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.