Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Royal College of Surgeons

  • Novice doctor at Guy’s Hospital in 1964

    Hugh Tunstall-PedoeDundee, Scotland, United Kingdom Initiation My initiation as a novice doctor at Guy’s Hospital, London (Fig 1) was as junior partner to the legendary King of Surgery and Queen of Nursing. It was 1964. Clinical students in London medical schools with first degrees at Cambridge University went back there for their final exams, predominantly…

  • W.W. Keen: Physician to the presidents

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States William Williams Keen served in the American Civil War and was present at the first and second Battle of Bull Run and Antietam.1 His battlefield experience led him to publish in 1864 “Gunshot Wounds and other Injuries of the Nerves and Reflex Paralysis.” He would become one of the…

  • Mary Josephine Hannan: Portrait of a pioneer

    Katie KingAtlanta, Georgia, United States Mary Josephine Hannan was an Irish medical pioneer, an outspoken woman with a strong sense of morality, a fervid supporter of women’s rights, and a champion of children and public health. She spent her life fighting for these causes, making many enemies and friends along the way. With a passion…

  • William Sands Cox—Surgeon and founder of the Birmingham Medical School

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom In the early nineteenth century Birmingham was the second largest city in England. It was an industrial powerhouse, known as the city of a thousand trades, but it did not have its own medical school. Those wishing to become doctors had to train in London. William Sands Cox was born…

  • John Hunter, Harvey Cushing, and acromegaly

    Kevin R. Loughlin Boston, Massachusetts, United States   Figure 1. Charles Byrne, a giant, George Cranstoun, a dwarf, and three other normal sized men. Etching by J. Kay, 1794. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) Introduction John Hunter and Harvey Cushing were two of the most preeminent surgeons of their eras. John Hunter is considered…

  • Thomas Henry Huxley

    JMS PearceEast Yorks, England “In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration . . . In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable.”– TH Huxley Above a butcher’s shop in Ealing in…

  • John S. Bristowe: Victorian physician and polymath

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK John Syer Bristowe was a Victorian physician and polymath who served his alma mater, St. Thomas’ Hospital, with great distinction. He was born into a medical family on 19 June 1827 in Camberwell in Southeast London.1 One of his brothers, Thomas Bristowe, became a Conservative Member of Parliament from 1885-1892. In…

  • Samuel Solly—distinguished surgeon and educator

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Samuel Solly was born in St. Mary Axe, London, on May 13, 1805. He attended school in Walthamstow, East London, where his contemporaries included the future British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.1 In May 1822 he became an apprentice to Benjamin Travers, a surgeon at St. Thomas’s Hospital.2 For this privilege he…

  • William Cheselden, father of modern British surgery

    William Cheselden was the most eminent English surgeon of the first half of the eighteenth century.1,2 Born in Leicestershire in 1688 just two weeks before William of Orange landed in England, he learned Greek and Latin at school, then was apprenticed to a local barber-surgeon. At fifteen he went to London and was again apprenticed,…

  • The barber-surgeons: Their history over the centuries

    Anusha PillayRaipur, India “His pole, with pewter basins hung,Black, rotten teeth in order strung,Rang’d cups that in the window stood,Lin’d with red rags, to look like blood,Did well his threefold trade explain,Who shav’d, drew teeth, and breath’d a vein.”– The Goat without a Beard by John Gay Barbers today are primarily engaged in caring for…