Volume 1

Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie / by Timothy Holmes.

  • Timothy Holmes
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie / by Timothy Holmes. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    healthy a change was soon visible “in the increase of zeal and diligence on the part of the students and in their increasing numbers.” It was, in fact, the com- mencement of Brodie’s reputation as a surgeon and a teacher of surgery, and of the rise of the St. George’s school to the high position which it held during the whole period of Brodie’s service there. Another improvement of great importance for the teaching of surgery was introduced by Brodie about this time, in the appointment of clinical clerks, one for Home’s patients, and another for those of Mr. Gunning who were under his care. “This was a happy inno- vation, for surgeons require careful notes of their cases no less than physicians do, and surgical cases present daily changes and fluctuations, the accurate observation of which is as necessary to their successful treatment, as is that of the medical cases. It was no doubt Brodie’s more literary and more scientific way of look- ing at surgery which led him to introduce this more thorough method of pursuing its study ; and the same cause also led him at this period to begin a course of clinical lectures on surgery, ‘‘the first lectures of this kind, as I believe,” he says, “ which were ever de- livered in a London hospital.” ‘Chose who have read the painful account of the quarrel between John: Hunter and his colleagues at St. George’s will recollect that the essential point in dispute was this : they wished the students’ fees to form a common fund, but without being willing (no doubt because some of them at least felt themselves unable) to teach surgery Clinically ; while Hunter contended that he
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