D'Arcy Power

“ He was appointed surgeon-oculist to the queen in Scotland in 1838. He died at Glasgow, of angina pectoris, on 30 July 1868, leaving a widow and one son.
Mackenzie was one of the surgeons who raised ophthalmic surgery to the high place which it now holds among the special branches of medical science. His scientific attainments are best illustrated by his 'Practical Treatise on the Diseases of the Eye' (1830) , which remained the standard book on its subject until the introduction of the ophthalmoscope in 1851 effected a radical change in the diagnosis and treatment of intraocular disease. ”

“ He also filled the office of surgeon to the Royal Society of Musicians.
White suffered severely from gout in his later years, and died at his house in Parliament Street on 9 March 1849. As a surgeon he is remarkable because he was the first to excise the head of the femur for disease of the hip-joint, a proceeding then considered to be so heroic that Sir Anthony Carlisle and Sir William Blizard threatened to report him to the College of Surgeons. He performed the operation with complete success, and sent the patient to call upon his opponents. ”

“ He was the first Englishman who became expert in operations on the larynx and adjacent parts, and his acknowledged eminence in this capacity led to his being called upon in 1887 to attend at Berlin the crown prince of Germany, afterwards the Emperor Frederick HI, who was attacked by cancer in the throat. Endowed by nature with great manipulative skill, constant practice had rendered him a master in the use of the laryngoscope and of the laryngeal forceps ”

“ He occupied himself for many years in an attempt to ascertain the virtues and properties of the drugs then in common use, for he was engaged throughout his life in seeking for specific remedies to cure disease. In the course of these inquiries he discovered the curative power of iodide of potassium in the later stages of syphilis. He also introduced bromide of potassium into English practice, though he did not employ it in the treatment of epilepsy. ”

“ In 1856 he was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in the Carmichael school of medicine, where he afterwards became lecturer on anatomy and physiology. In 1857 he proceeded M.D. in the university of Dublin, and in 1864 he was admitted to the degree of M.D. in the Queen's University in Ireland. He was appointed a surgeon to Jervis Street Hospital in Dublin in 1863, and three years later he was elected surgeon to Steevens's Hospital, and professor of descriptive anatomy in the medical school attached to it. In 1857 he was appointed medical superintendent of the Mountjoy government prison. ”

“ About the same time Mackenzie spent a few months in Italy. After his return to England he held several of the minor appointments on the staff of the London Hospital, graduating as bachelor of medicine at the London University in 1861, and taking the degree of doctor or medicine in the following year. The Jacksonian prize of the Royal College of Surgeons was awarded to him in 1863 for an essay 'On the Pathology and Treatment of Diseases of the Larynx: the diagnostic indications to include the appearances as seen in the living person.' To this subject he subsequently devoted his whole life. ”

“ At this period of his life he had occasion to attend Leigh Hunt, then a boy at Christ's Hospital, who says that 'he was dark, like a West Indian, and I used to think him handsome.' Vincent was admitted a member of the Corporation of Surgeons—the old Surgeons' Company—in 1800, and he became a member of the newly incorporated College of Surgeons on 20 March 1800. He then took his master's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields. He was elected assistant surgeon to St. Bartholomew's Hospital on 13 Aug. 1807, becoming full surgeon 29 Jan. ”

“ OUTRAM, Sir BENJAMIN FONSECA (1774–1856) , naval surgeon, son of Captain William Outram, was born in Yorkshire in 1774 and educated as a surgeon at the United Borough hospitals in London. He was first employed in the naval medical service in 1794, and was promoted to the rank of surgeon in 1796. He served in the Harpy, La Nymphe, and Boadicea. He was surgeon in the Superb in her celebrated action off Cadiz, when Sir James Saumarez [q. v.] obtained a victory over the French and Spanish fleets on 12 July 1801. ”

“ Subsequently for many years he was surgeon to the Royal Sovereign yacht.
In 1806, with a view to entering upon civil practice, he went to Edinburgh, and there graduated doctor of medicine on 24 June 1809, after presenting his inaugural thesis, 'De Febre continuâ.' He was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London on 16 April 1810, and then commenced practice as a physician at Hanover Square in London, where he lived more than forty years. He also acted as physician to the Welbeck Street Dispensary. ”

“ In 1858 he became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and afterwards spent one year at Paris and another in Vienna. In 1859 he visited Czermak at Pesth, and learnt from him the use of the laryngoscope, an instrument invented by Manuel Garcia, the great singing-master, which Czermak was then bringing into clinical use. ”

“ He was lecturer on obstetrics at the Royal School of Medicine, and for fifteen years he acted as surgeon to St. Mary's Hospital for Women and Children. In 1851 he moved into Mosley Street, where he conducted a large practice until 1881, when he retired to live on an estate he had purchased at Sutton in Surrey. ”

“ The work is excellent reading, but it is full of inaccuracies both of dates and names. 8. ‘Nugæ Canoræ, or Epitaphian Mementoes (in stone-cutters’ verse) of the Medici Family, by Unus Quorum,’ London, 1827, 8vo. 9. ‘Mems, Maxims, and Memoirs,’ London, 1827, 8vo. Both volumes contain a miscellany of things medical, and of the history of medicine and surgery in England. Many have utilised them, but few have acknowledged their indebtedness. They show a wide reading, but are thoroughly uncritical. ”

“ His works do not, as a rule, repay perusal. They are: 1. ‘A Treatise on Electricity, wherein its various Phenomena are accounted for, and the Cause of Attraction and Gravitation of Solids assigned, by Francis Penrose, Surgeon at Bicester, Oxfordshire,’ Oxford, 8vo, 1752. 2. ‘An Essay on Magnetism, or an endeavour to explain the various properties and effects of the Loadstone, together with the causes of the same,’ Oxford, 8vo, 1753. ”

“ Orton suggested to the government that, if light was still to be taxed, the duty should be regulated by the size of the panes, and not by the number of windows, as had hitherto been done; so that the wealthy and those who could afford large sheets of plateglass should pay more than their poorer neighbours. ”

“ He married Sarah, daughter and heiress of Robert Norman of Lewisham. His son John Norman [q. v.] is separately noticed.
Pearson appears to have been a careful surgeon, with a strong scientific bias. His writings, however, are neither numerous nor important. His chief works are: 1. ‘Principles of Surgery,’ pt. i. 1788, 8vo (the second part was never published) ; a new edition, 1808. The principles are drawn up in a concise and aphoristical form for the use of students attending Pearson's lectures on surgery. 2. ‘A plain and rational Account of the Nature ... of Animal Magnetism,’ 1790, 8vo. 3. ”

“ He was appointed one of the surgeons extraordinary to the prince regent on 19 Aug. 1817, and surgeon extraordinary to George IV on 30 March 1821.
He was killed instantaneously on 29 Aug. 1829 by jumping off a runaway car on the road from Killarney to Mitchelstown while he was making a holiday tour in Ireland. At the time of his death he was a fellow of the Linnean Society, and an associate of the Société de Médecine of Paris. A man of high talents, Wadd had a rich fund of anecdote. ”

“ He also advocated the imposition of a moderate house duty, commencing at a certain rental, to make good the loss of revenue, if it was found that the duty could be entirely abolished. The latter scheme was eventually adopted. ”

“ He failed to be selected professor of clinical surgery in 1833 in succession to Russell, when Syme, his younger rival and former colleague, was chosen to fill the post, and this failure probably determined the rest of his career. ”

“ He afterwards lived in retirement, doing occasional duty for the surrounding clergy, at Bower Hall, near Steeple Bumpstead in Essex, until his death in October 1865. He married Harriet, daughter of Richard Puller of London and sister of Sir Christopher Puller, by whom he had a numerous family. ”

“ He stoutly maintained that the medical officer should exercise an unfettered discretion in such matters. The board thought otherwise, and he resigned his post in 1867. Some demur was made to granting him a pension, but in the interests of his professional brethren he fought out the battle, and eventually obtained the pension. ”

“ PENROSE, FRANCIS (1718–1798) , medical writer, born in 1718, was a surgeon who practised for many years at Bicester in Oxfordshire. He purchased a property in the adjoining village of Chesterton, where, at the enclosure of the parish in 1767, he was the owner of a quarter of a yard of land, in lieu of which he received an allotment measuring 2 acres 3 roods 1 perch. He afterwards purchased the house and grounds now called Chesterton Lodge, which he greatly improved. The estate was sold after his death. Mr. ”

“ He died, after a long illness, on 9 April 1885, and is buried in the Ardwick cemetery, Manchester.
Whitehead's works were: 1. ‘On the Causes and Treatment of Abortion and Sterility,’ London, 1847, 8vo; republished in America, 1848. 2. ‘On the Transmission from Parent to Offspring of some Forms of Disease,’ London, 1851, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1857. 3. ‘The Wife's Domain, by Philothalos,’ 1860, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1874. 4. ‘Notes on the Rate of Mortality in Manchester,’ 1863, 8vo. 5. ”

“ Medical Times and Gazette, July 1852, p. 101; Lancet, 1852, ii. 91; personal recollection by Sir James Paget, bart., F.R.S., and by Luther Holden, esq., formerly president R.C.S.Engl.; private information. ”