July 27, 2025 • 46 mins
Dive into the lives and achievements of doctors who made history in their field. Journey from the inception of the prestigious Edinburgh School of Medicine, through William Harveys revolutionary work on blood circulation, to the advancements in surgery and Edward Jenners pivotal role in creating vaccines. This is Volume 1 of a two-part series.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Section thirteen of Eminent Doctors Their Lives and their Work,
Volume one. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Eminent Doctors Their Lives and
(00:21):
their Work, Volume one by George Thomas Bettany. Sir Benjamin
Brody and Sir William Lawrence, two great practical surgeons. The
influence of heredity and of association and connection with talented
persons is well illustrated in the case of Sir Benjamin Brodie.
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His paternal grandfather, Alexander Brody, was a native of Bamfsheer
who came to London as a humble adventurer and almost
as a Jacobite refugee. He married a daughter of a
physician named Shaw, a similar Jacobite family and connections. Brody
became an army clothier, and one of his daughters, who
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married Doctor Denham, the eminent obstetric physician, was the mother
of Lord Denman. Margaret and Sophia, the twin daughters of
Doctor Denman, married the former Sir Richard Croft, who attended
the Princess Charlotte at her death in eighteen seventeen. The
latter doctor Matthew Bailey, the eminent physician and nephew of
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John Hunter. The Army Clothier's wife was herself a woman
of considerable nobilities, and it was said that there was
royal blood in the family. The father of Sir Benjamin
was educated at Charterhouse and at Oxford. As a boy,
it was patronized by the first Lord Holland, and spent
much time at Holland House. A warm attachment existed between them,
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in which Charles James Fox shared. When Lord Holland died
in seventeen seventy four, he directed by will that mister Brodie,
who had taken Holly orders, should have the next presentation
to whichever of his livings first became vacant. This desire
was soon fulfilled, and Winterslow in Wiltshire became the home
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of the Brodies. The Reverend Mister Brodie married in seventeen
seventy five a daughter of mister Collins, a banker at Salisbury,
and of this marriage, Benjamin Collins Brody was the third son,
having been born in seventeen eighty three. Sir Benjamin, in
his autobiography, gives a pleasing picture of his father, a
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man of sound classical knowledge, great energy, minute acquaintance with parishioners,
and devotion to his parochial duties. Notwithstanding his wife's considerable fortune,
mister Brody found he could not afford to send all
his sons to public schools, and he consequently determined to
educate them himself. An elder sisters, who joined the brothers
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at lessons, became no mean proficient in classics. Under the
strict discipline of their father. The children grew up in
the habit of methodical study, and Sir Benjamin recoids that idleness,
even for a day, was always irksome to him in
after life, and he had little inclination for any pursuit
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without a definite ulterior object. Seven miles distance from Salisbury,
the family learned to be self dependent for interest of
all kinds, and their solitude was little varied, except by
occasional visits of cousins, such as Lord Denham, who was
for a year a resident pupil with mister Brodie after
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leaving Eton, and a few others, one of whom was
afterwards Doctor Maton, a well known London physician, and Sir
John started afterwards Chief justice at Malta. Vigor of character
was shown own markedly when in seventeen ninety eight the
brothers raised a company of volunteers on the alarm of
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a French invasion. The eldest, at nineteen, received a commission
as captain, while Benjamin, only fourteen, was appointed ensign. Great
pains were bestowed on the drill of this company, and
the officers expended their pay in entertaining the men in
a great barn, and the influence already possessed by the
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youths was evident in the maintenance and increase of the
numbers of the corps, and the attention paid to drill.
The eldest brother, Peter, became a distinguished conveyancing barrister. The
second was a local banker, proprietor of a newspaper, and
represented Salisbury in three parliaments. As he drew towards adult age,
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Brodie read extensively in science and philosophy and general literature.
In the autumn of eighteen o one, the medical profession
having been chosen for him, he went to London without
any special bent towards the occupation in which he was
destined to shine. So conspicuously he gives it as his
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opinion in after years that those who succeed best in
professions are those who have embarked in them not from
irresistible prepossession, but perhaps from some accidental circumstance, and persevere
in their course as a matter of duty or because
they have nothing better to do. They often feel their
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new pursuit to be unattractive enough in the beginning, but
as they go on and acquire knowledge and find that
they obtain some degree of credit, the case is altered,
and from that time they become every day more interested
in what they are about, a great encouragement to the
vast majority of students who do not feel the stimulus
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and inspiration of genius. During his first season in London,
young Brodie attended Abenathy's course on anatomy, and to his
influence may be attributed the choice of surgery as his
special vocation. He kept our attention, says Brodie, so that
it never flagged, and was told at could not be forgotten.
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One of his earliest friendships was that which he formed
with William Lawrence as a fellow student. This continued unbroken
throughout life, and though they might be regarded as rivals,
no jealousy, ever arose between them. But Brodie was born
at home with his non medical friends, his elder brother,
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with whom he lodged Denman, Merevale, Ray Stoddard Gifford. Afterwards
Lord Gifford and Mayton. The latter had established in London
the Academical Society as a sort of transplant from Oxford,
and Brody was here introduced to Lord Glennig and his
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brother Robert Grant, Francis Howner, Doctor Bateman, and a young
scotchman of uncouth appearance afterwards, Lord Campbell. Before this society,
Brodie read papers on metaphysical enquiries and on the principles
of science, showing his philosophical bent. Berkeley was the author
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who influenced him most powerfully, from his clear reasoning and simple, unaffected,
perspicuous style, terms which are specially appropriate to Brodie's own writing.
In eighteen o two, Wilson's lectures on anatomy at Great
Windmill Street were Brodie's main professional pablom. I was naturally
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very clumsy in the use of my hands, he says,
and it was only by taking great pains with myself
that I became at all. Otherwise, in the spring of
eighteen o three, he became a pupil of Home. Afterwards
Sir Everard at Saint George's Hospital, Continuing also his anatomical studies,
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he ultimately became Sir Everard's assistant, both in the hospital
and in private practice. From this connection, however, he derived
little pecuniary profit, but by aiding Home in his researches
in comparative anatomy and physiology, he gained decided benefit. In
eighteen o five, however, Brody became demonstrator in Wilson's anatomical school.
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He was introduced to Sir Joseph Banks, and through him
to the best scientific men of the day. Could there
be more favorable conditions for progress or circumstances more unlike
those a chilling, seclusion and neglect, which have so often
hindered and overshadowed men of merit. Brody continued to demonstrate,
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and from eighteen o nine to lecture at Great Windows Street,
until in eighteen twelve Sir Charles Bell became principal lecturer there.
In eighteen o eight he was appointed assistant surgeon at
Saint George's Hospital by Holmes's influence, and in reality did
the work of a full surgeon. Almost from that date
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private practice he scarcely attempted, his hands, being full of
anatomical and hospital work. Robert Keat and Brody were at
the hospital daily, and silverintended everything. There was never an
urgent case that they did not visit in the evening.
This surgical experience was at once turned to advantage by Wilson,
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who asked Rody to join him in lecturing on surgery.
From eighteen o nine onward, for nearly twenty years Brody
gave his course of lectures and had a good attendance
of students, besides which he lectured on surgery at Saint
George's Hospital till eighteen forty. In eighteen o nine he
took a house in Sackville Street and received three private pupils,
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and teen ten, felt justified from the increase of his
means in engaging in physiological enquiries stimulated by Picturet's researches,
he was elected into the Royal Society in eighteen ten,
and in the same and following winter, communicated to the
Society two valuable papers, one on the influence of the
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brain on the action of the heart and the generation
of animal heat, and the other on the effects produced
by certain vegetable poisons. The former was given as the
Croonian Lecture in eighteen ten. These papers, though largely superseded
by recent investigations, were quite remarkable for that time and
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for the first He was awarded the Copley Medal in
eighteen eleven, which had never before been given to so
young a man. It is worth noting that a medal
was awarded by the Royal Society to the second Serpent,
Benjamin Brody in eighteen fifty, but his investigations on the
chemical nature of wax. With the exception of the two Herschels,
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this is the only instance in which father and son
have received this honor. The most noted, perhaps of Brodie's
physiological papers, was one on the influence of the nervous
system on the production of animal heat, published in eighteen twelve.
He concluded that an animal with the nervous centers removed
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or with their function suspended by narcotic poison, lost its
power of generating heat, even though the action of the
lungs was kept up by artificial respiration. Brodie used that
then little known Wurara roison, brought by doctor Bancroft from
Guiana to produce suspension of the nervous action in after life.
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Increase of practice left little time for further physiological research
at length. Rody married in eighteen sixteen and the third
daughter of Sergeant Sullen, his bride being only nineteen. This
was in every way a happy marriage, and Sir Benjamin
always warmly recognized his wife's excellent moral training of their children.
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In the year of their marriage, Rody's professional income from
fees and lectures amounted to fifteen hundred and thirty pounds.
For some years he had paid special attention to diseases
of the joints, which were then very ill understood, and
in eighteen nineteen he published his classical work on the
Pathology and Surgery of Diseases of the joints. He clearly
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distinguished between diseases of the various tissues of which joints
are composed, and also between hysterical, noralogic and merely local diseases.
Many limbs in which no disease could be found after
removal were at that time removed merely because pain was
felt in them. A sury told in the Lancet on
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the subject is worth reproducing. Late one evening a person
came into our office and asked to see the editor
of the Lancet. On being introduced to our sanctum, he
placed a bundle upon the table, from which he proceeded
to extract a very fair and symmetrical lower extremity, and
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which had evidently belonged to a woman. There said he,
is there anything the matter with that leg? Did you
ever see a handsomer? What ought the man to be
done with? Who cut it off? On having the meaning
of those interrogatories put before us, we found that it
was the leg of the wife of our evening visitor.
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He had been accustomed to admire the lady's leg and foot,
of the perfection of which she was it appeared fully conscious.
A few days before he had excited her anger, and
they had quarreled violently, upon which she left the house,
declaring she would be revenged on him, and that he
should never see the objects of his admiration again. The
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next thing he heard of her was that she was
a patient in Blank hospital and had her leg amputated.
She had declared to the surgeons that she suffered intolerable
pain in the knee and begged to have the limb
removed a petition the surgeons complied with, and thus became
the instrument of her absurd and self torturing revenge upon
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her husband. Brodie may now be regarded as firmly established
in public favor. His income at eighteen nineteen exceeded that
of the previous year by one thousand pounds. He enjoyed
the intimate acquaintance of Lord and Lady Holland, and the
sunshine of their friendship at its strong influence on practice.
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In eighteen nineteen, Brodie removed to saval Rot, and in
the same year was appointed to succeed Lawrence as Professor
of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at the College of Surgeons.
In this capacity, he lectured for four years, delivering new
and original matter. Each time. They constituted a frightful addition
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to his labors, and he only completed them by taking
many hours from needed sleep. He records, however, the few
things contributed more to his improvement than the composition of
his lectures and the habit of recording his knowledge and thoughts.
It enabled him to detect his own deficiencies and to
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avoid hasty conclusions, and taught him to be less concerned
of his own opinions. An important branch of modern surgery
may be said to have had its rise in an
operation first performed by Brody. Nowadays, subcutaneous operations in which
the slightest possible opening his bait in the skin, and
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frequently considerable incisions or other interferences are made beneath it,
are very common, and the procedure is of the greatest
importance in orthopedic surgery and the relief of muscular and
tenderness or contractions of various kinds. Brody first performed subcutaneous
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operation for the relief of various close veins of the
legs in eighteen fourteen, and several similar cases were published
by him in the seventh volume of the Medical Chiurgical Transactions.
If no other operative improvement a great moment is associated
with Brody's name, it is not that he has not
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left his mark on that department of practice, but rather
that he has been the introducer of innumerable minor improvements.
In particular, he was notable in devising improvements in surgical
instruments and apparatus. In eighteen twenty one, Brody was called
in to attend George the Fourth, who very much wished
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him to perform the operation, which, in deference to Lord Liverpool,
was entrusted to Astley Cooper. Brody remained ever after a
favorite with George the Fourth, and attended him frequently during
his last illness, going to Windsor every evening and visiting
the King at six in the morning, and remaining with
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him for an hour or two before returning to London.
When William the fourth came to the throne, Brody was
appointed Sergeant surgeon, and soon after received a baronetcy. He
had now for some years been at the head of
his profession, having succeeded to Sir Astley's place on his
retirement in eighteen twenty eight. In eighteen twenty three, his
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income was already sixty five hundred pounds. For many years
his practice brought him ten thousand pound pounds and sometimes
eleven thousand pounds a year. This was a very remarkable income,
considering the small proportion of it that was derived from operations.
Much the greatest party took in single guinea fees, and
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thus it is seen how much his opinion was valued
in surgical cases. Indeed, he often, especially after his retirement
from Saint George's Hospital in eighteen forty refused to perform
important operations to which he felt no special attraction. But
his abiding popularity and influence is shown by the fact
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that his total receipts from fees from first to last
considerably exceeded Sir Astley's. He used to say that he
had always kept in mind that saying of William Scott
afterwards Lord Stowell to his brother John subsequently, Lord Eldon John,
always keep the Lord Chancellorship in view, and you will
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be sure to get it in the end. And a
similar aim and distinction were Brodie's. Meanwhile, the public interest
was by no means lost, sight of in private practice.
To Brodie is largely due the merit of having put
a stop to the career of Saint John Long, the
fashionable medical impostor. Sir Benjamin was one afternoon on his
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way to visit a friend at Hampstead when he was
called in to see a miscassion Finding an enormous slough
on her back caused by Long's treatment, He exclaimed, why
this is no better than murder? The lady died, and
on the strength of Sir Benjamin's expressions, an inquest was held,
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followed by the trial and condemdation of long. Yet such
was the strength of the fashionable partisanship in favor of
the impostor, that the judge, Mister Justice Park merely find
him two hundred fifty p pounds, which he at once paid.
A second trial in another case, where death had ensued
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upon his treatment, ended in a verdict of acquittal. In
eighteen thirty four, Sir Benjamin succeeded to the very first
vacancy that occurred after his appointment as Sergeant's Surgeon in
the Court of Examiners of the College of Surgeons. This
was by prescription due to his court office. He found
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this duty very irksome, and he resigned it when a
new charter, which he had been largely instrumental in obtaining,
no longer granted this privilege to the sergeant's Surgeon. In
eighteen thirty nine and forty Sir Benjamin was President of
the Royal Medical and Chiurgical Society, and here again he shown,
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in addition to his own most valuable contributions, he excelled
in drawing out others. His attendance was most diligent, his
mind was never at all long for something interesting to say.
His stimulated discussion when an opposite president had been established,
and to him a very large share of the Society's
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prosperity was due. Of course, the presidency of the Royal
College of Surgeons fell to his lot when the General
Medical Council was established. Sir Benjamin was by common consent
called to the presidency, and in eighteen fifty eight he
received a still more remarkable honor in being called to
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the Presidency of the Royal Society, which office he held
with dignity and wisdom till eighteen sixty one. It is
impossible for us here to record all the important offices
Brody filled, nor all the valuable communications he made to
learn its societies and various journals. Fortunately, his charming autobiography
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is very accessible, being published separately as well as in
the excellent collection of works in three volumes eighteen sixty five,
edited by mister Charles Hawkins. It is easily imagined that
Brodie's long course of labor could only have been sustained
by a strong constitution. He was not altogether robust, but
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by careful management, succeeded in preserving excellent health. In eighteen
thirty four, while in the Isle of Wight, he fell
from a pony and dislocated his right shoulder joint, which
long after became diseased. In July eighteen sixty his sight
became impaired, and he ultimately submitted to excision on the
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iris of both eyes by mister now Sir William Bowman.
Later he was operated on full cataract, but all efforts
to reserve good sight were feudile. In July eighteen sixty two,
he began to suffer in his right shoulder and finally
died of cancer disease in that joint on October twenty first,
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eighteen sixty two. He was buried at Betchworth, Surrey, and
which perished. The State Broome Park, which he had purchased,
is situated the landsat said of him, it is true
praise of Sir Benjamin Brodie to say that he is
more distinguished as a physician surgeon than as an operating surgeon.
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His vocation was more to heal limbs than to remove them.
His imagination had never been dazzled by the brilliancy of
the knife to any great operative display. He was, however,
always a most steady and successful operator. Lightness of hand,
caution without timidity never fail in coolness and fertility of
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resources were his distinguishing characteristics. He made no secret of
his opinion that the operative part of surgery was not
its highest part. Gnosis had always been his great strength,
and his opinion was therefore always deeply valued by the
profession and the public. We believe his heart was with
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hospital rather than private practice. But in almost all cases,
men are more fond of their early occupations than those
which come afterwards. As a teacher, he was always distinguished
for the value of the matter he had to communicate.
Those who heard him in the early part of his
career say that he was then energetic rather than polished,
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that he appeared to struggle with the weight and mass
of facts he had stored up in his mind. But
in later years his delivery was fluent and perfect. No
man in his profession could deliver himself more readily or
more elegantly than Sir Benjamin Brodie. Doctor Babington, president of
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the Royal Medical and Chiurgical Society, then characterized Brodie as
a practical servi Sir Benjamin Brody attained a success far
beyond that of most of his contemporaries, and this he
seems to have owed not to personal appearance or manner,
not to eccentricity, not to an unusual degree of courtesy
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on the one hand, or of bluntness or prosquerry on
the other, but to the legitimate influence of a high
order of intellect. Thou relief devoted to the practical application
of the source of surgical knowledge acquired by his assiduity
and experience, to the sound, well considered and decided opinions
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which his patients were sure to obtain from him, And
to the confidence with his high religious principles and his
strict morality inspired For myself, I can only say that
I never knew a more single minded and upright character,
one more free from affectation or presumption, who expected less
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deference or deserved more, or whomore completely impressed me with
the belief that the main object of his efforts, that
which was always uppermost of his mind, was wholly irrespective
of self, to benefit those by whom he was consulted.
Doctor Now, Sir Henry Acklund has given in the Proceedings
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of the Royal Society, perhaps the best survey of Brodie's
character and work. Neither as a scientific man, nor a surgeon,
nor his author, was he so remarkable as he appears
when viewed as he was a complete man, necessarily engaged
in various callings. It was impossible to see him acting
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in any capacity without instinctively feeling that there he would
do his duty and do it well. Nor could he
be imagined in a false position. A gentleman, according to
his own definition of that word. He did to others
that which he would desire to be done to him,
respecting them as he respected himself. Simple in his manners,
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he gained confidence at once, Accustomed to mix with the
poorest in the hospital and with the noblest in their
private abodes. He sympathized with the better qualities of each,
valued all, and despise nothing but moral meanness. Though as
a boy he was retiring and modest, he was happy
in the company of older persons, and as he grew older,
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loved in his turn to help the young. I hear
you are ill, he wrote once, in the zenith of
his life, to a hospital student of whom he did
not then know much. No one will take better care
of you than I. Come to my country house till
you are well, And the students stayed there two months.
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He was thought by some reserved He was modest by
others hasty. He valued time, and could not give to
trifles that which belonged to real suffering. He was sometimes
thought impatient when his quick glance had already told him
more than the patient could either describe or understand, unconscious
of self, of strong common sense, confident of his ground,
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or not entering thereon. Seeing in every direction, modest, just sympathetic,
he lived for one great end, the lessening of disease.
For this object, no labor was too great, no patience
too long, no science too difficult. He felt, indeed his
happiness to be in a life of exertion. As a
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professional man, he valued science because it so often points
the way to that which is practically useful to many.
But as a scientific man, his one object was the truth,
which had pursued for its own sake wholly, irrespective of
any other reward which might or might not follow on discovery.
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He had not the common fault of common men, for
he had not their objects, nor their instinct were ease,
nor their prejudices. Though he became rich, he had not
unduly sought riches. Though he was greatly distinguished, he had
not desired fame. He was beloved, not having courted popularity
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what he was himself, that he allowed other men to
be till he found them otherwise. He saw weak points
in his profession, but he saw them as a debris
from the mountains of knowledge and wisdom, of benevolence and
of self denial, of old traditional skill, ever growing it,
always purifying those eternal structures on which are founded true
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surgery and medicine. It ef he was bitter in society.
It was when they were undervalued, If ever sarcastic, it
was when the ignorant he had resumed to judge them.
A light is thus thrown on his even career of
uniform progress, training his powers from youth upwards, by linguistic
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and literary studies, by scientific pursuits, by the diligent practice
of his art, by mixing with men, he brought to
bear on the multifarious questions which come before a great
master of healing, a mind alike accustomed to acquire and
to communicate, a temper made gentle by considerate kindness, a
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tact that became all but unerring from his perfect integrity.
He saw that every material science conduces to the well
being of man. He would countenance all, and yet be
distracted by none. He knew the value of worldly influence,
of rank of station when rightly used. He sought none,
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deferred excessively to none. But he respected all who, having them,
used them wisely, and accepted what came to himself unasked,
gave his own freely to all who needed, and sought
help from no one but for public ends. Those who
knew him only as a man of business would little
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suspect the playful humor which sparkled by his friends, the
fund of anecdote, the harmless wit, the simple pleasures of
his country. Walk in the quality of his mind. He
was not unlike the most eminent of his contemporaries, Arthur,
Duke of Wellington. Those who did not know him, and
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who do not appreciate the power requisite to make such
a master in medicine as he was, may be surprised
at the comparison. Yet our great soldier might have accepted
the illustration without dissatisfaction. Whatever art Brody undertook, If he
has been correctly drawn, he would have entirely mastered. The self.
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Discipline of the strongest man can affect no more the
care with which the two men compassed every detail and
surveyed every bearing of a large question. The quiet good sense,
the steadiness of purpose, the readiness of wide professional knowledge,
and critical emergencies were in each alike. The public and
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his profession esteemed Brodie as the first in his art.
William Lawrence was born at Cirencester in July seventeen eighty three,
his father having practiced as a surgeon in that town
for many years. After being educated at a classical school
near Gloucester, young Lawrence was apprenticed to February seventeen ninety
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nine to the celebrated Aberonathy, in whose house he went
to reside in after years. When lecturing before the College
of Surgeons for the first time, Lawrence spoke thus eloquently
of his teacher. Having had the good fortune to be
initiated in the profession by mister Abernathy, and to have
lived for many years under his roof, can assure you
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with the greatest sincerity that, however highly the public may
estimate the surgeon and the philosopher, I have reason to
speak still more highly of the man and the friend,
of the invariable kindness which directed my early studies and
pursuits of the disinterested friendship, which has assisted every step
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of my progress in life. And the benevolent and honorable feelings,
the independent spirit and the liberal conduct, which, while they
dignify our profession, win our love and command our respect
for genius and knowledge, converting those precious gifts into instruments
of the most extensive public good. Lawrence proved themselves so
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zealous a pupil that in the third year of his apprenticeship,
Avanaty appointed him to be a demonstrator of anatomy, a
post which he filled for twelve years, becoming a member
at the College of Surgeons in eighteen o five, was
a going to assistant surgeon to Saint Bartholomew's Hospital in
eighteen thirteen, and in the same year was elected f
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r s. Already in eighteen o one he had published
a translation from the Latin of a description of the
arteries by Murray, professor at Uppsala. In eighteen o six
he won a prize offered by the College of Surgeons
for an essay on the treatment of hernia. This essay,
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when printed, gained immediate acceptance, and numerous editions were published.
Lawrence's contributions to Anatomy and surgery now followed rapidly, several
appearing in the Edinburgh's Medical and Physical Journal. His observations
on lithotomy showed the way to a revival of the
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true system, operating laterally with the knife. In eighteen fourteen,
Lawrence was chosen surgeon to the Eye Hospital at Morsefield,
and in eighteen fifteen to our Royal Hospitals up Bridewell
in Bethlehem. In the latter year he was selected for
the professorship of Anatomy and Physiology at the College of Surgeons,
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and hence arose one of the bitterest controversial tempests of
the early part of the century. Lawrence took occasion in
his first lectures in eighteen sixteen to criticize Abernathy's exposition
of Hunter's theory of life and to unfold views which
seriously scandalized those or regarded life as a mysterious entity
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entirely separate from and above the material organism with which
it is associated. These views were criticized by Admirinathi in
his Physiological Lectures in eighteen seventeen, and Lawrence replied in
eighteen eighteen in terms of sarcasm, which made a serious
brooch between the master and his former pupil. Lawrence's lectures
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were published as an Introduction to the Comparative Anatomy and
Physiology eighteen sixteen and Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the
Natural History of Man eighteen nineteen. Having been accused by
Abernathy and others of reverting the honor office entrusted to
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him by the College of Surgeons to the very unworthy
design of propagating opinions detrimental to society, and of endeavoring
to enforce them for the purpose of loosening those restraints
on which the welfare of mankind depends. He used his
eloquence unsparingly, both to defend his position and to repel
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the attacks made upon him. He was not more heretical
than many of his predecessors, nor than a great many
enlightened biologists of the present day. He regarded life as
the assemblage of all the functions and the general of
their exercise. Thus, organisms, vital properties, functions in life are
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expressions related to each other in which organization is the instrument,
vital properties the acting power, function the mode of action,
and life the result. Again, we find that the motion
proper to living bodies, or in one word, life has
its origin in that of its parents. From their parents
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they have received the vital impulse, and hence it is
evident that in the present state of things, life proceeds
only from life, and there exists no other but that
which has been transmitted from one living body to another
by an uninterrupted succession. Lawrence was virulently attacked and his
(37:49):
name associated with Tom Payne and Lord Byron as arch heretics.
A pamphlet of the year eighteen twenty has the following
title The Radical Umperit or Infidel pain Lord Byron and
Surgeant Lawrence colleaguing with the patriotic Radicals to emancipate ma
(38:10):
Inkind from all laws human and divine, with a plate
engraved for their instruction. A letter to John Bull from
an Oxonian resident in London. The Christian advocate in the
University of Cambridge, the Reverend Thomas Russell, among others, took
up the task of controverting Lawrence's supposed materialism. The lectures
(38:33):
on the Comparative Anatomy of Man certainly put forward in
a striking light many of Blumenback's views, and showed that
the literal accuracy of the early parts of Genesis was
inconsistent with the facts of zoology and comparative anatomy. We
might foresee further on this subject. But Lawrence himself prevented
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his successors from espousing his personal clause. With Wardour four
being called upon to resign his position at Broadwell and Bethlehem,
he did not resign, but recanted, brought up all the
copies of his work on the History of Man, and
sent them over to America. Numerous modified and also spurious
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editions were sold. This conduct deprived him of a large
share of our sympathy and respect. Had Lawrence, like Darwin
or Huxley, maintained his opinions were most unpopular, he might
have won a victory for sound science years before it
actually was gained. If he had been the original discoverer
(39:38):
of the truth he annunciated, and had bought them with
his life's energy, he would scarcely have dropped them at
the raging of a storm. But the glory was not
to be his. He was tried in the balance and
found wanting. The early symptoms of disagreement between Abernathy and
Lawrence extended to other members of the staff and to
(40:00):
the establishment of the Aldersgate Street School of Medicine, where
Lawrence lectured on surgery till eighteen twenty eight, when he
succeeded to avon at these lectures on surgery at Saint Bartholomew's.
The Aldersgate School included able teachers such as Tweedy, Clutterbuck,
roget Terrell and Davis, and had much success. Lawrence's connection
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with the eye infirmary led him to become an authority
on the surgery of the eye. He published in eighteen
thirty a treatise on the venereal Diseases of the eye,
in eighteen thirty three a Treatise on Diseases of the Eye,
besides other papers on this branch of practice. Late in
life he published in eighteen sixty three his valuable lectures
(40:48):
on surgery. His smaller works and papers are too numerous
to mention. As a student, Sir Benjamin Brodie describes William
Lawrence as already remarkable for his great powers of acquirement,
his industrious habits, and his immense stores of information. In
later life he characterized him as possessed to considerable powers
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of conversation, abounding in happy illustrations, and not ill natured sarcasm.
In public speaking, says Brodie, he is collected as great
command of language and uses it correctly. In writing, his
style is pure treat from all affectation, yet in general
not sufficiently concise. That he is thoroughly acquainted with his
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profession cannot be doubted. But Sir Benjamin does not attribute
to him so much originality as erudition and industry. It
is in his religions to medical politics that the conduct
of William Lawrence is most open to question. When the
College's Surgeons was a close corporation, he put himself at
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the head of a great agitation to liberalize it. An
eloquent speech at the Freemason staffn in eighteen twenty six
was one of the market features of the campaign, and
was rejoined heretily with the Lancet in attacking the overall
system of the college. But says the Lancet, the Council
feared him and elected him into their body. From that
(42:21):
moment mister Lawrence became a conservative and unobstructive, and maintained
their character that the close of his life he not
only deserted his former friends, but lost no opportunity of
reviling them. Mister Lawrence, during the long period that he
was a member of the Council and at the Court
of Examiners, resolutely and consistently opposed every attempt that was
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made to improve the education and the status of the
surgeon in general practice. Lawrence was twice president of the College,
and more than once delivered the Hunterian oration on the
last of these Asians in eighteen forty six, when a
new charter had lately been obtained, would failed to gratify
the just aspirations other members of the College. No one,
(43:10):
it is said, could be persuaded to deliver the Hrtarian
oration to Lawrence, with characteristic polemic zeal, threw himself into
the breach. A crowded audience, for the most part hostile assembled,
and Lawrence, instead of avoiding controversy, both defended and commended
(43:30):
the action of the Council. A storm of indignation was excited,
especially among those who had listened to his contrary deliverances
twenty years before, but the orator was imperturbable in the
fiercest of the storm. He certainly displayed on that occasion
his most extraordinary talents as an orator. When he had
(43:52):
allowed his audience to exhaustage dissatisfaction at the sentiments which
he had uttered. He concluded his at d and almost
masterly and eloquent peroration, which called forth the plaudits of
the Assembly. In arriving at a just estimation of the
character Sir W. Lawrence, it must be admitted in cecil handset,
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that in most of the higher qualities of the mind
he was entitled to admiration. His talents were of the
highest order, seldom surpassed in our profession. As a writer,
his style was vigorous, clear and convincing. As a lecturer
in manner, substance, and expression, he had no superior in
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the profession of our time. If we accept Joseph Henry
Greene as an operator, if not among the greatest, is
entitled to hold a high physician. But it must be
acknowledged that his principles were somewhat lax, his heart was
somewhat hard. We speak of him now merely in a
public capacity, for in all the relations of private life
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he was most estimable and affectionate. Notwithstanding the low estimation
in which he held Surgeons in general practice, it is
probable no pure surgeon of modern times ever had so
large a general practice as himself, if they were only
confident for the common exigencies of surgery. He had, all
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events thought himself able to treat every class of disease,
whether medical or surgical. In physical frame, Lawrence was well
developed and vigorous, above metal height, with a high forehead,
a cold but keen blue eye, a classic nose, a large,
expressive mouth, and a firm chin of some size. He
(45:45):
was always somewhat lival to loss of nerve power in
the face or in the lower limbs. In eighteen sixty
five he began to become enfeebled, and finally hemoplesia supervened,
and a second attack at the council chamber of the
College of Surgeons laid him by completely. But he remained
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conscious till the last, dying on the fifth July eighteen
sixty seven. A bust of him adjoins the rooms of
the Medical Chiurgical Society, and anothers in the College of Surgeons.
A baronetcy was only conferred on him in the March
before his death. He had long been Surgeon Extraordinary to
(46:26):
the Queen, and finally Sergeant Surgeon. It has been said
of him that he kept his appointments as long as possible,
but it may be answered that he was full of
vitality and died in harness. And of Section thirteen and
of eminent doctors Their Lives in their Work, Volume one
(46:48):
by George Thomas Bettany,
Section thirteen of Eminent Doctors Their Lives and their Work,
Volume one. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
please visit LibriVox dot org. Eminent Doctors Their Lives and
(00:21):
their Work, Volume one by George Thomas Bettany. Sir Benjamin
Brody and Sir William Lawrence, two great practical surgeons. The
influence of heredity and of association and connection with talented
persons is well illustrated in the case of Sir Benjamin Brodie.
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His paternal grandfather, Alexander Brody, was a native of Bamfsheer
who came to London as a humble adventurer and almost
as a Jacobite refugee. He married a daughter of a
physician named Shaw, a similar Jacobite family and connections. Brody
became an army clothier, and one of his daughters, who
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married Doctor Denham, the eminent obstetric physician, was the mother
of Lord Denman. Margaret and Sophia, the twin daughters of
Doctor Denman, married the former Sir Richard Croft, who attended
the Princess Charlotte at her death in eighteen seventeen. The
latter doctor Matthew Bailey, the eminent physician and nephew of
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John Hunter. The Army Clothier's wife was herself a woman
of considerable nobilities, and it was said that there was
royal blood in the family. The father of Sir Benjamin
was educated at Charterhouse and at Oxford. As a boy,
it was patronized by the first Lord Holland, and spent
much time at Holland House. A warm attachment existed between them,
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in which Charles James Fox shared. When Lord Holland died
in seventeen seventy four, he directed by will that mister Brodie,
who had taken Holly orders, should have the next presentation
to whichever of his livings first became vacant. This desire
was soon fulfilled, and Winterslow in Wiltshire became the home
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of the Brodies. The Reverend Mister Brodie married in seventeen
seventy five a daughter of mister Collins, a banker at Salisbury,
and of this marriage, Benjamin Collins Brody was the third son,
having been born in seventeen eighty three. Sir Benjamin, in
his autobiography, gives a pleasing picture of his father, a
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man of sound classical knowledge, great energy, minute acquaintance with parishioners,
and devotion to his parochial duties. Notwithstanding his wife's considerable fortune,
mister Brody found he could not afford to send all
his sons to public schools, and he consequently determined to
educate them himself. An elder sisters, who joined the brothers
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at lessons, became no mean proficient in classics. Under the
strict discipline of their father. The children grew up in
the habit of methodical study, and Sir Benjamin recoids that idleness,
even for a day, was always irksome to him in
after life, and he had little inclination for any pursuit
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without a definite ulterior object. Seven miles distance from Salisbury,
the family learned to be self dependent for interest of
all kinds, and their solitude was little varied, except by
occasional visits of cousins, such as Lord Denham, who was
for a year a resident pupil with mister Brodie after
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leaving Eton, and a few others, one of whom was
afterwards Doctor Maton, a well known London physician, and Sir
John started afterwards Chief justice at Malta. Vigor of character
was shown own markedly when in seventeen ninety eight the
brothers raised a company of volunteers on the alarm of
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a French invasion. The eldest, at nineteen, received a commission
as captain, while Benjamin, only fourteen, was appointed ensign. Great
pains were bestowed on the drill of this company, and
the officers expended their pay in entertaining the men in
a great barn, and the influence already possessed by the
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youths was evident in the maintenance and increase of the
numbers of the corps, and the attention paid to drill.
The eldest brother, Peter, became a distinguished conveyancing barrister. The
second was a local banker, proprietor of a newspaper, and
represented Salisbury in three parliaments. As he drew towards adult age,
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Brodie read extensively in science and philosophy and general literature.
In the autumn of eighteen o one, the medical profession
having been chosen for him, he went to London without
any special bent towards the occupation in which he was
destined to shine. So conspicuously he gives it as his
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opinion in after years that those who succeed best in
professions are those who have embarked in them not from
irresistible prepossession, but perhaps from some accidental circumstance, and persevere
in their course as a matter of duty or because
they have nothing better to do. They often feel their
(05:32):
new pursuit to be unattractive enough in the beginning, but
as they go on and acquire knowledge and find that
they obtain some degree of credit, the case is altered,
and from that time they become every day more interested
in what they are about, a great encouragement to the
vast majority of students who do not feel the stimulus
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and inspiration of genius. During his first season in London,
young Brodie attended Abenathy's course on anatomy, and to his
influence may be attributed the choice of surgery as his
special vocation. He kept our attention, says Brodie, so that
it never flagged, and was told at could not be forgotten.
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One of his earliest friendships was that which he formed
with William Lawrence as a fellow student. This continued unbroken
throughout life, and though they might be regarded as rivals,
no jealousy, ever arose between them. But Brodie was born
at home with his non medical friends, his elder brother,
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with whom he lodged Denman, Merevale, Ray Stoddard Gifford. Afterwards
Lord Gifford and Mayton. The latter had established in London
the Academical Society as a sort of transplant from Oxford,
and Brody was here introduced to Lord Glennig and his
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brother Robert Grant, Francis Howner, Doctor Bateman, and a young
scotchman of uncouth appearance afterwards, Lord Campbell. Before this society,
Brodie read papers on metaphysical enquiries and on the principles
of science, showing his philosophical bent. Berkeley was the author
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who influenced him most powerfully, from his clear reasoning and simple, unaffected,
perspicuous style, terms which are specially appropriate to Brodie's own writing.
In eighteen o two, Wilson's lectures on anatomy at Great
Windmill Street were Brodie's main professional pablom. I was naturally
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very clumsy in the use of my hands, he says,
and it was only by taking great pains with myself
that I became at all. Otherwise, in the spring of
eighteen o three, he became a pupil of Home. Afterwards
Sir Everard at Saint George's Hospital, Continuing also his anatomical studies,
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he ultimately became Sir Everard's assistant, both in the hospital
and in private practice. From this connection, however, he derived
little pecuniary profit, but by aiding Home in his researches
in comparative anatomy and physiology, he gained decided benefit. In
eighteen o five, however, Brody became demonstrator in Wilson's anatomical school.
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He was introduced to Sir Joseph Banks, and through him
to the best scientific men of the day. Could there
be more favorable conditions for progress or circumstances more unlike
those a chilling, seclusion and neglect, which have so often
hindered and overshadowed men of merit. Brody continued to demonstrate,
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and from eighteen o nine to lecture at Great Windows Street,
until in eighteen twelve Sir Charles Bell became principal lecturer there.
In eighteen o eight he was appointed assistant surgeon at
Saint George's Hospital by Holmes's influence, and in reality did
the work of a full surgeon. Almost from that date
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private practice he scarcely attempted, his hands, being full of
anatomical and hospital work. Robert Keat and Brody were at
the hospital daily, and silverintended everything. There was never an
urgent case that they did not visit in the evening.
This surgical experience was at once turned to advantage by Wilson,
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who asked Rody to join him in lecturing on surgery.
From eighteen o nine onward, for nearly twenty years Brody
gave his course of lectures and had a good attendance
of students, besides which he lectured on surgery at Saint
George's Hospital till eighteen forty. In eighteen o nine he
took a house in Sackville Street and received three private pupils,
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and teen ten, felt justified from the increase of his
means in engaging in physiological enquiries stimulated by Picturet's researches,
he was elected into the Royal Society in eighteen ten,
and in the same and following winter, communicated to the
Society two valuable papers, one on the influence of the
(10:23):
brain on the action of the heart and the generation
of animal heat, and the other on the effects produced
by certain vegetable poisons. The former was given as the
Croonian Lecture in eighteen ten. These papers, though largely superseded
by recent investigations, were quite remarkable for that time and
(10:45):
for the first He was awarded the Copley Medal in
eighteen eleven, which had never before been given to so
young a man. It is worth noting that a medal
was awarded by the Royal Society to the second Serpent,
Benjamin Brody in eighteen fifty, but his investigations on the
chemical nature of wax. With the exception of the two Herschels,
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this is the only instance in which father and son
have received this honor. The most noted, perhaps of Brodie's
physiological papers, was one on the influence of the nervous
system on the production of animal heat, published in eighteen twelve.
He concluded that an animal with the nervous centers removed
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or with their function suspended by narcotic poison, lost its
power of generating heat, even though the action of the
lungs was kept up by artificial respiration. Brodie used that
then little known Wurara roison, brought by doctor Bancroft from
Guiana to produce suspension of the nervous action in after life.
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Increase of practice left little time for further physiological research
at length. Rody married in eighteen sixteen and the third
daughter of Sergeant Sullen, his bride being only nineteen. This
was in every way a happy marriage, and Sir Benjamin
always warmly recognized his wife's excellent moral training of their children.
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In the year of their marriage, Rody's professional income from
fees and lectures amounted to fifteen hundred and thirty pounds.
For some years he had paid special attention to diseases
of the joints, which were then very ill understood, and
in eighteen nineteen he published his classical work on the
Pathology and Surgery of Diseases of the joints. He clearly
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distinguished between diseases of the various tissues of which joints
are composed, and also between hysterical, noralogic and merely local diseases.
Many limbs in which no disease could be found after
removal were at that time removed merely because pain was
felt in them. A sury told in the Lancet on
(13:04):
the subject is worth reproducing. Late one evening a person
came into our office and asked to see the editor
of the Lancet. On being introduced to our sanctum, he
placed a bundle upon the table, from which he proceeded
to extract a very fair and symmetrical lower extremity, and
(13:24):
which had evidently belonged to a woman. There said he,
is there anything the matter with that leg? Did you
ever see a handsomer? What ought the man to be
done with? Who cut it off? On having the meaning
of those interrogatories put before us, we found that it
was the leg of the wife of our evening visitor.
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He had been accustomed to admire the lady's leg and foot,
of the perfection of which she was it appeared fully conscious.
A few days before he had excited her anger, and
they had quarreled violently, upon which she left the house,
declaring she would be revenged on him, and that he
should never see the objects of his admiration again. The
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next thing he heard of her was that she was
a patient in Blank hospital and had her leg amputated.
She had declared to the surgeons that she suffered intolerable
pain in the knee and begged to have the limb
removed a petition the surgeons complied with, and thus became
the instrument of her absurd and self torturing revenge upon
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her husband. Brodie may now be regarded as firmly established
in public favor. His income at eighteen nineteen exceeded that
of the previous year by one thousand pounds. He enjoyed
the intimate acquaintance of Lord and Lady Holland, and the
sunshine of their friendship at its strong influence on practice.
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In eighteen nineteen, Brodie removed to saval Rot, and in
the same year was appointed to succeed Lawrence as Professor
of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology at the College of Surgeons.
In this capacity, he lectured for four years, delivering new
and original matter. Each time. They constituted a frightful addition
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to his labors, and he only completed them by taking
many hours from needed sleep. He records, however, the few
things contributed more to his improvement than the composition of
his lectures and the habit of recording his knowledge and thoughts.
It enabled him to detect his own deficiencies and to
(15:39):
avoid hasty conclusions, and taught him to be less concerned
of his own opinions. An important branch of modern surgery
may be said to have had its rise in an
operation first performed by Brody. Nowadays, subcutaneous operations in which
the slightest possible opening his bait in the skin, and
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frequently considerable incisions or other interferences are made beneath it,
are very common, and the procedure is of the greatest
importance in orthopedic surgery and the relief of muscular and
tenderness or contractions of various kinds. Brody first performed subcutaneous
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operation for the relief of various close veins of the
legs in eighteen fourteen, and several similar cases were published
by him in the seventh volume of the Medical Chiurgical Transactions.
If no other operative improvement a great moment is associated
with Brody's name, it is not that he has not
(16:44):
left his mark on that department of practice, but rather
that he has been the introducer of innumerable minor improvements.
In particular, he was notable in devising improvements in surgical
instruments and apparatus. In eighteen twenty one, Brody was called
in to attend George the Fourth, who very much wished
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him to perform the operation, which, in deference to Lord Liverpool,
was entrusted to Astley Cooper. Brody remained ever after a
favorite with George the Fourth, and attended him frequently during
his last illness, going to Windsor every evening and visiting
the King at six in the morning, and remaining with
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him for an hour or two before returning to London.
When William the fourth came to the throne, Brody was
appointed Sergeant surgeon, and soon after received a baronetcy. He
had now for some years been at the head of
his profession, having succeeded to Sir Astley's place on his
retirement in eighteen twenty eight. In eighteen twenty three, his
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income was already sixty five hundred pounds. For many years
his practice brought him ten thousand pound pounds and sometimes
eleven thousand pounds a year. This was a very remarkable income,
considering the small proportion of it that was derived from operations.
Much the greatest party took in single guinea fees, and
(18:16):
thus it is seen how much his opinion was valued
in surgical cases. Indeed, he often, especially after his retirement
from Saint George's Hospital in eighteen forty refused to perform
important operations to which he felt no special attraction. But
his abiding popularity and influence is shown by the fact
(18:38):
that his total receipts from fees from first to last
considerably exceeded Sir Astley's. He used to say that he
had always kept in mind that saying of William Scott
afterwards Lord Stowell to his brother John subsequently, Lord Eldon John,
always keep the Lord Chancellorship in view, and you will
(19:01):
be sure to get it in the end. And a
similar aim and distinction were Brodie's. Meanwhile, the public interest
was by no means lost, sight of in private practice.
To Brodie is largely due the merit of having put
a stop to the career of Saint John Long, the
fashionable medical impostor. Sir Benjamin was one afternoon on his
(19:25):
way to visit a friend at Hampstead when he was
called in to see a miscassion Finding an enormous slough
on her back caused by Long's treatment, He exclaimed, why
this is no better than murder? The lady died, and
on the strength of Sir Benjamin's expressions, an inquest was held,
(19:45):
followed by the trial and condemdation of long. Yet such
was the strength of the fashionable partisanship in favor of
the impostor, that the judge, Mister Justice Park merely find
him two hundred fifty p pounds, which he at once paid.
A second trial in another case, where death had ensued
(20:06):
upon his treatment, ended in a verdict of acquittal. In
eighteen thirty four, Sir Benjamin succeeded to the very first
vacancy that occurred after his appointment as Sergeant's Surgeon in
the Court of Examiners of the College of Surgeons. This
was by prescription due to his court office. He found
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this duty very irksome, and he resigned it when a
new charter, which he had been largely instrumental in obtaining,
no longer granted this privilege to the sergeant's Surgeon. In
eighteen thirty nine and forty Sir Benjamin was President of
the Royal Medical and Chiurgical Society, and here again he shown,
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in addition to his own most valuable contributions, he excelled
in drawing out others. His attendance was most diligent, his
mind was never at all long for something interesting to say.
His stimulated discussion when an opposite president had been established,
and to him a very large share of the Society's
(21:11):
prosperity was due. Of course, the presidency of the Royal
College of Surgeons fell to his lot when the General
Medical Council was established. Sir Benjamin was by common consent
called to the presidency, and in eighteen fifty eight he
received a still more remarkable honor in being called to
(21:32):
the Presidency of the Royal Society, which office he held
with dignity and wisdom till eighteen sixty one. It is
impossible for us here to record all the important offices
Brody filled, nor all the valuable communications he made to
learn its societies and various journals. Fortunately, his charming autobiography
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is very accessible, being published separately as well as in
the excellent collection of works in three volumes eighteen sixty five,
edited by mister Charles Hawkins. It is easily imagined that
Brodie's long course of labor could only have been sustained
by a strong constitution. He was not altogether robust, but
(22:18):
by careful management, succeeded in preserving excellent health. In eighteen
thirty four, while in the Isle of Wight, he fell
from a pony and dislocated his right shoulder joint, which
long after became diseased. In July eighteen sixty his sight
became impaired, and he ultimately submitted to excision on the
(22:41):
iris of both eyes by mister now Sir William Bowman.
Later he was operated on full cataract, but all efforts
to reserve good sight were feudile. In July eighteen sixty two,
he began to suffer in his right shoulder and finally
died of cancer disease in that joint on October twenty first,
(23:03):
eighteen sixty two. He was buried at Betchworth, Surrey, and
which perished. The State Broome Park, which he had purchased,
is situated the landsat said of him, it is true
praise of Sir Benjamin Brodie to say that he is
more distinguished as a physician surgeon than as an operating surgeon.
(23:26):
His vocation was more to heal limbs than to remove them.
His imagination had never been dazzled by the brilliancy of
the knife to any great operative display. He was, however,
always a most steady and successful operator. Lightness of hand,
caution without timidity never fail in coolness and fertility of
(23:48):
resources were his distinguishing characteristics. He made no secret of
his opinion that the operative part of surgery was not
its highest part. Gnosis had always been his great strength,
and his opinion was therefore always deeply valued by the
profession and the public. We believe his heart was with
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hospital rather than private practice. But in almost all cases,
men are more fond of their early occupations than those
which come afterwards. As a teacher, he was always distinguished
for the value of the matter he had to communicate.
Those who heard him in the early part of his
career say that he was then energetic rather than polished,
(24:33):
that he appeared to struggle with the weight and mass
of facts he had stored up in his mind. But
in later years his delivery was fluent and perfect. No
man in his profession could deliver himself more readily or
more elegantly than Sir Benjamin Brodie. Doctor Babington, president of
(24:53):
the Royal Medical and Chiurgical Society, then characterized Brodie as
a practical servi Sir Benjamin Brody attained a success far
beyond that of most of his contemporaries, and this he
seems to have owed not to personal appearance or manner,
not to eccentricity, not to an unusual degree of courtesy
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on the one hand, or of bluntness or prosquerry on
the other, but to the legitimate influence of a high
order of intellect. Thou relief devoted to the practical application
of the source of surgical knowledge acquired by his assiduity
and experience, to the sound, well considered and decided opinions
(25:37):
which his patients were sure to obtain from him, And
to the confidence with his high religious principles and his
strict morality inspired For myself, I can only say that
I never knew a more single minded and upright character,
one more free from affectation or presumption, who expected less
(25:58):
deference or deserved more, or whomore completely impressed me with
the belief that the main object of his efforts, that
which was always uppermost of his mind, was wholly irrespective
of self, to benefit those by whom he was consulted.
Doctor Now, Sir Henry Acklund has given in the Proceedings
(26:21):
of the Royal Society, perhaps the best survey of Brodie's
character and work. Neither as a scientific man, nor a surgeon,
nor his author, was he so remarkable as he appears
when viewed as he was a complete man, necessarily engaged
in various callings. It was impossible to see him acting
(26:41):
in any capacity without instinctively feeling that there he would
do his duty and do it well. Nor could he
be imagined in a false position. A gentleman, according to
his own definition of that word. He did to others
that which he would desire to be done to him,
respecting them as he respected himself. Simple in his manners,
(27:05):
he gained confidence at once, Accustomed to mix with the
poorest in the hospital and with the noblest in their
private abodes. He sympathized with the better qualities of each,
valued all, and despise nothing but moral meanness. Though as
a boy he was retiring and modest, he was happy
in the company of older persons, and as he grew older,
(27:29):
loved in his turn to help the young. I hear
you are ill, he wrote once, in the zenith of
his life, to a hospital student of whom he did
not then know much. No one will take better care
of you than I. Come to my country house till
you are well, And the students stayed there two months.
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He was thought by some reserved He was modest by
others hasty. He valued time, and could not give to
trifles that which belonged to real suffering. He was sometimes
thought impatient when his quick glance had already told him
more than the patient could either describe or understand, unconscious
of self, of strong common sense, confident of his ground,
(28:14):
or not entering thereon. Seeing in every direction, modest, just sympathetic,
he lived for one great end, the lessening of disease.
For this object, no labor was too great, no patience
too long, no science too difficult. He felt, indeed his
happiness to be in a life of exertion. As a
(28:37):
professional man, he valued science because it so often points
the way to that which is practically useful to many.
But as a scientific man, his one object was the truth,
which had pursued for its own sake wholly, irrespective of
any other reward which might or might not follow on discovery.
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He had not the common fault of common men, for
he had not their objects, nor their instinct were ease,
nor their prejudices. Though he became rich, he had not
unduly sought riches. Though he was greatly distinguished, he had
not desired fame. He was beloved, not having courted popularity
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what he was himself, that he allowed other men to
be till he found them otherwise. He saw weak points
in his profession, but he saw them as a debris
from the mountains of knowledge and wisdom, of benevolence and
of self denial, of old traditional skill, ever growing it,
always purifying those eternal structures on which are founded true
(29:43):
surgery and medicine. It ef he was bitter in society.
It was when they were undervalued, If ever sarcastic, it
was when the ignorant he had resumed to judge them.
A light is thus thrown on his even career of
uniform progress, training his powers from youth upwards, by linguistic
(30:04):
and literary studies, by scientific pursuits, by the diligent practice
of his art, by mixing with men, he brought to
bear on the multifarious questions which come before a great
master of healing, a mind alike accustomed to acquire and
to communicate, a temper made gentle by considerate kindness, a
(30:26):
tact that became all but unerring from his perfect integrity.
He saw that every material science conduces to the well
being of man. He would countenance all, and yet be
distracted by none. He knew the value of worldly influence,
of rank of station when rightly used. He sought none,
(30:48):
deferred excessively to none. But he respected all who, having them,
used them wisely, and accepted what came to himself unasked,
gave his own freely to all who needed, and sought
help from no one but for public ends. Those who
knew him only as a man of business would little
(31:09):
suspect the playful humor which sparkled by his friends, the
fund of anecdote, the harmless wit, the simple pleasures of
his country. Walk in the quality of his mind. He
was not unlike the most eminent of his contemporaries, Arthur,
Duke of Wellington. Those who did not know him, and
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who do not appreciate the power requisite to make such
a master in medicine as he was, may be surprised
at the comparison. Yet our great soldier might have accepted
the illustration without dissatisfaction. Whatever art Brody undertook, If he
has been correctly drawn, he would have entirely mastered. The self.
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Discipline of the strongest man can affect no more the
care with which the two men compassed every detail and
surveyed every bearing of a large question. The quiet good sense,
the steadiness of purpose, the readiness of wide professional knowledge,
and critical emergencies were in each alike. The public and
(32:14):
his profession esteemed Brodie as the first in his art.
William Lawrence was born at Cirencester in July seventeen eighty three,
his father having practiced as a surgeon in that town
for many years. After being educated at a classical school
near Gloucester, young Lawrence was apprenticed to February seventeen ninety
(32:37):
nine to the celebrated Aberonathy, in whose house he went
to reside in after years. When lecturing before the College
of Surgeons for the first time, Lawrence spoke thus eloquently
of his teacher. Having had the good fortune to be
initiated in the profession by mister Abernathy, and to have
lived for many years under his roof, can assure you
(33:01):
with the greatest sincerity that, however highly the public may
estimate the surgeon and the philosopher, I have reason to
speak still more highly of the man and the friend,
of the invariable kindness which directed my early studies and
pursuits of the disinterested friendship, which has assisted every step
(33:22):
of my progress in life. And the benevolent and honorable feelings,
the independent spirit and the liberal conduct, which, while they
dignify our profession, win our love and command our respect
for genius and knowledge, converting those precious gifts into instruments
of the most extensive public good. Lawrence proved themselves so
(33:44):
zealous a pupil that in the third year of his apprenticeship,
Avanaty appointed him to be a demonstrator of anatomy, a
post which he filled for twelve years, becoming a member
at the College of Surgeons in eighteen o five, was
a going to assistant surgeon to Saint Bartholomew's Hospital in
eighteen thirteen, and in the same year was elected f
(34:08):
r s. Already in eighteen o one he had published
a translation from the Latin of a description of the
arteries by Murray, professor at Uppsala. In eighteen o six
he won a prize offered by the College of Surgeons
for an essay on the treatment of hernia. This essay,
(34:28):
when printed, gained immediate acceptance, and numerous editions were published.
Lawrence's contributions to Anatomy and surgery now followed rapidly, several
appearing in the Edinburgh's Medical and Physical Journal. His observations
on lithotomy showed the way to a revival of the
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true system, operating laterally with the knife. In eighteen fourteen,
Lawrence was chosen surgeon to the Eye Hospital at Morsefield,
and in eighteen fifteen to our Royal Hospitals up Bridewell
in Bethlehem. In the latter year he was selected for
the professorship of Anatomy and Physiology at the College of Surgeons,
(35:13):
and hence arose one of the bitterest controversial tempests of
the early part of the century. Lawrence took occasion in
his first lectures in eighteen sixteen to criticize Abernathy's exposition
of Hunter's theory of life and to unfold views which
seriously scandalized those or regarded life as a mysterious entity
(35:37):
entirely separate from and above the material organism with which
it is associated. These views were criticized by Admirinathi in
his Physiological Lectures in eighteen seventeen, and Lawrence replied in
eighteen eighteen in terms of sarcasm, which made a serious
brooch between the master and his former pupil. Lawrence's lectures
(36:00):
were published as an Introduction to the Comparative Anatomy and
Physiology eighteen sixteen and Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the
Natural History of Man eighteen nineteen. Having been accused by
Abernathy and others of reverting the honor office entrusted to
(36:20):
him by the College of Surgeons to the very unworthy
design of propagating opinions detrimental to society, and of endeavoring
to enforce them for the purpose of loosening those restraints
on which the welfare of mankind depends. He used his
eloquence unsparingly, both to defend his position and to repel
(36:44):
the attacks made upon him. He was not more heretical
than many of his predecessors, nor than a great many
enlightened biologists of the present day. He regarded life as
the assemblage of all the functions and the general of
their exercise. Thus, organisms, vital properties, functions in life are
(37:06):
expressions related to each other in which organization is the instrument,
vital properties the acting power, function the mode of action,
and life the result. Again, we find that the motion
proper to living bodies, or in one word, life has
its origin in that of its parents. From their parents
(37:28):
they have received the vital impulse, and hence it is
evident that in the present state of things, life proceeds
only from life, and there exists no other but that
which has been transmitted from one living body to another
by an uninterrupted succession. Lawrence was virulently attacked and his
(37:49):
name associated with Tom Payne and Lord Byron as arch heretics.
A pamphlet of the year eighteen twenty has the following
title The Radical Umperit or Infidel pain Lord Byron and
Surgeant Lawrence colleaguing with the patriotic Radicals to emancipate ma
(38:10):
Inkind from all laws human and divine, with a plate
engraved for their instruction. A letter to John Bull from
an Oxonian resident in London. The Christian advocate in the
University of Cambridge, the Reverend Thomas Russell, among others, took
up the task of controverting Lawrence's supposed materialism. The lectures
(38:33):
on the Comparative Anatomy of Man certainly put forward in
a striking light many of Blumenback's views, and showed that
the literal accuracy of the early parts of Genesis was
inconsistent with the facts of zoology and comparative anatomy. We
might foresee further on this subject. But Lawrence himself prevented
(38:54):
his successors from espousing his personal clause. With Wardour four
being called upon to resign his position at Broadwell and Bethlehem,
he did not resign, but recanted, brought up all the
copies of his work on the History of Man, and
sent them over to America. Numerous modified and also spurious
(39:17):
editions were sold. This conduct deprived him of a large
share of our sympathy and respect. Had Lawrence, like Darwin
or Huxley, maintained his opinions were most unpopular, he might
have won a victory for sound science years before it
actually was gained. If he had been the original discoverer
(39:38):
of the truth he annunciated, and had bought them with
his life's energy, he would scarcely have dropped them at
the raging of a storm. But the glory was not
to be his. He was tried in the balance and
found wanting. The early symptoms of disagreement between Abernathy and
Lawrence extended to other members of the staff and to
(40:00):
the establishment of the Aldersgate Street School of Medicine, where
Lawrence lectured on surgery till eighteen twenty eight, when he
succeeded to avon at these lectures on surgery at Saint Bartholomew's.
The Aldersgate School included able teachers such as Tweedy, Clutterbuck,
roget Terrell and Davis, and had much success. Lawrence's connection
(40:25):
with the eye infirmary led him to become an authority
on the surgery of the eye. He published in eighteen
thirty a treatise on the venereal Diseases of the eye,
in eighteen thirty three a Treatise on Diseases of the Eye,
besides other papers on this branch of practice. Late in
life he published in eighteen sixty three his valuable lectures
(40:48):
on surgery. His smaller works and papers are too numerous
to mention. As a student, Sir Benjamin Brodie describes William
Lawrence as already remarkable for his great powers of acquirement,
his industrious habits, and his immense stores of information. In
later life he characterized him as possessed to considerable powers
(41:12):
of conversation, abounding in happy illustrations, and not ill natured sarcasm.
In public speaking, says Brodie, he is collected as great
command of language and uses it correctly. In writing, his
style is pure treat from all affectation, yet in general
not sufficiently concise. That he is thoroughly acquainted with his
(41:36):
profession cannot be doubted. But Sir Benjamin does not attribute
to him so much originality as erudition and industry. It
is in his religions to medical politics that the conduct
of William Lawrence is most open to question. When the
College's Surgeons was a close corporation, he put himself at
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the head of a great agitation to liberalize it. An
eloquent speech at the Freemason staffn in eighteen twenty six
was one of the market features of the campaign, and
was rejoined heretily with the Lancet in attacking the overall
system of the college. But says the Lancet, the Council
feared him and elected him into their body. From that
(42:21):
moment mister Lawrence became a conservative and unobstructive, and maintained
their character that the close of his life he not
only deserted his former friends, but lost no opportunity of
reviling them. Mister Lawrence, during the long period that he
was a member of the Council and at the Court
of Examiners, resolutely and consistently opposed every attempt that was
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made to improve the education and the status of the
surgeon in general practice. Lawrence was twice president of the College,
and more than once delivered the Hunterian oration on the
last of these Asians in eighteen forty six, when a
new charter had lately been obtained, would failed to gratify
the just aspirations other members of the College. No one,
(43:10):
it is said, could be persuaded to deliver the Hrtarian
oration to Lawrence, with characteristic polemic zeal, threw himself into
the breach. A crowded audience, for the most part hostile assembled,
and Lawrence, instead of avoiding controversy, both defended and commended
(43:30):
the action of the Council. A storm of indignation was excited,
especially among those who had listened to his contrary deliverances
twenty years before, but the orator was imperturbable in the
fiercest of the storm. He certainly displayed on that occasion
his most extraordinary talents as an orator. When he had
(43:52):
allowed his audience to exhaustage dissatisfaction at the sentiments which
he had uttered. He concluded his at d and almost
masterly and eloquent peroration, which called forth the plaudits of
the Assembly. In arriving at a just estimation of the
character Sir W. Lawrence, it must be admitted in cecil handset,
(44:16):
that in most of the higher qualities of the mind
he was entitled to admiration. His talents were of the
highest order, seldom surpassed in our profession. As a writer,
his style was vigorous, clear and convincing. As a lecturer
in manner, substance, and expression, he had no superior in
(44:36):
the profession of our time. If we accept Joseph Henry
Greene as an operator, if not among the greatest, is
entitled to hold a high physician. But it must be
acknowledged that his principles were somewhat lax, his heart was
somewhat hard. We speak of him now merely in a
public capacity, for in all the relations of private life
(45:00):
he was most estimable and affectionate. Notwithstanding the low estimation
in which he held Surgeons in general practice, it is
probable no pure surgeon of modern times ever had so
large a general practice as himself, if they were only
confident for the common exigencies of surgery. He had, all
(45:21):
events thought himself able to treat every class of disease,
whether medical or surgical. In physical frame, Lawrence was well
developed and vigorous, above metal height, with a high forehead,
a cold but keen blue eye, a classic nose, a large,
expressive mouth, and a firm chin of some size. He
(45:45):
was always somewhat lival to loss of nerve power in
the face or in the lower limbs. In eighteen sixty
five he began to become enfeebled, and finally hemoplesia supervened,
and a second attack at the council chamber of the
College of Surgeons laid him by completely. But he remained
(46:05):
conscious till the last, dying on the fifth July eighteen
sixty seven. A bust of him adjoins the rooms of
the Medical Chiurgical Society, and anothers in the College of Surgeons.
A baronetcy was only conferred on him in the March
before his death. He had long been Surgeon Extraordinary to
(46:26):
the Queen, and finally Sergeant Surgeon. It has been said
of him that he kept his appointments as long as possible,
but it may be answered that he was full of
vitality and died in harness. And of Section thirteen and
of eminent doctors Their Lives in their Work, Volume one
(46:48):
by George Thomas Bettany,
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