head of the plastic surgery department at the Royal Children's Hospital he successfully developed the hospital's reputation, especially for cleft lip repair. As well as his epic work on hand injuries, he published work on cleft lip and palate, and on intersex problems. On trips to the United States he developed many long-lasting contacts. In 1964 he was invited to give the founder's lecture at the American Society for Surgery of the Hand. In later years, he retired from private practice, but retained his Royal Children's Hospital appointment. When his role there ended, he became medical director of the Victorian Plastic Surgery Unit. He was also a farmer, and bred sheep and cattle. He was president of the Murray Grey Beef Cattle Society, and did much to develop this new breed of beef cattle. He also grew roses and was a keen exhibitor and show judge. He married twice. By his first wife, Mary, he had four children and six grandchildren. His second wife was Valerie. Alan Ross Wakefield died following a long illness on 22 July 1985 at his home in San Remo, Victoria, Australia.
Resource Identifier RCS: E001676
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching McComb, Harold Keith (1924 - 2012)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

by Jeanette Robertson
Publication Date 2016-05-13
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E009000-E009999/E009100-E009199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/381309381309
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Harold Keith McComb, a gifted plastic surgeon and Founding Member of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons was renowned for his technical brilliance and innovation and a source of inspiration. He leaves behind a legacy of surgical excellence for the craft. Harold obtained his MB BS at the University of Melbourne in 1947. He was a Registrar in Plastic Surgery at Royal Melbourne Hospital in 1949 and Associate Assistant Surgeon in 1950. Guided by Sir Benjamin Rank, Harold developed a passion for reconstructive surgery. By 1953 his potential was recognised with a two-year scholarship for specialist training at Oxford. After three months Royal Perth Hospital offered him a consultancy in plastic surgery. As he was unable to take leave to finish his studies, his Oxford tutors accelerated his training which he finished in nine months. He obtained his Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1952 and assumed the RPH consultancy in 1954. As such, he was WA's first fully trained plastic surgeon. In 1956, Harold obtained his Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons and Fellowship of the American College of Surgeons in 1960. Harold's passion was in cleft lip and cleft palate correction. He performed countless reconstructive procedures to help children live a life free of disfigurement and stigma. He pioneered the technique of correcting nasal deformity and lip defect simultaneously. The published results led to worldwide adoption of his techniques. He achieved a similar outcome with bone grafts to fill the gap associated with cleft palates. He created the first Combined Clinic in which children with facial clefts could be examined by all relevant specialists. His innovation extended beyond surgery as he created watertight beds for bathing burns patients to eliminate risk of cross infection. His contribution to developing SSD burn cream at Princess Margaret Hospital revolutionised patient management. Harold was a fine teacher and an examiner for the College. He was dedicated to a number of aid programs. Under the Colombo Plan, his trip to Madurai in India in 1964 initiated a long-running Interplast program that trained local medical teams in cleft repairs in Afghanistan, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, Mauritius, Indonesia, Tuvalu, Fiji, Vietnam and Laos. Harold served as a Board Member of Interplast Australia. Harold received numerous distinctions and awards including the Distinguished Honorary Fellowship of the American Association of Plastic Surgeons - a peer-reviewed award recognising his worldwide contributions. At the time, he was one of four non-Americans so honoured. He was Founding and Honorary Member of the Australian Society of Plastic Surgeons and Honorary Member of the New Zealand Association of Plastic Surgeons. In 2002 he received a WA Citizen of the Year award for his surgical work in WA and voluntary work in South-East Asia. Harold had a longstanding illness and died on 16 August in Hollywood Private Hospital, Nedlands. He was 88. His wife predeceased him and he leaves three sons, four grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. Universally respected by his peers and an inspiration to all plastic surgeons, he will be missed.
Resource Identifier RCS: E009126
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Ham, Frank James (1931 - 2015)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

by Ian Taylor
Publication Date 2015-08-07 2017-05-05
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007600-E007699
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379841379841
Occupation General surgeon
Details Frank Ham was born in Kew, schooled at Scotch College, Melbourne, and obtained his MB.BS at the University of Melbourne in 1955. He courted and married Elizabeth Bennett in 1957 whilst training for his Fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons which he obtained in 1961. He set off with his young family to train for 2 years in Plastic Surgery at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol under the guidance of Fitzgibbon and Bodenham, disciples of Sir Harold Gillies. Whilst there he sat and passed the FRCS of England. In 1963 he returned to the Royal Melbourne Hospital and was appointed Assistant Plastic surgeon to Sir Benjamin Rank. With Sir Ben's "guidance" and support he set up the Plastic Surgery Unit at Preston and Northcote Community Hospital which housed BKR's brainchild, the Victorian Plastic Surgery Unit (VPSU). In 1974 Frank relinquished that post to succeed John Hueston as Head of the Plastic and Faciomaxillory Unit of the Royal Melbourne Hospital, a position he held for 17 years. He insisted on being phoned first regarding all emergency admissions for the whole time as Head of the Unit. Frank was a giant of a man, not only in stature but by his reputation within the surgical community. His surgical experience was vast and unique as it spanned eras from the pedestrian multi staged tube pedicled flap migration, used during the World War periods, to the modern day launching of the microsurgical free tissue transfers. He was a meticulous, methodical, safe and gifted surgeon who never undertook a new surgical venture without a planned "lifeboat" alternative should the procedure fail or need to be abandoned. Frank was a team man, a great teacher and an inspirational leader who attracted colleagues who felt it was a privilege to be part of his Unit. He was an invaluable source of guidance, common sense and insight into managing difficult problems. He was a man of integrity, humility, responsibility and sense of humour. Who would ever forget his wardrobe of safari suits worn on ward rounds. He was a man of vision who encouraged innovation, tempered by common sense. If not 'The Free Flap' would not have evolved when it did. Whist on holiday from the PANCH Unit in 1973 and when consulted before undertaking this venture, Frank said "If you have considered the alternatives and believe that this is the right thing to do without undue harm to the patient - then go ahead." Although Frank encouraged research and publication, he was a co-author on only two papers; both were world firsts - the free fibula and the free vascular nerve graft. Franks political contributions were enormous. His persistence and ability in his various roles with ASPS included fee negotiations with the government. Frank did his homework as learnt from his mentor BKR, and was uncompromising when he considered that his point was correct. He was chairman of the Division of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery with the RACS and an examiner in Plastic Surgery. He was also a volunteer with Interplast. In his private life, Frank was devoted to his family. He was a keen farmer of Murray Grey cattle and had an extensive collection of stamps and coins. His particular interest lay in antique hand tools. He set up the Hand Tool Association of Australia and was its secretary for 27 years and became a National and International authority on the subject. Above all, Frank was a wonderful and loyal friend who was always there for you and is sadly missed by many. He is survived by his 3 children Lindy, Stewart and David together with 5 grandchildren.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007658
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching Clarke, Alfred Murray (1909 - 1987)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2015-05-08
JPEG Image
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E007000-E007999/E007100-E007199
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/379376379376
Occupation General surgeon Paediatric surgeon
Details Alfred Murray Clarke was born at Kui Kiang, China, on 11 January 1909. His father was Ernest Edward Clarke a missionary and his mother Marina, née More, was a teacher. His early education in China was from his mother and in 1921 at the age of twelve he went to Caulfield Grammar School, Melbourne, for five years before entering the University of Melbourne for his medical studies. His younger brother, James Eric Clarke, also entered medicine and became an eminent physician. He qualified in 1932 and spent two years as resident medical officer at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne. He was then registrar at the Royal Children's Hospital before coming to England for further postgraduate training in 1936. He served as house surgeon at the British Postgraduate Medical School and later at Great Ormond Street and in 1938 after attending courses at University College, London and St Bartholomew's Hospital passed both the FRCS and the DCH. On his return to Australia in 1938 he was appointed assistant surgeon to the Children's Hospital in Perth and also assistant surgeon to Perth General Hospital. He joined the Australian Army Medical Corps in July 1939 but remained at Perth until 1941 when he was seconded as a surgical specialist with the rank of Major to Heidelberg Military Hospital to study plastic surgery under Sir Benjamin Rank. In 1943 he was posted as surgeon in charge of the maxillofacial and plastic surgery unit of the Australian General Hospital at Bougainville in the Solomon Islands. After demobilisation in 1946 he was appointed honorary general surgeon at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, and honorary paediatric surgeon to the Alfred and Women's Hospitals in Melbourne and six years later transferred all his work to the Royal Children's Hospital where he instituted the first specialist paediatric burns unit in Australia. He conducted research into the causes of thermal injury in children and introduced burns safety procedures. He wrote extensively on burn injuries in children and was invited as guest lecturer to speak at Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, Texas, in 1970 after which he was made an honorary Texas citizen. He returned to the United States in 1979 to received the Everett Idris Evans medallion from the American Burns Association and to deliver the memorial lecture. He contributed chapters on the spleen, pancreas and bile duct and also on burns to the textbook *Clinical paediatric surgery*, edited by P G Jones, and wrote the chapter on choledochal cyst in *Operative surgery*, edited by H H Nixon. He was founder editor of the *Australian and New Zealand Burns Association journal* serving from 1974 until 1984 and was a member of many committees concerned with the prevention and treatment of burn injuries in children. He served as Dean of the clinical school at the Royal Children's Hospital from 1964 to 1970 and Chairman of the division of surgery at the Hospital from 1970 to 1974. In addition to his heavy professional teaching and research commitments he was for a time a member of the Melbourne Legacy, an elder of the Uniting Church in Victoria and chairman of the Christian Medical Fellowship. He married Helen Gladys Eggleston in 1940 and there were three daughters and one son of the marriage. After retiring from practice in 1974 he continued to enjoy his hobby of gardening and frequently visited the Melbourne Club. He died in 1987 survived by his wife and four children.
Resource Identifier RCS: E007193
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
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First Title value, for Searching McEwan, Lena Elizabeth (1927 - 2011)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

by D R Marshall
Publication Date 2014-08-15 2015-03-20
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/378001378001
Occupation Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Lena McEwan was the first woman to specialize in plastic surgery in Australia, and did so with much distinction. She was born on 11 August 1927 in South Australia. Her parents were recent immigrants from Glasgow, and when Lena and her mother conversed in demotic Glaswegian, they became totally incomprehensible to those not familiar with this language. She was educated in St Peter's Collegiate Girls School and in the University of Adelaide, where she graduated MB BS in 1949. She was a brilliant student. After a year as a resident medical officer in the Royal Adelaide Hospital and a year in general practise, she went to England for surgical training and secured positions as registrar in two great teaching hospitals, the Birmingham Accident Hospital and the now Royal London Hospital. She took the FRCS (Eng) diploma in 1954, and then returned to Adelaide, where she worked as Senior Surgical Registrar in the Royal Adelaide Hospital. This was a very responsible post, especially demanding in emergency surgery. Lena coped with the work with effortless ease, showing great skill in delegation; on one busy night, she directed a bemused neurosurgeon to remove a difficult retrocaecal appendix. Lena took the FRACS diploma in May 1958. She obtained a position as Honorary Clinical Assistant in the surgical staff of the Royal Adelaide Hospital, but after a year in this capacity she decided to move to Melbourne. Her English experience had included plastic work, and she came under the influence of B K (later Sir Benjamin) Rank, then the leading Australian plastic surgeon. In 1960-61, she was appointed as his associate at the Royal Melbourne Hospital (RMH), where she later became his second assistant after John Hueston. She also obtained an appointment as assistant plastic surgeon under George Gunter at Prince Henry's Hospital (1963-5), and an honorary appointment as plastic surgeon on the staff of the Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital, (1961-82), later the Queen Victoria Medical Centre (QVMC), and at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Hospital (PMCH), where B K Rank took over as head of unit after retiring from the RMH. She remained at the PMCH until her retirement in 1992. Lena made notable contributions in widely different fields. In 1962, she published a paper on repair of injuries of the median and ulnar nerves. She studied the outcomes in patients treated in the Royal Melbourne and Royal Children's Hospitals; most had undergone primary nerve suture and were later assessed by quantified neurological tests of motor, sensory and sudomotor functions. Her study showed the good results of early operation by expert plastic surgeons, especially in children. Her elegant paper attracted much attention at a time when many surgeons favoured secondary(delayed) repair; it was later repeatedly quoted by Sydney Sunderland. After fifty years, the paper reads as a definitive contribution in a controversial field, and as a very mature assessment by one still a trainee. Lena also published a perceptive study of hand function and its restoration by surgery; this too reads very well today. At the QVMC, Lena collaborated with William Walters in the care of persons suffering from transsexualism due to underlying gender dysphoria. An interdisciplinary team was established in 1976, to treat selected individuals by gender reassignment. In most cases, this required reshaping male genitals to conform with a psychological conviction of female identity. In 1986, the members of the team published a book describing their work; in this, Lena was the leading author of a section describing the technique of male-to-female genital reassignment. She is remembered for her high surgical competence in these demanding operations, and for her compassionate care for the patients; she was never judgemental in her attitude to patients whose experience of transsexualism had affected their lifestyles. She also showed moral courage in undertaking what was then a controversial branch of plastic surgery. Lena became head of the Skin Unit in the PMCH in 1982 in succession to B K Rank. She was much interested in the management of skin cancers, and she coauthored with D R Marshall and B K Rank in a study of malignant melanomas. This confirmed the value of wide surgical excision, but also showed that massive excision of very small lesions did not improve the outcomes. It was well received at an international congress of plastic surgeons. Lena was a good teacher, and taught many future plastic surgeons at the PMCH, where she had a rotating trainee registrarship. She was also much interested in the needs of undergraduates, and was Senior Resident Tutor in University College where she later became Vice Principal. She was instrumental in the foundation of a scholarship at University College, and made generous donations to education there and in Adelaide. She was vivacious and companionable, and made many friends. She had sharp wits, and sometimes a sharp tongue. Once at a meeting, she memorably summed up the many questions of a self promoting colleague with a devastating phrase from ornithology: "male display." After her graduation, she must have had to struggle to establish herself as a woman in plastic surgery, and it has been suggested that she encountered male opposition. If this was so, she did not become embittered. In 1967, when she was president of the Victorian Medical Women's Society, she gave an address on the economic value and the problems of women in the Australian medical workforce. This reads as a tranquil and balanced assessment, tinged with gentle irony and making very constructive suggestions. After her retirement, she moved to Torquay Vic, where together with her friends Dame Joyce Daws DBE and Dr June Pash she developed a long-standing interest in botany, notably in growing proteas. She did this very well. She died after a short illness on 4 October 2011, from ovarian cancer, and was widely mourned. D A Simpson W A W Walters
Resource Identifier RCS: E005818
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
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First Title value, for Searching Bynoe, Benjamin (1803 - 1865)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

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

First Title value, for Searching Lane, Sir William Arbuthnot (1856 - 1943)

2025-06-14T00:08:17Z

by Royal College of Surgeons of England
Publication Date 2013-07-31
Unknown
Asset Path Root/Lives of the Fellows/E004000-E004999/E004300-E004399
URL for Files https://livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk/client/en_GB/search/asset/376515376515
Occupation General surgeon Plastic surgeon Plastic and reconstructive surgeon
Details Born on 4 July 1856 at Fort St George, Scotland, eldest of the three sons and four daughters of Benjamin Lane, assistant surgeon 80th Regiment of Foot, and his wife Caroline Arbuthnot Ewing, daughter of Joseph Ewing (1790-1868), surgeon 80th and 95th Foot. Benjamin Lane was born at Limavady, Co Derry, Ireland, where his father William Lane, MD, was in practice, on 5 June 1827, rose to the rank of brigade surgeon, and died at Cheltenham on 12 June 1907, when his son was at the height of his fame; his wife also came of Ulster stock. (Johnston's *Roll of the Army Medical Service*, Nos 3029: Ewing, and 5105: Lane.) He was educated at Stanley House, Bridge of Allan, and entered Guy's Hospital in May 1873. He qualified MRCS 1877 at the age of twenty-one and won the gold medals in anatomy and medicine at the London MB 1881. He served as house surgeon at the Victoria Hospital for Children, Chelsea, and went back to Guy's as demonstrator of anatomy. He proceeded to the Fellowship 1882 and the MS London 1883, and was appointed assistant surgeon at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, where he eventually became consulting surgeon. In 1884 he married (see below) and settled in St Thomas's Street to be near his work at Guy's, where he was elected assistant surgeon 1888, becoming surgeon in 1903, and consulting surgeon in 1920. He was also consulting surgeon to the French Hospital, Shaftesbury Avenue. At the Royal College of Surgeons he served as an examiner in elementary anatomy for the Conjoint Board 1887-90 and on the Council from 1908 to 1916. He joined the RAMC, Territorial Force, on its formation, being commissioned captain *à la suite* on 23 December 1908, and during the war of 1914-18 he served in the Aldershot command and was gazetted colonel, AMS, on 29 September 1917. He organized the Queen's Hospital at Sidcup for the treatment of facial injuries. Here with Sir Harold Gillies and Henry Tonks, FRCS, professor of Fine Art at the Slade School, London University, he laid the foundations of modem plastic surgery. Erich Lexer was carrying out parallel work in Germany at the same time. Lane was a brilliant surgeon whose manual dexterity was, perhaps, eclipsed only by Moynihan's. As a student he was deeply influenced by Arthur Durham; he was dresser to Thomas Bryant, and was much encouraged in his work by Clement Lucas. He was rigorous in the most scrupulous aseptic methods, which he introduced to Guy's when he attained to the hospital staff. The advances which he made, in a time of great surgical advance, were due not merely to his technical facility but to a profound scientific knowledge of anatomy and to a philosophic conception of the mechanics of the animal organism as a whole. Lane touched many branches of surgery and improved whatever he touched. He made his name by three operational innovations: the removal of a piece of rib when treating empyema in a child (1883); an ingenious operation for cleft palate early in life (1897); and screwing fractured long bones to obtain perfect apposition (1893). This he did on a sudden inspiration in a difficult case, sending for ordinary steel screws from the carpenter's shop. He was early interested in the treatment of fractures and all skeletal deformities. In 1883 he published his first two papers: on Fracture of the sternum, *Trans Path Soc* 1882-83, 34, 223; and on Cases of empyema in children treated by removal of the rib, *Guy's Hosp Rep* 1883, 26, 45; and the following year he published nineteen papers based on his work in the dissecting-room with Sir William Hale-White, MD. His *Manual of Operative Surgery* appeared in 1886, and in 1887-88 his studies in the theory of skeletal change evoked considerable interest, particularly his papers Pressure changes in the skeleton, *J Anat Physiol* 1886-87, 21, 385-406; Causation of deformities during young life, *Guy's Hosp Rep* 1887, 29, 241-333; The anatomy of the charwoman, *Guy's Hosp Rep* 1887, 29, 359-367; and The anatomy of the shoemaker, *J Anat Physiol* 1887-88, 22, 593-628. In 1892 he made an important contribution to aural surgery with his Antrectomy as a treatment for chronic purulent otitis media, *Archives of Otology*, New York, 1892, 21, 118-124; and the following year gave the first indication, of his growing interest in abdominal surgery (Acute inflammation of the gall-bladder simulating closely acute intestinal obstruction, *Lancet*, 1893, 1, 411) and the surgery of cancer (A more effectual method of removing a cancerous breast, *Trans Clin Soc* 1892-93, 26, 85), as well as introducing the screwing of fractures (*Lancet*, 1893, 1, 1500). In 1897 his book on Cleft palate and adenoids was published, and he also reported (*Trans Clin Soc* 1896-97, 30, 154) the successful removal of a tumour of the brain. Writing in *The Lancet*, 1900, 1, 1489, Lane insisted that the surgeon should do as neat a job "when repairing broken bones as a cabinet maker mending the legs of broken chairs". Lane invented the perforated steel plates known by his name, which were screwed to the bones and left embedded. Though this simple procedure met with criticism, after a first welcome, and seemed destined to oblivion, it has survived and been adapted beyond Lane's most sanguine expectations. The neutral metal vitalium introduced to surgery by Venable of San Antonio, USA has been a marked improvement on steel as used by Lane, and Smith-Peterson, also in America, has successfully applied Lane's principles to the age-old problem of fractured neck of the femur. Lane was also a pioneer in jugular ligations to prevent pulmonary metastases from ear infections, and in 1909 he devised an epoch-making operation for excision of a carcinoma of the cervical oesophagus, where the gap was repaired with flaps of skin from the neck (*Brit med J* 1911, 1, 16). He wrote on 'Massage of the heart' in 1902, and next year came the first of many contributions on chronic obstruction of the bowel (*Lancet* 1903, 1, 153). Lane introduced the short-circuiting of the large intestine, which came to be known as "Lane's operation", and he began to be obsessed with the danger to general health of chronic constipation. He derived from the teaching of Elie Mechnikov (1845-1916) his belief that "we suffer and die through the defects that arise in our sewerage drainage system", and, like Victor Pauchet of Paris, he came to believe that many of the ills of civilized life are due to toxaemia by absorption from the colon. In *The Lancet* he wrote (1910, 1, 1193) of "the obstruction of the ileum which develops in chronic intestinal stasis" and (1911, 2, 1540) of "the first and last kink in chronic intestinal stasis". This anchoring of the iliac colon by the formation of thin bands of peritoneum from excessive strain due to accumulation of faecal matter in the pelvic colon was called "Lane's disease", but "Lane's kink" was attributed by his opponents to his own reasoning rather than his patients' bowels. Lane however throve on opposition, declaring that it stimulated him. He resigned from the British Medical Association in later life and took the lead in founding the New Health Society in 1925, exploiting his fame to popularize medical principles and hygienic practice. He started the journal *New Health* in 1926 and wrote a book *New Health for Everyman* in 1932 to further the Society's aims. Lane worked hard to promote friendship between the medical men of France and England, advocating an Inter-Allied Fellowship in 1918 (*Brit med J* 1918, 2, 722). He was also well known in America, where he delivered the Murphy oration (*Internat J Surg* 1925, 38, 436) and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the American College of Surgeons in 1925. Lane was created a baronet, of Cavendish Square, in 1913 and was made CB in 1917; he was a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur. He married, first, on 25 October 1884 Charlotte, daughter of John Briscoe of Tinvane, Co Kilkenny. Lady Lane died on 28 April 1935, six months after their golden wedding. She left three daughters and a son, who succeeded as second baronet. One of Lane's daughters married Harold Chapple, FRCS, and another married Nathan Mutch, MD, FRCP. Lane married secondly, on 26 September 1935, Jane, daughter of Nathan Mutch of Rochdale, his son-in-law's sister; she survived him. He died on 16 January 1943 at 46 Westbourne Terrace, W2, aged 86. A memorial service was held at Guy's on 21 January, when E G Slesinger, FRCS, gave the funeral oration. "Willie" Lane was big of frame and stature, with a soft and musical voice. Though enjoying controversy he was a kindly and genial man, much beloved by his friends. His old house surgeons presented his portrait, by Edward Newling, to Guy's Hospital. He was a great inspirer of able pupils, but not an orthodox teacher and never interested in examining, and a frequenter of societies who went to preach rather than exchange opinions. He was "Chyrurgeon" to the artistic and literary club Ye Sette of Odd Volumes, and contributed an essay "The influence which our surroundings exert upon us" to its publications (No 74) in 1920. He was a keen fisherman and in 1933 bought from the heirs of H H the Jam Sahib ("Ranji") a great part of the famous Ballinahinch salmon waters in Connemara. This property was originally the centre of the vast estates of Richard Martin, MP (see *DNB*) and adjoins the Kylemore estate once belonging to Mitchell Henry, FRCS. Publications: *Bibliography of the published writings* 1883-1938, Bermondsey, privately printed, 1938, contains a portrait-photograph and lists nearly 400 writings. It is a revised edition by G A R Winston of the bibliography by William Wale, librarian to Guy's Hospital, in *Guy's Hosp Gaz* 1919, 33, 84. The more important writings have been mentioned above in the course of the memoir. His books included: *Manual of operative surgery*, 1886. *Cleft palate and adenoids (including reprints of papers on other subjects)*, 1897; 2nd edition, 1900. *Operative treatment of chronic constipation*, 1904; 2nd edition, 1909; 3rd edition: *Operative treatment of chronic intestinal stasis*, 1915. *Cleft palate and hare-lip*, 1905; 2nd edition, 1908; 3rd edition, 1917. *The operative treatment of fractures*, 1905. *New health for everyman*, 1932; 2nd edition, 1935. Accounts of Lane's clinic at Guy's were published in *Brit J Surg* 1913-14, 1, 314 and 1920-21, 8, 219.
Resource Identifier RCS: E004332
Collection Plarr's Lives of the Fellows
Format Obituary
Format Asset