FOOTNOTES:
[20] Medical Times and Gazette August 29, 1857.
[21] Memorials of Marshall Hall, by his widow, 1861.
[CHAPTER X.]
SIR BENJAMIN BRODIE AND SIR WILLIAM LAWRENCE, TWO GREAT PRACTICAL SURGEONS.
The influence of heredity and of association and connexion with talented persons is well illustrated in the case of Sir Benjamin Brodie. His paternal grandfather, Alexander Brodie, was a native of Banffshire, who came to London as a humble adventurer and almost as a Jacobite refugee. He married a daughter of a physician named Shaw, of similar Jacobite family and connexions. Brodie became an army clothier, and one of his daughters, who married Dr. Denman, the eminent obstetric physician, was the mother of Lord Denman. Margaret and Sophia, the twin daughters of Dr. Denman, married—the former Sir Richard Croft, who attended the Princess Charlotte at her death in 1817, the latter Dr. Matthew Baillie, the eminent physician, and nephew of John Hunter. The army clothier’s wife was herself a woman of considerable abilities, 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 he was patronised by the first Lord Holland, and spent much time at Holland House. A warm attachment existed between them, in which Charles James Fox shared. When Lord Holland died in 1774, he directed by will that Mr. Brodie, who had taken holy 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 of the Brodies. The Rev. Mr. Brodie married in 1775 a daughter of Mr. Collins, a banker at Salisbury; and of this marriage Benjamin Collins Brodie was the third son, having been born in 1783.
Sir Benjamin in his “Autobiography” gives a pleasing picture of his father, a man of sound classical knowledge, great energy, minute acquaintance with parishioners, and devotion to his parochial duties. Notwithstanding his wife’s considerable fortune, Mr. Brodie found he could not afford to send all his sons to public schools, and he consequently determined to educate them himself. An elder sister who joined the brothers 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 records that idleness even for a day was always irksome to him in after life, and he had little inclination for any pursuit without a definite ulterior object. Seven miles distant 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 Denman, who was for a year a resident pupil with Mr. Brodie after leaving Eton, and a few others, one of whom was afterwards Dr. Maton, a well-known London physician, and (Sir) John Stoddart, afterwards Chief Justice at Malta. Vigour of character was shown markedly when in 1798 the brothers raised a company of volunteers on the alarm of 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 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, Brodie read extensively in science and philosophy and general literature. In the autumn of 1801, 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 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 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 and inspiration of genius.
During his first season in London, young Brodie attended Abernethy’s course on Anatomy, and to his influence may be attributed the choice of surgery as his special vocation. “He kept up our attention,” says Brodie, “so that it never flagged, and what he told us could not be forgotten.” 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 more at home with his non-medical friends, his elder brother with whom he lodged, Denman, Merivale, Wray, Stoddart, Gifford (afterwards Lord Gifford), and Maton. The latter had established in London the Academical Society, as a sort of transplant from Oxford, and Brodie was here introduced to Lord Glenelg and his brother Robert Grant, Francis Horner, Dr. 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 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 1802 Wilson’s lectures on anatomy at Great Windmill Street were Brodie’s main professional pabulum. “I was naturally 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 1803 he became a pupil of Home (afterwards Sir Everard) at St. George’s Hospital, continuing also his anatomical studies. 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 1805, however, Brodie became demonstrator in Wilson’s anatomical school. He was introduced to Sir Joseph Banks, and through him to the best scientific men of the day. Could there be more favourable conditions for progress, or circumstances more unlike these of chilling seclusion and neglect which have so often hindered and overshadowed men of merit?
Brodie continued to demonstrate, and from 1809 to lecture at Great Windmill Street, until in 1812 (Sir) Charles Bell became principal lecturer there. In 1808 he was appointed assistant surgeon at St. George’s Hospital, by Home’s influence, and in reality did the work of a full surgeon almost from that date. Private practice he scarcely attempted, his hands being full of anatomical and hospital work. Robert Keate and Brodie were at the hospital daily, and superintended 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, who asked Brodie to join him in lecturing on surgery. From 1809 onward for nearly twenty years, Brodie gave this course of lectures, and had a good attendance of students; besides which he lectured on surgery at St. George’s Hospital till 1840. In 1809 he took a house in Sackville Street and received three private pupils, and in 1810 felt justified, from the increase of his means, in engaging in physiological enquiries, stimulated by Bichat’s researches. He was elected into the Royal Society in 1810; and in the same and following winter communicated to the Society two valuable papers, one “On the Influence of the 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 1810. These papers, though largely superseded by recent investigations, were quite remarkable for their time, and for the first he was awarded the Copley Medal in 1811, 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 Sir Benjamin Brodie in 1850, for his investigations “on the chemical nature of wax.” With the exception of the two Herschels, this is the only instance in which father and son have received this honour. 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 1812. He concluded that an animal with the nervous centres removed, or with their functions 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 the then little known woorara poison brought by Dr. Bancroft from Guiana, to produce suspension of the nervous action. In after life increase of practice left little time for further physiological research.
At length Brodie married (in 1816) Ann, the third daughter of Serjeant Sellon, his bride being only nineteen. This was in every way a happy marriage; and Sir Benjamin always warmly recognised his wife’s excellent moral training of their children. In the year of their marriage Brodie’s professional income from fees and lectures amounted to £1530. For some years he had paid special attention to diseases of the joints, which were then very ill understood; and in 1819 he published his classical work “On the Pathology and Surgery of Diseases of the Joints.” He clearly distinguished between diseases of the various tissues of which joints are composed; and also between hysterical, neuralgic, 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 story told in the Lancet on this 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 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. 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 quarrelled 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 next thing he heard of her was that she was a patient in —— Hospital, and had had her leg amputated. She had declared to the surgeons that she suffered intolerable pain in the knee, and had 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 her husband.”
Brodie may now be regarded as firmly established in public favour. His income in 1819 exceeded that of the preceding year by £1000. He enjoyed the intimate acquaintance of Lord and Lady Holland, and the sunshine of their friendship had its strong influence on practice. In 1819 Brodie removed to Savile Row, 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 to his labours, and he only completed them by taking many hours from needed sleep. He records, however, that 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 avoid hasty conclusions, and taught him to be less conceited of his own opinions.
An important branch of modern surgery may be said to have had its rise in an operation first performed by Brodie. Nowadays subcutaneous operations, in which the slightest possible opening is made in the skin, and frequently considerable incisions or other interferences are made beneath it, are very common, and the procedure is of the greatest importance in orthopædic surgery and the relief of muscular and tendinous contractions of various kinds. Brodie first performed a subcutaneous operation for the relief of varicose veins of the legs in 1814, and several similar cases were published by him in the seventh volume of the “Medico-Chirurgical Transactions.” If no other operative improvement of great moment is associated with Brodie’s name, it is not that he has not 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 1821, Brodie was called in to attend George IV., who very much wished him to perform the operation which in deference to Lord Liverpool was entrusted to Sir Astley Cooper. Brodie remained ever after a favourite with George IV. 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 him for an hour or two before returning to London. When William IV. came to the throne, Brodie was appointed Serjeant 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 1828. In 1823 his income was already £6500; for many years his practice brought him £10,000 and sometimes £11,000 a year. This was a very remarkable income considering the small proportion of it that was derived from operations. Much the greatest part he took in single guinea fees, and thus it is seen how much his opinion was valued in surgical cases. Indeed he often, especially after his retirement from St. George’s Hospital in 1840, refused to perform important operations to which he felt no special attraction. But his abiding popularity and influence is shown by the fact 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 the 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 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 St. John Long, the fashionable medical impostor. Sir Benjamin was one afternoon on his way to visit a friend at Hampstead, when he was called in to see a Miss Cashin. 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, followed by the trial and condemnation of Long. Yet such was the strength of the fashionable partisanship in favour of the impostor, that the judge, Mr. Justice Park, merely fined him £250, which he at once paid. A second trial in another case, where death had ensued upon his treatment, ended in a verdict of acquittal.
In 1834 Sir Benjamin succeeded to the first vacancy that occurred, after his appointment as Serjeant Surgeon, in the Court of Examiners of the College of Surgeons; this was by prescription due to his court office. He found 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 Serjeant Surgeon.
In 1839 and ’40 Sir Benjamin was President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, and here again he shone. In addition to his own most valuable contributions, he excelled in drawing out others. His attendance was most diligent; his mind was never at a loss for something interesting to say; he stimulated discussion when an opposite precedent had been established; and to him a very large share of the Society’s 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 1858 he received a still more remarkable honour in being called to the Presidency of the Royal Society, which office he held with dignity and wisdom till 1861. It is impossible for us here to record all the important offices Brodie filled, nor all the valuable communications he made to learned societies and various journals. Fortunately his charming autobiography is very accessible, being published separately as well as in the excellent collection of works, in three vols., 1865, edited by Mr. Charles Hawkins.
It is easily imagined that Brodie’s long course of labour could only have been sustained by a strong constitution. He was not altogether robust, but by careful management succeeded in preserving excellent health. In 1834, while in the Isle of Wight, he fell from a pony and dislocated his right shoulder joint, which long after became diseased. In July 1860 his sight became impaired, and he ultimately submitted to excision of the iris of both eyes by Mr. (now Sir William) Bowman. Later, he was operated on for cataract; but all efforts to preserve good sight were futile. In July 1862 he began to suffer in his right shoulder, and finally died of cancerous disease in that joint on October 21st, 1862. He was buried at Betchworth, Surrey, in which parish the estate, Broome Park, which he had purchased, is situated.
The Lancet said of him, “It is true praise of Sir Benjamin Brodie to say, that he was more distinguished as a physician-surgeon than as an operating-surgeon. 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-failing coolness, and fertility of resources, were his distinguishing characteristics. He made no secret of his opinion, that the operative part of surgery was not its highest part. Diagnosis 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 hospital, rather than private practice, but in almost all cases men are more fond of their early occupations than of 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; 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.”
Dr. Babington, President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, thus characterised Brodie:—“As a practical surgeon Sir Benjamin Brodie 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 on the one hand, or of bluntness or brusquery on the other, but to the legitimate influence of a high order of intellect, thoroughly devoted to the practical application of the stores of surgical knowledge acquired by his assiduity and experience—to the sound, well-considered, and decided opinions which his patients were sure to obtain from him, and to the confidence which 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 deference or deserved more, or who more completely impressed me with a belief that the main object of his efforts, that which was always uppermost on his mind, was, wholly irrespective of self, to benefit those by whom he was consulted.”
Dr. (now Sir Henry) Acland has given in the Proceedings of the Royal Society perhaps the best survey of Brodie’s character and work:—“Neither as scientific man, nor as surgeon, nor as 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 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, he gained confidence at once; accustomed to mix with the poorest in the hospital and with the noblest in their private abodes, he sympathised with the better qualities of each,—valued all, and despised 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, 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 student stayed there two months. 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 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 labour 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 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 he pursued for its own sake, wholly irrespective of any other reward which might or might not follow on discovery. He had not the common faults of common men, for he had not their objects, nor their instinct for 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. 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 the débris from the mountains of knowledge and wisdom, of benevolence and of self-denial, of old traditional skill ever growing and always purifying,—those eternal structures on which are founded true surgery and medicine. If ever he was bitter in society, it was when they were under-valued; if ever sarcastic, it was when the ignorant dared presume to judge them.
“A light is thus thrown on his even career of uniform progress. Training his powers from youth upwards, by linguistic 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 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, 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 suspect the playful humour which sparkled by his fireside, 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 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 Brodie undertook, if he has been correctly drawn, he would have entirely mastered. The self-discipline of the strongest man can effect 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 in critical emergencies, were in each alike. The public and his profession esteemed Brodie as the first in his art.”
William Lawrence was born at Cirencester in July 1783, his father having practised as a surgeon in that town for many years. After being educated at a classical school near Gloucester, young Lawrence was apprenticed in February 1799 to the celebrated Abernethy, 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 Mr. Abernethy, and to have lived for many years under his roof, I can assure you, 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 of my progress in life, and the benevolent and honourable 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 himself so zealous a pupil that in the third year of his apprenticeship, Abernethy appointed him to be his demonstrator of anatomy, a post which he filled for twelve years. Becoming a member of the College of Surgeons in 1805, he was appointed Assistant Surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in 1813, and in the same year was elected F.R.S. Already in 1801 he had published a translation from the Latin of a Description of the Arteries, by Murray, Professor at Uppsala. In 1806 he won a prize offered by the College of Surgeons, for an essay on the Treatment of Hernia. This essay 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 Medical and Physical Journal. His observations on Lithotomy showed the way to a revival of the true system of operating laterally with the knife. In 1814 Lawrence was chosen surgeon to the Eye Hospital at Moorfields, and in 1815 to the Royal Hospitals of Bridewell and Bethlehem. In the latter year he was selected for the Professorship of Anatomy and Physiology at the College of Surgeons, and hence arose one of the bitterest controversial tempests of the early part of this century.
Lawrence took occasion, in his first lectures in 1816, to criticise Abernethy’s exposition of Hunter’s theory of life, and to unfold views which seriously scandalised those who regarded life as a mysterious entity entirely separate from and above the material organism with which it is associated. These views were criticised by Abernethy in his “Physiological Lectures” in 1817, and Lawrence replied in 1818, in terms of sarcasm which made a serious breach between the master and his former pupil. Lawrence’s lectures were published as “An Introduction to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology,” 1816, and “Lectures on Physiology, Zoology, and the Natural History of Man,” 1819. Having been accused by Abernethy and others “of perverting the honourable office intrusted to him, by the College of Surgeons, to the very unworthy design of propagating opinions detrimental to society, and of endeavouring 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 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 result of their exercise. Thus organisation, vital properties, functions and life, are expressions related to each other; in which organisation 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 their parents. From their parents 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 name associated with Tom Paine and Lord Byron as arch-heretics. A pamphlet of the year 1820 has the following title: “The Radical Triumvirate; or, Infidel Paine, Lord Byron, and Surgeon Lawrence colleaguing with the Patriotic Radicals to emancipate Mankind 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 Rev. Thomas Rennell, among others, took up the task of controverting Lawrence’s supposed materialism. The lectures on the comparative anatomy of man certainly put forward in a striking light many of Blumenbach’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 proceed further on this subject, but Lawrence himself prevented his successors from espousing his personal cause with ardour, for, being called upon to resign his position at Bridewell and Bethlehem, “he did not resign, but recanted; bought up all the copies of his work ‘On the History of Man,’ and sent them over to America.”[22] Numerous modified and also spurious editions were sold. This conduct deprives him of a large share of our sympathy and respect. Had Lawrence, like Darwin or Huxley, maintained his opinions when most unpopular, he might have won a victory for sound science years before it actually was gained. If he had been the original discoverer of the truths he enunciated, 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 Abernethy and Lawrence extended to other members of the staff, and led to the establishment of the Aldersgate Street School of Medicine, where Lawrence lectured on surgery till 1828, when he succeeded to Abernethy’s lectures on surgery at St. Bartholomew’s. The Aldersgate School included able teachers, such as Tweedie, Clutterbuck, Roget, Tyrrell, and Davis, and had much success. Lawrence’s connection with the Eye Infirmary led him to become an authority on the surgery of the eye. He published in 1830 a treatise on the venereal diseases of the eye, in 1833 a treatise on diseases of the eye, besides other papers on this branch of practice. Late in life he published, in 1863, his valuable “Lectures 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 characterised him as possessed of considerable powers of conversation, abounding in happy illustrations and not ill-natured sarcasm. “In public speaking,” says Brodie, “he is collected, has great command of language, and uses it correctly. In writing, his style is pure, free from all affectation, yet in general not sufficiently concise.... That he is thoroughly acquainted with his profession cannot be doubted.” But Sir Benjamin does not attribute to him so much originality as erudition and industry.
It is in his relations to medical politics that the conduct of William Lawrence is most open to question. When the College of Surgeons was a close corporation, he put himself at the head of a great agitation to liberalise it. An eloquent speech at the Freemasons’ Tavern in 1826 was one of the marked features of the campaign, in which he joined heartily with the Lancet in attacking the old-world system of the College. “But,” says the Lancet, “the Council feared him, and elected him into their body. From that moment Mr. Lawrence became a conservative and an obstructive, and maintained that character to the close of his life. He not only deserted his former friends, but lost no opportunity of reviling them.... Mr. Lawrence, during the long period that he was a member of the Council, and of the Court of Examiners, resolutely and consistently opposed every attempt that was 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 occasions, in 1846, when a new charter had lately been obtained which failed to gratify the just aspirations of the members of the College, no one, it is said, could be persuaded to deliver the Hunterian Oration, till 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 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 allowed his audience to exhaust their dissatisfaction at the sentiments which he had uttered, he concluded his address in a most masterly and eloquent peroration, which called forth the plaudits of the assembly.”
“In arriving at a just estimation of the character of Sir W. Lawrence, it must be admitted,” says the Lancet, “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 the profession of our time, if we except Joseph Henry Green. As an operator, if not among the greatest, he is entitled to hold a high position. 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 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 competent for the ‘common exigencies of surgery,’ he at all events thought himself able to treat every class of disease, whether medical or surgical.”
In physical frame Lawrence was well developed and vigorous, above middle 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 was always somewhat liable to loss of nerve power in the face or in the lower limbs. In 1865 he began to become enfeebled, and finally hemiplegia supervened, and a second attack, at the Council Chamber of the College of Surgeons, laid him by completely. But he remained conscious till the last, dying on the 5th July 1867. A bust of him adorns the rooms of the Medico-Chirurgical Society, and another is 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 the Queen, and finally Serjeant 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.