Humphry Davy Rolleston

“ In 1855 he assisted John Propert in founding Epsom College, a school for the sons of medical men. He was also physician to the London Lock Hospital (1864–89) and to the National Hospital for the paralysed and epileptic (1864–7) . He became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1852, and in 1858 he took a prominent part in bringing about the first reform at the college for 336 years, which gave to the general body of the fellows powers formerly enjoyed only by 'the eight elect.' He held numerous offices there, being censor in 1869, 1870, 1879, 1881, and vice-president in 1888 ”

“ After qualifying in 1870 he was house surgeon at the old Edinburgh Infirmary, resident medical officer at Chalmers' Hospital, Edinburgh,and for two years at the Northern Hospital, Liverpool, where he wrote the essay on 'Diseases and injuries of the spinal cord' which in 1874 was awarded the triennial Astley Cooper prize of 300l. awarded by the medical staff of Guy's Hospital. This enabled him to spend two years in working at pathology in Vienna, Munich, Strassburg, and Paris. In 1876 he returned as demonstrator of pathology to Edinburgh, where his teaching came as a revelation to the students. ”

“ After twenty years' service he became consulting obstetric physician. He was pre-eminent as a lecturer and made seventeen contributions to the 'Guy's Hospital Reports,' besides writing four papers in the 'Transactions of the Obstetrical Society of London,' of which he was one of the founders, an original trustee, and subsequently president (1863–5) . He invented the term 'missed labour,' that is, when the child dies in the womb and labour fails to come on ”

“ STEVENSON, Sir THOMAS (1838–1908) , scientific analyst and toxicologist, born on 14 April 1838 at Rainton in Yorkshire, was second son and fourth of the six children of Peter Stevenson, a pioneer in scientific farming. Thomas, a first cousin of the father, was an author and publisher, whose business at Cambridge was acquired in 1846, a year after his death, by Daniel and Alexander Macmillan, the founders of the publishing firm of Macmillan. ”

“ In 1845 he proceeded M.D. at London and joined his father as lecturer on midwifery in the Bristol medical school; he was sole lecturer from 1850 until 1895, when he was appointed emeritus professor. In 1853 he was elected physician accoucheur to the Bristol general hospital, one of the first appointments of the kind out of London; he held this post until 1875, when he became consulting obstetric physician. Greatly esteemed as a consultant, he had a large practice in the west of England. ”

“ Ord's name is intimately connected with the elucidation of the disease now known as myxœdema. In 1873 Sir William Gull [q. v.] described its symptoms in a paper 'on a cretinoid state supervening in adult life in women.' In 1877, in a contribution on myxœdema, a term proposed to be applied to an essential condition in the "cretinoid" affection occasionally observed in middle-aged women,' Ord showed that the essential cause of the disease was atrophy or fibrosis of the thyroid gland. The name myxœdema which has been adopted was based on the belief that there was an excess of mucin in the tissues ”

“ Proofs of immunity had just been reached at the date of Macfadyen's death. He investigated, too, thermophilic bacteria, namely those which can live at a temperature of 140° C.; and with Sir James Dewar proved that the vital processes of some bacteria are not destroyed by a temperature of —250° C. or only 23 above that of absolute zero. His early work dealt largely with the fermentative action of bacteria. ”

“ From 1901-4 he was Fullerian professor of physiology at the Royal Institution, where he delivered lectures on 'The Cell as the Unit of Life,' posthumously published in 1908. In 1905 he resigned his official position at the institute, and devoted himself entirely to original work, in the pursuit of which he accidentally infected himself with Malta fever and typhoid fever. He died at Hampstead a martyr to science on 1 March 1907 and was buried there. ”

“ He was educated at the Ipswich grammar school, and after being apprenticed to Mr. Charles Hammond, surgeon to the East Suffolk Hospital, pursued his medical course at University College Hospital, where he graduated M.B. in 1842, and M.D. London in 1843, gaining the gold medal in medicine at both examinations. In 1847 Garrod was appointed assistant physician to University College Hospital, where he became physician and professor of therapeutics and clinical medicine in 1851. ”

“ Sir Morell Mackenzie [q. v.] , the laryngologist, was the eldest child. An uncle, Charles Mackenzie, known as Henry Compton [q. v.] , was a Shakespearean actor. Mackenzie's father was killed in a carriage accident in 1851, and he left his family in somewhat straitened circumstances. Stephen, after education at Christ's Hospital (1853-9) , began his medical career as apprentice to Dr. Benjamin Dulley of Wellingborough, whose daughter he afterwards married. He entered the medical college of the London Hospital in 1866, and became M.R.C.S. England in 1869. ”

“ Petersburg, he returned in 1863 to London without definite plans, but was soon elected assistant physician for diseases of women and children at King's College Hospital. In 1872, on the retirement of Sir William Overend Priestley [q. v. Suppl. I] , he was appointed professor of obstetric medicine in King's College and obstetric physician to King's College Hospital, posts which he vacated after twenty-five years' service in 1898, and was elected emeritus professor and consulting physician. ”

“ In 1863 he started private practice in Bradford, but after a year returned to Guy's Hospital, where he became successively demonstrator of practical chemistry (1864–70) , lecturer on chemistry (1870–98) , and lecturer on forensic medicine (1878–1908) , succeeding in both lectureships Alfred Swaine Taylor [q. v.] . ”

“ Playfair became one of the foremost obstetricians in this country, and was among the first to decline to hand over obstetric operations to general surgeons, and thus set obstetricians the example of operating on their own patients. ”

“ COPPINGER, RICHARD WILLIAM (1847–1910) , naval surgeon and naturalist, born on 11 Oct. 1847 in Dublin, was youngest of the six sons of Joseph William Coppinger, a solicitor of Farmley, Dundrum, co. Dublin, by his wife Agnes Mary, only daughter of William Lalor Cooke, landed proprietor of Fortwilliam, co. Tipperary. The father's family was long settled at Ballyvolane and Barryscourt, co. Cork, and was said to descend from the first Danish settlers in Cork city. Coppinger received his medical education in Dublin, graduating M.D. at the Queen's University in 1870. ”

“ He was analyst to the home office from 1872 to 1881, when he was appointed senior scientific analyst. That office he held till death. He was also analyst to the counties of Surrey and Bedfordshire and the boroughs of St. Pancras and Shoreditch, and medical officer of health to St. Pancras. He served as president of the Society of Medical Officers of Health, of the Society of Public Analysts, and of the Institute of Chemistry. Pre-eminent as a scientific toxicologist, Stevenson was best known to the public as an expert witness in poisoning cases, especially in the well-known cases of Dr. ”

“ D.D. Glasgow (1891) . James received his early education at the High School of Glasgow, and in 1856 entered the old college in High Street as an arts student. From 1857 to 1862 he was in his father's business; but in 1863 he began the study of medicine, and graduated M.B. at Glasgow University with honours on 16 May 1867, with a thesis on ‘The value of quantitative methods of investigation in medicine and allied sciences’ ”

“ Oldham had an extensive and lucrative practice in the City of London, first at 13 Devonshire Square, Bishopsgate Street, and then at 25 Finsbury Square; about 1870 he moved to 4 Cavendish Place, W., and in 1899 retired to Bournemouth, where he died on 19 Nov. 1902, being buried in the cemetery there. He was a great walker, an extremely simple eater, and for the last fifteen years of his life never ate meat, fish, or fowl. ”

“ In 1891 he delivered the Lettsomian lectures before the Medical Society of London on anaemia. He also made some original observations on the distribution of the filarial parasites in the blood of man in relation to sleep and rest. ”

“ In 1889 he was appointed instructor in hygiene at the Haslar naval hospital at Gosport, where he was a most successful teacher, his knowledge of bacteriology being in advance of the time. On 13 March 1901 he was appointed inspector-general of hospitals and fleets, and was for three years in charge at Haslar. ”

“ HAMILTON, DAVID JAMES (1849–1909) , pathologist, born on 6 March 1849 at Falkirk, was third child and second son of the nine children of George Hamilton, M.D., practitioner in that town, who wrote numerous articles in 'Chambers's Encyclopædia,' by his wife Mary Wyse, daughter of a naval surgeon. ”

“ He attached an importance in advance of his time to asepsis, and deprecated long hair or beards for those who practise surgery or midwifery. As early as 1843 he investigated cholera, and described a micro-organism which some have suggested was the comma bacillus which Koch proved to be the cause of the disease in 1884. ”

“ Sieveking, who invented in 1858 an aesthesiometer, an instrument for testing the sensation of the skin, was author of: 'A Treatise on Ventilation' (in German, Hamburg, 1846) ; 'The Training Institutions for Nurses and the Workhouses' (1849) ”

“ He was elected F.R.S. in 1885, and was an honorary member of the New York Medical Society and a corresponding member of the Academy of Medicine of Paris. He died of apoplexy on 14 Oct. 1910 at Lastingham, Yorkshire, and was buried there. He married Ann, daughter of Henry Darley of Aldby Park near York, and had issue two daughters. ”

“ Failing health obliged him to give up practice and retire to the village of Hurstbourne Tarrant near Andover in 1900. He died at his son's house at Salisbury on 14 May 1902, and was buried there in the Lcmdon Road cemetery. ”

“ After some years of increasing paralytic weakness, dating from 1899, he died at Highgate vicarage on 8 Aug. 1905, and was buried at Shelfanger near Diss in Norfolk. He married, on 31 May 1854, Elizabeth, daughter of Albert Smith of Ecclesall, near Sheffield, whose family subsequently took the name of Blakelock. He had five sons and one daughter. ”