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.