This article examines the life and work of the eminent surgeon Benjamin Collins Brodie. It details the progress of his career as surgeon including his training, contributions to surgery and final years, and examines in passing his contributions to the development of physiology and pathology.
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References
1.
D'arcy Power observes that Brodie ‘rose to be the first surgeon in England, holding a position similar to Sir Astley Cooper’, while Le Fanu refers to him as ‘the leading surgical consultant’ and Lambert depicts him as ‘the doyen of the surgical profession’. See Power D. Plarr's Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons. London: Royal College of Surgeons, 1930:145; Le Fanu W. Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, FRS. Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London. 1964; 19: 46 and LambertR. Sir John Simon and English Social Administration.London: Macgibbon & Kee,1963: 104.
2.
The original choice for President was Michael Faraday (1791-1867) but he refused to serve and Brodie was elected instead. See HallM. All Scientists Now: the Royal Society in the Nineteenth Century.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1984: 100.
3.
Brodie's father was educated at Charterhouse and Worcester College, Oxford. As a young man he was for a time a close companion of the Holland family, including the leading Whig politician Charles James Fox (1749-1806). It was through the patronage of the Holland family that he became Rector of Winterslow. Unfortunately, his prospects of further preferment were blighted by the Whigs’ fall from power and he was constrained thereafter to live the somewhat modest life of a rural clergyman, albeit becoming a magistrate and Deputy Lieutenant of the county. The association with the Holland family proved useful to Benjamin Collins Brodie who, as a young man in London, was welcomed to Holland House, thereby gaining an entrée to the glittering and influential social circle around the society hostess Lady Elizabeth Holland (1770-1845). See BrodieBC. Memoir of the Late Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, Bart.2nd edn.London: Longmans, Green & Co.,1865: 3–6.
4.
Brodie's paternal aunt was married to the eminent obstetrician, Thomas Denman (1733-1815). Their daughter, Brodie's cousin, was married to Dr Matthew Baillie, FRS (1761-1823) who inherited the Great Windmill Street School of anatomy from his uncle, the famous obstetrician William Hunter FRS (1718-83). Baillie, author of the influential The Morbid Anatomy of Some of the Most Important Parts of the Human Body, was a physician at St George's Hospital where Everard Home FRS was surgeon - see note 7 below. Home was the brother-in-law and successor of Baillie's other uncle, the younger brother of William Hunter, the ‘father of modern surgery’, John Hunter, FRS (1728-83). It was through Baillie that Brodie was introduced to Home, thereby gaining entry to the medical elite of the metropolis.
5.
John Abernethy was born in 1764 in Wolverhampton where he received his brief formal education. At the age of 15 he went to London and was apprenticed to Sir Charles Blicke (1745-1815) at St Bartholomew's Hospital. He attended the anatomy lectures of Sir William Blizzard (1743-1835) at the London Hospital and also those of Sir John Percival Pott (1714-88) and John Hunter. In 1787 he became assistant surgeon at St Bartholomew's, a post he held for 28 years! In 1813 he was appointed surgeon to Christ's Hospital; Professor of Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1814 and, finally, surgeon to St Bartholomew's in 1815. Abernethy retired from his surgical posts at Bart's and Christ's Hospital in 1827 and 1828, and from his Professorship at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1829. He died at his house in Enfield, Middlesex in 1831.
6.
Brodie (op. cit. Ref. 3): p. 37.
7.
Everard Home was born in Hull in 1756, the youngest son of an army surgeon, and a descendant of the Barons of Polworth, ancestors of the Earls of Marchmont in Scotland. Educated at Westminster School, he gained a place at Trinity College, Cambridge but never went there, opting instead for a medical career under the supervision of his brother-in-law, John Hunter. Home was assistant surgeon to St George's Hospital 1787-1793; surgeon 1793-1827 and surgeon to the Royal Hospital, Chelsea 1821-1832. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1785 and was appointed Sergeant-Surgeon to King George III in 1808. In the latter year he received the Copley Medal of the Royal Society in recognition of his various papers on anatomy and physiology published in the Society's Philosophical Transactions. He was created a baronet in 1812, the first surgeon in active practice to receive the honour. Home was Master of the College of Surgeons in 1813 and 1821 and President (the title having been changed) in 1822. He died in his residence at Chelsea Hospital in 1832. See Obituary notices of Fellows deceased. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London 1830-1837;3:145-6.
8.
St George's Hospital was founded in 1733 in Lanesborough House at Hyde Park Corner, which had been built in 1719. The original building was gradually extended until, by 1744, the hospital possessed fifteen wards and in excess of two hundred and fifty beds. It was to this establishment that Brodie became attached. Lanesborough House was demolished when the new St George's (with its familiar façade of Doric columns) was completed in 1844. Now the old hospital building forms the Lanesborough Hotel. See GouldT, UttleyD. A Short History of St. George's Hospital and the Origin of Its Ward Names.London: The Athlone Press,1997: 3.
9.
The Lancet1850; i:541. An insight into Home's approach to the mastery of surgery, together with evidence of his admiration for John Hunter, can be found in his Lectures in Practical Surgery given in 1794-95 where he states that the successful surgeon requires ‘judgement matured by extensive experience and much study … the rules followed by Mr J Hunter who had that sagacity of mind, boldness of thought, nicety of hand and everything requisite to form a great surgeon’. See King's College London College Archives reference GB 0100 G/PP2/20. Unfortunately, towards the end of his career Home's abilities sadly declined as the result of what today might be described as ‘a drink problem’. Rightly, he has been criticized for his decision in 1823 to destroy some of Hunter's manuscripts which had been entrusted to him as keeper and afterwards as joint trustee with Matthew Baillie, of the Hunterian Collection. For a discussion, see Moore W. The Knife Man: the Extraordinary Life and Times of John Hunter, Father of Modern Surgery. London: Bantam Press, 2005.
10.
Brodie (op. cit. Ref. 3): p. 45. Brodie makes no mention of the stench and general squalor of the dissecting rooms and operating theatres he encountered or of the necessary dealings with ‘resurrection men’. A near contemporary account of these matters can be found in the memoirs of John Flint South (1797-1882) who became an apprentice surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital in 1814. See Memorials of John Flint South.London: Centaur Press,1970.
11.
Power (op. cit. Ref. 1): p. 145.
12.
HolmesT. Benjamin Collins Brodie.New York: Longmans, Green & Co.,1898: 38, 43.
13.
The Copley Medal is the Royal Society's oldest award, having been established in 1731. It is awarded annually for outstanding achievements in any branch of science.
14.
ThomasKB. Benjamin Brodie: Physiologist.Medical History1964; 8: 286–91. Brodie's work on poisons, including the action of the so-called ‘arrow poison’ curare were published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in 1811 and 1812.
15.
HawkinsC, ed. The Works of Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie with an Autobiography.London: Longmans, Green & Co.,1865; 1: 47.
16.
For a critical clinical discussion of this work see BuchananWW. Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie (1783-1862).Rheumatology2003:42:689–91. For an evaluation of Brodie's contribution to the development of pathology see Matthews T, Sheldrake J. Benjamin Collins Brodie: surgeon and pathologist. Bulletin of the Royal College of Pathologists 2006; 135: 54-6.
17.
The operation was a success and the grateful king created Cooper a Baronet. Cooper was born in 1768 in Norfolk and trained under Henry Cline (1750-1827) at St Thomas's Hospital, London and became Demonstrator in Anatomy there in 1789. He lectured in anatomy at the College of Surgeons from 1793 to 1796 and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1802. He was a surgeon at Guy's from 1800 to 1825 and was a founder of the Medico-Chirurgical Society and its President in 1819. He was President of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1827 and 1836, and Vice-President of the Royal Society in 1836. He was appointed Sergeant-Surgeon to George IV in 1828 and continued in the position under his successor William IV. Cooper died in London in 1841. For a recent account of Cooper's career see BurchD. Digging Up the Dead: Uncovering the Life of Astley Cooper, An Extraordinary Surgeon.London: Chatto and Windus,2007.
18.
In 1819 Brodie and his wife settled in a house at 14 Savile Row that previously had been the home of the playwright and Whig politician Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816). The house, dating from 1734, is currently the headquarters of the Hardy Amies (1909-2003) company.
19.
Brodie (op. cit. Ref. 3): pp. 127–8.
20.
Holmes (op. cit. Ref. 12): pp. 85, 100.
21.
BrodieBC. Clinical Lectures on Surgery Delivered at St. George's Hospital.Philadelphia: Lea & Blanchard,1846: 32–3.
22.
RichardsonR. The Story of Surgery: An Historical Commentary.Shrewsbury: Quiller Press,2004: 48.
23.
Hawkins (op. cit. Ref. 15): Vol. 2, p. 663.
24.
Isambard Kingdom Brunel FRS (1806-59) was the son of Marc Kingdom Brunel FRS (1768-1849) with whom he worked on the planning and execution of the Thames Tunnel from Rotherhithe to Wapping, used now by the London Underground. His major work was undertaken in his role as the Chief Engineer for the Great Western Railway from London to Bristol. In addition to the London and Bristol termini, he also designed and built the bridges, viaducts and tunnels associated with the railway, Box Tunnel being the most impressive.
25.
Charles Aston Key FRS was a pupil of Sir Astley Cooper's at Guy's Hospital, becoming a surgeon there in 1824 and senior surgeon in 1833. He became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1821, a member of the Council of the College in 1845 and surgeon to Prince Albert in 1847. Key was one of the first surgeons to use ether as an anaesthetic. He died after a day's illness in the cholera epidemic of 1849.
26.
Charles Hawkins became a student at St George's Hospital in 1831 and a member of the Royal College of Surgeons and assistant to Benjamin Brodie in 1836. Following Brodie's death, Hawkins edited his collected works.
27.
For a full account of the case see BrodieBC. An Account of a Case in Which a Foreign Body Was Lodged in the Right Bronchus.London: Richard Kinder,1843. Regarding the impact of the operation on Brunel, Hawkins noted that ‘Brunel died in 1859 and I saw him at the time of his death, and had the opportunity of examining his body afterwards. The cause of death was quite unconnected with the accident. The wound in the trachea was perfectly united, and there was no disease in the lungs’. (Hawkins op. cit. Ref. 15): p. 132.
28.
Holmes (op. cit. Ref. 12): p. 197.
29.
Sir William Bowman trained at King's College Hospital and became Joint Professor of Physiology and Anatomy there in 1856. He was joint editor of the Cyclopedia of Anatomy (Four Vols. 1836-59) and was co-author of Physiological Anatomy and Physiology of Man (1843) that became a standard text. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1841. Among his many activities, Bowman undertook substantial research on the structure of the eye and helped to found the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom (later the Royal College of Ophthalmologists), becoming its first President in 1880.
