Tag: St. Thomas Hospital
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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…
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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…
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The two nightingales
Inga LewenhauptEinar PermanStockholm, Sweden Two remarkable women were born in the same year two centuries ago: Jenny Lind (1820-1887) and Florence Nightingale (1820-1910). Both became world famous, Jenny Lind for her beautiful singing voice, Florence Nightingale for her pioneer work in nursing. Both were deeply religious and wanted to make the world a better place,…
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Richard Mead
Arpan K BanerjeeSolihull, UK Richard Mead was born on 11 August 1673, the eleventh child of Matthew Mead, a preacher and somewhat controversial character of his time.1 Matthew Mead was a scholar and Fellow of King’s College Cambridge, although he resigned from the latter post before being expelled by the authorities for the ill will…
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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,…
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Sir Astley Cooper: The surgeon’s surgeon
Astley Cooper, one of the most famous surgeons of his time, was born in Norfolk in 1768. He began his studies in anatomy at the age of sixteen at St. Thomas’ Hospital, attended the lectures of the great surgeon and anatomist John Hunter, and was appointed at Guy’s Hospital as demonstrator in anatomy in 1789 and…