Standing on the shoulders of giants. The medical alumni of Sherborne. (Part One)

Peter Stride Introduction “If I have seen further it’s by standing on the shoulder of giants.” Isaac Newton, 1675.

The latest publication on the history of Sherborne School is an interesting and evocative pleasure to read. Old, Yet Ever Young, a fascinating and extensively researched history of Sherborne School by Patrick Francis, recalls five formative years of my adolescence, which with previous years at Mount House School, Tavistock, and subsequent years in the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, opened the author’s door to a fifty-year career in . Challenging, rewarding, tiring, yet highly recommended. Interesting details of one’s masters’ past academic, sporting, and military prowess were often lost on recalcitrant schoolboys!

Francis details brilliance in the school sporting arenas, and very many OS in military, ecclesiastic, artistic, political and academic circles of alumni. Alan Turing, twice winner of the School maths prize is deserved recognised, as are two medical knights and five Fellows of the Royal Society. Yet amongst the medical OS there are numerous giants of medicine and other sciences well worthy of further attention. Alumni whose contribution to science has endured a century or two. The author as a specialist physician happily admits to bias in this concept.

Perhaps little has changed in sixty years when progress to classics at Oxbridge or to Sandhurst were worthy of esteemed gatherings at Sherborne, and entry to a London Teaching Hospital was a slight improvement on real estate as planned by a contemporary. A contemporary who may have been more successful financially than us all except of course the celebrities.

The author presents the alumni who made considerable contributions to the advance of health care over the last four centuries. Part one details those thirteen doctors listed among the eminent alumni on the Wikipedia School webpage. Part two details those selected by the author from amongst the other two-hundred and eighty- four medical graduates listed in The Sherborne Register, 1550-1950 (Fourth Edition).

Peter Stride (g59-64) MB BS (Middlesex Hospital, London), MRCP (UK) FRACP, FRCPEdin, FRCP, D.Med (research) UQ. Retired, previous senior specialist physician, Queensland Health, and Associate Professor, University of Queensland School of Medicine.

1 Nathaniel Highmore (1613-1685) MB MD. Nathaniel Highmore (1613-1685) was born in Fordingbridge and entered Sherborne in about 1625, the first recorded doctor since the school foundation in 1550. He attended Queen’s College and Trinity College, Oxford between 1632 and 1639, graduating MB in 1641, and MD in 1642. He befriended the celebrated physician, William Harvey, in Oxford when Harvey came to Oxford with Charles II after the indecisive battle of Edgehill in 1642. Highmore was best known for his anatomical studies, which had developed dissecting dogs, sheep, and an ostrich! He published an accurate paper on human anatomy in 1651, ‘Corporis Humani disquisitio anatomica in qua sanguinis circulationem prosequutus est.’ which he dedicated to Harvey. It was best known for his description of the circulation and the maxillary sinus, known as the antrum of Highmore. His interest had been stimulated by a female patient, in whom an abscess of this cavity was drained by the extraction of the left canine tooth. He also displayed an early interest in psychiatry publishing on hypochondria, hysteria and the benefit of sympathy on wound healing. Perhaps of more interest to Shirburnians, he was first to describe the scrotal septum which separates the two testicles and is also named after him. The same year he returned to Sherborne where he practiced as a surgeon and a physician for the rest of his working days. He never took fees from the clergy. He also became a magistrate for Dorsetshire. When he died, he was buried on the south side of the chancel of the church at Purse Caundle, where his father had been rector. In his will he endowed an exhibition to Oxford from Sherborne.

2 Beverley Robinson Morris (1816-1883) MA MD Morris trained in medicine at Trinity College Dublin after leaving Sherborne. The fourth son of a Royal Naval Admiral and the son-in-law of a Naval Lieutenant, perhaps this was the standard fourth best option after the family title and estate, the services, and the church! Medicine was not where his main interest lay. He qualified MA and subsequently MD. He worked in Nottingham, where he founded the Hospital for Women and Children, and in York, and as physician to the York Dispensary in the 1840s. He specialised in the treatment of the insane published an article, ‘A theory as to the Proximate causes of Insanity and Observations on the construction of Hospitals for the insane’ in 1844. Like his brother, the Rev. Francis Orpen Morris, he was also a well-known naturalist who published books about birds. Beverley Morris published a two-volume work, British Game Birds and Wild Fowl in 1855. A review in the Daily News stated that the book ‘has a unique position amongst works of its class. The sixty hand-coloured plates are splendidly executed’. Morris was also editor of The Naturalist, a popular monthly magazine illustrative of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms. Searches today advertise his books and his most realistic and accurate pictures of birds but say little of his medicine. Individual bird prints are available for some 30 pounds and the whole book for some 500 pounds.

3 Francis Woodforde (?-1894) MD Woodforde’s secondary education was partly at Sherborne where he entered between 1823 and 1835, and partly at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham. He proceeded to Edinburgh University where he graduated MD. He worked as a physician in Taunton and published five letters in the BMJ. The most indignant letter to the BMJ in 1835 relates to an internal dispute in the Taunton Hospital between the administration and the medical staff in which the doctors resign en-mass. The York letters of 1855 refer to an internal dispute amongst the members of the British Medical Association. He was not a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. An enthusiastic ornithologist, he left his large collection of birds to several museums.

4 Charles Hathaway (1817-1903) MB BS MRCS MD Hathaway left Sherborne for Guy’s and St Thomas’s Medical School graduating with MB BS, MRCS, MD. He joined the East India Company in 1843. In 1852 he was promoted from Civil Surgeon to Inspector-General of prisons in the Punjab where his reforms reduced mortality. He became Sanitary Commissioner in 1862 and corresponded with Florence Nightingale over sanitary conditions. For the last two years of his career from 1864-1866, became private secretary to John Lawrence, 1st Baron Lawrence and Viceroy of India.

5 John Hawkes (c1820-1904) MRCS MD Hawkes attended St Andrew’s University and St Bartholomew’s Hospital after leaving Sherborne. At Bart’s he won the Wix students prize and graduated with MRCS. Subsequently he gained an MD. He published four brief case reports in the Lancet, ‘A case of tobacco poisoning in a child’, ‘The causes of insanity’, ‘On enlargement of the thyroid gland with proptosis’, and ‘On traumatic gangrene’. 6 Arthur William May (1854-1925) LRCP MRCS FRCS KCB Son of the Rev Henry May, vicar of St Petherwin, Cornwall. After attending Sherborne School where he had been a keen sportsman, he graduated in medicine from King’s College Hospital, London with LRCP, MRCS. He entered the Royal Navy and was soon on active service. He was aboard HMS Achilles during the Egyptian war of 1882. He participated in the Suakin expedition, two actions led by Major-General Sir Gerald Graham against the Mahdist forces under Osman Digna in February 1884 and in March 1885 near Suakin on the north-east coast of Sudan. May was decorated with the medal and the Khedive’s Bronze Star. He participated in the Nile expedition in the attempted relief of General Gordon aboard the HMS Sophia in 1885 and was mentioned in dispatches for attending the wounded under fire. May was promoted Staff Surgeon in 1890 and Fleet Surgeon in 1898. He was principal Medical Officer abord HMS Britannia from 1901-1904 and was promoted to Deputy Director General of the Naval Medical Department in 1905. He became Medical Officer in charge of the Royal Naval Hospital in Chatham in 1909 and was awarded the CB in 1911. In 1914 he was promoted to Surgeon Vice-Admiral and Director-General of the Navy and was awarded the KCB as well as being elected a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. As Medical Director-General during WW1, he was responsible for the vital provision of an enormous increase in required medical services throughout the Empire and in every theatre of Naval warfare. Immediately, he greatly expanded the workforce with the call-up of surgeons from the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and volunteer temporary surgeons, as well as the commissioning of many new hospital ships. His acknowledgement of civilian consultants’ advice helped prevent the spread of cerebrospinal fever amongst sailors in the 1915 epidemic. Although he nominally retired from the Navy in 1917, he became deputy lieutenant of Cornwall, a JP and an active worker for the Red Cross. Obviously still possessed of the protestant work ethic instilled at Sherborne.

7 Henry Brougham Guppy (1854-1926) MB BC FRS FRSE FLS Guppy was born in Falmouth, the son of Thomas Stokes Guppy MRCS, MD, a local physician. Following education at Sherborne, he studied medicine, possibly with paternal encouragement, at Queen’s College, Birmingham, St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London and Edinburgh University graduating MB CM. He joined the RN from 1876 to 1885. He served in the South China and Japanese seas aboard HMS Hornet and in the Western Pacific in 1881 aboard the surveying ship, HMS Lark. It was during these overseas tours that he developed his passion, perhaps his first passion, for geological and biological research. There is no further information about his medical career. In 1883, he wrote to the British Museum offering a collection of fifty objects he had collected from the Solomon Islands. In 1887 he published two books, The Solomon Islands and their Natives and Geology of the Solomon Islands detailing his research. In 1888 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Another book, Homes of Family names followed in 1890. He returned to the Pacific in 1896 for three years for further geological and biological research in the Keeling Islands, where the coral reefs attracted his interest, and also in Java, Hawaii and Fiji. He subsequently returned to Britain to analyse and publish his research. His attention turned to the West Indies and the Azores for further research and publications between 1906 and 1914. Further publications included, Observations of a Naturalist in the Pacific – volume I and Geology of Vanna Leru, Fiji – volume ii in 1903, Plant dispersal 1906, Studies in Seeds and Fruits 1912 and Plants, Seeds and Currents in the West Indies and the Azores 1917

At the outbreak of WW1, Guppy was now aged sixty, too old for active service and his wanderings were curtailed for four years. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Linnean Society in 1917. In 1918 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London. In 1919 he was back in Tahiti for more research. His wandering continued to the end of his days. He died in 1926 aged 71 on board the SS Kantara in Martinique when returning from Tahiti to UK. His legacy is commemorated in the scientific names of two species of reptiles, Lepidodactylus guppyi, a gecko endemic to the Solomon Islands, and a snake, Uropeltis broughami, which is endemic to Southern India. Perhaps unsurprisingly he was married twice, first to Annie Jordan in 1887, and second to Letitia Warde in 1900. There are no details of any children. His sister Mary however married, had four children and lived in Mary Tavy, Devon, a childhood domicile of the author. Guppy, Doctor, Naval Officer, Geologist, Biologist, was indeed a polymath recalled by the scientific name of two animals, an extensive literature, and his many awards and fellowships. A truly memorable OS.

8 William Collier (1856-1935) MB MD FRCP Collier went to Jesus College, Cambridge after secondary education at Sherborne with no clear career ambitions. He joined an expedition bound for the Sahara, but seasickness forced him to abandon the trip at Teneriffe and return to Cambridge. A chance encounter with the Professor of Anatomy, Sir George Humphrey inspired him to commence medical training. Before graduation MB in 1881, he represented the university athletics team for three years and participated in a fifty- mile penny farthing race! As a clinical student at King’s College Hospital he had been dresser to Sir Joseph Lister, the pioneer of antiseptic surgery. After house appointments in Wolverhampton General Hospital and general practice in Hastings, he obtained a resident position in the Radcliffe Infirmary Oxford where he spent the remainder of his career. He became a consulting physician in 1891 and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1892 and gained an MD. He held many positions as examiner and tutor, the Litchfield lectureship, and examiner for the Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the Conjoint Board and the Royal Army Medical College. In WW1, he was made a Lieutenant-Colonel in the RAMC and consulting physician in the Third General Southern Military Hospital in Oxford. Amongst many patients, Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon entered the hospital and lived subsequently for many years! Collier had terms as the Vice- President of the Radcliffe Infirmary and president of the British Medical Association. Apparently popular with patients and colleagues alike, he was curiously, an enthusiastic motorcyclist and hunter, and member of the Anti-Noise League! He attacked everything in life with enthusiasm and was said to be argumentative with strong opinions. His wife was the daughter of the Oxford Professor of Chinese and one of his sons also became a physician.

9 Richard William Ford (1857-1925) MRCS, LRCPEd, DDMS DSO KCMG Following his time at Sherborne, Ford graduated from Edinburgh Medical School with MRCS in 1878 and LRCPEd in 1879. He entered the army as a surgeon in 1881, rose to Colonel in 1909 and Surgeon-General in 1914. He saw active service in the Egyptian War of 1882 like Arthur May when he gained the medal and Khedive’s bronze star. Perhaps they were able to reminisce about their Alma Mater under the stars beside the pyramids? He then served in the Boer war from 1899 to 1901 seeing military actions in numerous places. He was mentioned in dispatches and was awarded the Queen’s Medal with four clasps and the DSO. After five years as deputy surgeon in the Royal Hospital Chelsea, he served during WW1 as director of medical services for two years in Egypt then two years in Ireland.

10 Ian Pelham Todd (1921-2015) LRCP MRCS MD DCH PRCS KBE Todd left Sherborne in 1938 for St Bartholomew’s Hospital, however due the WW2 bombing of London, he was relocated for parts of his training to Queen’s College, Cambridge and Toronto University Medical School. After specialist training in colorectal surgery at St marks Hospital London, he was appointed a consultant surgeon back at Bart’s. His subsequent outstanding career was notable for academic and clinical excellent, research and numerous publications, teaching and examining, particularly in developing countries, natural humility, integrity and preference for the ward or theatre over administration, culminating in his election as President of the Royal College of Surgeons and the award of a knighthood.

11 David Innes Williams (1919-2013) MS FRCS Williams left Sherborne for Trinity Hall, Cambridge and University College Hospital graduating in 1942. During his early medical career despite an increased workload, as many junior colleagues were absent in the services, he was able to gain an MS and FRCS. From 1945-48 he served in the RAMC with time in India as 1st Lieutenant. From that time on he devoted his career to the little developed field of paediatric urology. He published four textbooks on the subject, wrote numerous articles and was awarded an MD for a urological thesis. His technical surgical skills were widely admired as was his ability as a clinical lecturer. He received numerous awards and medals including the Leverhulme research scholarship, the St Peter’s Medal of the BMA and the Hunterian Professorship of his Royal College, many visiting professorships and many invitations to speak overseas. In 1978, he retired from active surgery, taking up a second career in medical administration, or the dark side as it is known in clinical circles! He was initially director of the British Postgraduate Medical Federation, then pro-vice chancellor of the University of London. In 1982 he was appointed Chairman of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund successfully gaining increased funding and increased support for clinical research. He ensured that he senior management role was subsequently always held by a scientist. He served periods as Vice President of his Royal College and as President of the BMA and was knighted in 1985.

12 Robert Leslie Romer (1865-1935) MRCS LRCP Although listed amongst the eminent alumni as a medical graduate with MRCS LRCP and a doctor, surgeon, leading medical officer and author, searches do not reveal more of his career. He appears notable as the son of the Rt Hon Sir Robert Romer and brother of Mark Romer, Baron Romer, both eminent British judges.

11 John Henry Bryant (1867-1906) MB BS MD FRCP Bryant progressed to Guy’s Hospital London on leaving Sherborne where his name is apparently inscribed in a role of honour. He was an outstanding medical student winning the Beaney Prize and the Treasurer’s Gold Medals in both medicine and surgery. (Beaney, a Guy’s graduate served in the Crimean War, and subsequently migrated to Melbourne where he had a distinguished career as a surgeon and as a politician.) Bryant graduated with first class honours including first class honours in forensic science and won the medical Gold medal. Bryant’s initial career was in internal medicine. By 1898 he was assistant physician to Guy’s Hospital gaining MD in 1891, MRCP in 1895 and FRCP in 1901. He then became demonstrator in morbid anatomy and tutor in therapeutics. A man of outstanding personal character and clinical ability, he sickened and died while still young before reaching his full potential. In keeping with Shirburnian medical interests he described Bryant’s sign, a blue scrotum, due to extravasation of blood from the peritoneum is a sign of a ruptured aortic aneurysm. He was also co-editor for many years of the Guy’s Hospital Reports.

12 William Wallace Keir (1876-1949). MB BCh CMG Keir was born in Simla as his father, William, was a medical missionary of the Auxiliary Medical Services in India. Keir entered Glasgow University after his school days at Sherborne and graduated MB BCh in 1898. He joined the Royal Navy rising to become the Surgeon Rear-Admiral, the second most senior position in the medical branch. He served at sea both during WW1 and subsequently aboard the minesweeper Iphigenia, and the hospital ships, Rewa and China. He was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1918, and also a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour. Next, he was squadron medical officer of the First Battle Squadron and the Battle Cruiser Squadron followed by charge of the hospital ship Maine. The remainder of his career was land based as senior officer of the Royal Naval Hospitals of Hong Kong and Haslar, the latter also a childhood domicile of the author. In 1934 he was appointed honorary surgeon to George V and received the King George Silver Jubilee in 1935, the year of his retirement.

13 Henry Roy Dean (1879-1961) MB BCh MD FRCP Following secondary education at Sherborne, Dean graduated MB BCh. with first class honours in 1904 from New College, Oxford and St Thomas’ Hospital. He commenced physician training, succeeding in the Royal College of Physicians’ exam (MRCP) in 1906. From there he worked as a pathologist with an interest in bacteriology throughout a distinguished career. He studied at the Wasserman Laboratory in Berlin in 1909 on a Radcliffe Scholarship, obtained an MD in 1912, and was elected FRCP in 1913. Subsequently he also received two honorary doctorates. He was appointed assistant bacteriologist at the London Lister Institute in 1910, Professor of Pathology and Bacteriology at the University of Sheffield in 1912, Professor of Pathology in the in 1915 and Professor of Pathology in the in 1922. He served in the RAMC as a major during WW1. Subsequent years saw Dean publish numerous sentinel papers in bacteriology as well as becoming a leading educationalist in pathology. A man of boundless energy and intellect, he was also Master of Trinity College, Cambridge from 1929 to 1954, Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University from 1937-1939, Chairman of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund 1941-1955, secretary of the Pathology Society 1920-1954, member of the Medical Research Council and founder of the East-Anglia Pathology Society. During WW2, he organised several blood donation services. His son, Sir Henry Patrick Dean, was British Ambassador to the USA, and his daughter, Elizabeth Mary married the Arch-Deacon of Derby.

Summary The author presents fifteen eminent medical practitioners harvested from the list distinguished alumni of Sherborne School. As distinguished as any Sherborne XV! Eleven have University Doctorates, the highest academic qualification. Seven served in the armed forces, two of them being decorated for bravery in action. Some may feel it is more daunting to face enemy fire armed with a first aid kit than a rifle! Debatably, victory on the battleground of medicine, victory against many types of cancer and heart disease, victory over smallpox and hopefully over poliomyelitis in the near future, are of greater long-term benefit to humanity than any victory on a battlefield. One doctor has two anatomical structures named after him; another gave his name to two reptiles. Three contributed in particular to the fields of geology, biology, and ornithology. One was responsible for the huge increase in naval medical personnel required in WW1 and three were knighted. All worked diligently for their patients, some contributed to the advancing frontier of medical knowledge and many had important roles in medical education, both in the UK and in developing countries. Though not all served in the military nor studied classics at Oxbridge, their distinguished careers, their contributions to medicine, their diverse accomplishments and academic excellence make them worthy additions to the eminent alumni of Sherborne School.

Sources of Information include Wikipedia; Military History websites; Ancestry.com; The Royal College of Surgeons’ website. The Sherborne Register, 1550-1950 (4th edition); publications in the BMJ and The Lancet. Monk’s Roll – a list of all the deceased Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians since is foundation in 1528 by Henry VIII before he became a paranoid tyrant perhaps with McLeod’s Syndrome. The author’s late father, Surgeon-Captain John Douglas Stride, RN, FRCP, is listed as will the author be sometime hopefully well into the future.