John Simon as Surgeon and Scientist

Rosen G. A History of Public Health, expanded edn. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993: 206.

Lawrence C. Medicine in the Making of Modem Britain 1700–1920. London: Routledge, 1994: 62.

Bynum W. Science and the Practice of Medicine in the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994: 79.

Simon J. Personal Recollections of Sir John Simon KCB. London: privately published, 1894: 21.

Ibid.: 22.

Lambert R . Sir John Simon 1816–1904 and English Social Administration. London: McGibbon & Kee, 1963: 42.

See, for example, Bettany G. Eminent Doctors: Their Lives and Their Work, Vol. 2. London: John Hogg, 1885;Walker M. Pioneers of Public Health: The Story of Some Great Benefactors of the Human Race. Freeport, New York: Books for Libraries Press, 1930; Hale-White W. Great Doctors of the Nineteenth Century. London: Edward Arnold, 1935; Greenwood M. Some British Pioneers of Social Medicine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1948.

Lambert R (op. cit. ref. 6): 35.

Simon J (op. cit. ref. 4): 1.

Burdon-Sanderson J. Obituary of Sir John Simon. Proc R Soc. 1904; 75: 306.

Simon J (op. cit. ref. 4): 1.

As a student, for example, Simon supplemented his dissections at King's College Hospital and St Thomas's with visits to the mortuaries of Paris. In 1847 he was there for a fortnight, “chiefly”, as he subsequently put it, “bent on dead-house operations”. Simon J (op. cit. ref. 4): 14.

Birkett John (1815–1904), mrcs (by election) 1844; appointed demonstrator of anatomy at Guy's Hospital 1847, assistant surgeon 1849, surgeon at the hospital 1853–75. Member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons 1867–83, Vice President 1875 and 1876, President 1877. See Power D . Plarr's Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons, 4 vols. London: Royal College of Surgeons 1930: 102. Bransby Cooper (1792–1853), army surgeon 1812–1816; mrcs 1823; frs 1829; frcs 1843 (one of the original 300 fellows); demonstrator of anatomy at the United Hospitals of Guy's and St Thomas's 1823; Professor of Anatomy, assistant surgeon and surgeon at Guy's 1825–53; member of the council of the Royal College of Surgeons 1848–53. See Power D (ibid.): 268.

Simon J (op. cit. ref. 4): 8.

Ibid.: 9.

Simon J , in his memoir of Green's life published as an introduction to Green J H . Spiritual Philosophy Founded on the Teaching of the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1865: xlviii.

Payne J . Sir John Simon, kcb, frs: late consulting surgeon to St Thomas's Hospital. St Thomas's Hospital Reports 1904; 33: 26.

Lyle H Willoughby . King's and Some King's Men. London: Oxford University Press, 1935: 16.

Simon J (op. cit. ref. 4): 9.

Lyle H Willoughby (op. cit. ref. 18): 61. Bowman William Sir (1816–1892) became Joint Professor of Physiology and General Morbid Anatomy at King's College Hospital in 1847 and surgeon to the hospital in 1856. He was joint editor of the Cyclopaedia of Anatomy (4 vols, 1836–59), to which Simon contributed an article on the neck in 1842, and was co-author of Physiological Anatomy and the Physiology of Man (1843), which became a standard text. Bowman undertook substantial research on the structure of the eye, and helped found the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom, becoming its first president in 1880. See Willoughby Lyle H (op. cit. ref. 18): 110–13.

Sigerist E. Surgery at the time of the introduction of antisepsis. J. Miss State Med AsSoc. 1935; 32: 171.

In his Sixth Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council (1863), Simon dedicated almost half of its contents, some 40 pages, to the question of hospital hygiene.

Wangensteen O Wangensteen S. The Rise of Surgery: From Empiric Craft to Scientific Discipline. Folkestone: Dawson, 1978: 677.

Newsholme A. Fifty Years in Public Health: Personal Narrative With Comments. London: Allen & Unwin, 1935: 56.

Liston Robert (1794–1847), mrcs 1816; frcs Edinburgh 1818;frs 1841; frcs 1843 (one of the original 300 fellows). Sir Darcy Power observed that “Liston was not a scientific surgeon… his claim to remembrance is based upon the marvellous dexterity with which he used the knife… and upon the boldness which enabled him to operate successfully on cases from which other surgeons shrank. Living at a time immediate antecedent of anaesthetics, he appears to have attained a dexterity in the use of cutting instruments which had probably never been equalled and which is unlikely to be surpassed”. See Power D (op. cit. ref. 13): 719–20.

It was Listón, of course, who performed the first successful operation in a London hospital using ether at University College on 21 December 1846. Syme James (1799–1870), mrcs 1821; frcs Edinburgh 1823; frcs 1843 (one of the original 300 fellows).

Simon J (op. cit. ref. 16): lii.

Fergusson William Sir (1808–1877) became Professor of Surgery at King's College in 1840, and was surgeon to King's College Hospital from that date until his death. His System of Practical Surgery was published in 1842 and reached its fifth edition in 1870. Willoughby Lyle (op. cit. ref. 18): 118.

Lamberg R (op. cit. ref. 6): 39. Under the terms of the Anatomy Act 1832, Simon had access to a ready supply of cadavers. He was thus spared the unsavoury task of dealing with “resurrectionists” or “body snatchers”.

Ibid.: 40, note 10. However, in an appendix to his paper on “Operations for the retention of urine dependent on stricture of the urethra” of 1852 (see note 36 below), Simon provided details of the six cases in which he had performed operations during the preceding two years. Further, a detailed account of his operation for urinary diversion in a case of ectropia vesicae was published in The Lancet on 18 December 1852.

All the quotations from Dr Ord are taken from Payne J (op. cit. ref. 17): 397–00.

Lamber R (op. cit. ref. 6).

Kirkup John Mr informs me that the lateral operation for removal of stone (i.e. extraction via an incision in the perineum) suggests that Simon “did not employ a lithotrite or use the easier lower abdominal incision, possible after antiseptic methods were established”. Personal communication dated 2 May 1996.

Cock Edward (1805–1892) was a nephew of Sir Astley Cooper, to whom he was apprenticed. He became mrcs in 1828 and was on the surgical staff of Guy's Hospital from 1838 to 1871. He was on the council of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1856 to 1871, and became President in 1869. See Cope Z. The Royal College of Surgeons of England: A History. London: Anthony Blond, 1959: 314.

Simon was sufficiently roused by Cock's pirating of his operation to republish a paper which had originally appeared in the Medical Times and Gazette in 1852, viz. “Operations for the retention of urine dependent on stricture of the urethra”, in the St Thomas's Hospital Reports, 1879; 10. As Ord observed, “the paper is perfectly conclusive as to his priority and is, I believe, his only controversial paper relating to the matter”. Nevertheless, in spite of Simon's claims, Cock's name remained associated with the technique. Cope, for example, asserted that Cock “is best known for his operation for impassable stricture”. Cope Z (op. cit. ref. 35).

Lambert R (op. cit. ref. 6): 41. An unsuccessful attempt at a similar operation was made by Mr Lloyd at St Bartholomew's in the same year. See The Lancet, 11 October 1851.

The Lancet., 18 December 1852: 569.

Wangensteen O Wangensteen S. (op. cit. ref. 24): 105; Lambert R (op. cit. ref. 6). The boy never left hospital and, after considerable suffering, died some 10 months after the operation. While applauding Simon's efforts, The Lancet, 18 December 1852 (p. 570), concluded “that the risks are perhaps disproportionate with the annoyance of a malformation which improved apparatuses may render bearable”.

Simon J (op. cit. ref. 4): 11.

Burdon-Sanderson J (op. cit. ref. 10): 341.

Commenting on Simon's election to the Royal Society, Major Greenwood (himself a frs) commented, rather sniffily, that it occurred “a few years before admissions were narrowly restricted”. Greenwood M (op. cit. ref. 7): 83.

Simon J (op. cit. ref. 4): 13.

Burdon-Sanderson J (op. cit. ref. 10): 341.

Lambert R (op. cit. ref. 6): 45.

Simon J. On sub-acute inflammation of the kidney. Medical-Chirurgical Transactions 1847: 30: 157–9.

Viz. Simon J. “On the aims and philosophic method of pathological research: an inaugural address”, delivered at St Thomas's Hospital on 15 December 1847,.

Greenwood M (op. cit. ref. 7): 84.

Following his retirement from public office, Simon was made a CB, and this was augmented, rather belatedly, in 1887 to kcb. From 1876 to 1895 he was a Crown member of the General Medical Council. During his retirement, Simon deployed his considerable literary talents in writing Englisli Sanitary Institutions, which was published in 1890, a second edition appearing in 1897. In later life, Simon's sight failed, and he was constrained to live in what he described as “a great darkness”. He died on 23 July 1904.