James Syme (1799-1870) was a distinguished teacher of clinical surgery. He improved the operation of exarticulation at the knee-joint, and recommended the operation for amputating at the ankle which goes by his name.
Sir James Paget, F.R.S. (born 1814), the distinguished surgeon, is the author of the Pathological Catalogue of the Museum of the College of Surgeons, Lectures on Surgical Pathology, etc.
John Eric Erichsen, F.R.S. (born 1818), is the author of The Science and Art of Surgery, which has not only gone through nine large editions in this country, but has passed through many editions in America, and has been translated into German, Spanish, Italian, and Chinese (partly). Probably no treatise on English surgery has exercised so much influence on the progress of this branch of the healing art as Mr. Erichsen’s noble work.
Jonathan Hutchinson, F.R.S. (born 1828), one of the most distinguished surgeons of the Victorian age, is famous throughout the empire as a clinical teacher, especially in connection with specific and skin diseases.
Sir Henry Thompson (born 1820), the distinguished surgeon and pathologist, is famous for his researches in the pathology of the urethra and prostate gland, and for his clinical teaching in lithotomy and lithotrity. He has taken an active part in the cremation propaganda.
Sir W. J. Erasmus Wilson (1809-1884) was the famous specialist in skin diseases, whose munificent benefactions to the Royal College of Surgeons have enormously extended the resources of its museum and library.
Gynæcologists.
Sir T. Spencer Wells, M.D. (born 1818), the celebrated ovariotomist, and Mr. Lawson Tait, well described by Dr. Baas as “the magical operator and despiser of antiseptics,” in abdominal diseases, especially those of women, are without rivals in the world as benefactors to humanity by their life-saving discoveries.
Anatomy in England.
Until 1832 the bodies of executed murderers were ordered for dissection, by 32 Hen. VIII. c. 42, 1540. Surgeons were granted four bodies of executed malefactors for “anathomyes” which privilege was extended in the following reigns; but in consequence of the crimes committed by “resurrection men” in order to supply the medical schools, a new statute was passed in 1832, which prohibited the dissection of murderers, and provided for the necessities of the dissecting room by permitting, under certain regulations, the dissection of the bodies of unclaimed persons dying in workhouses, etc.