Obituary : Clinton Thomas Dent, M.A., M.C. Cantab., F.R.C.S.

  • Rolleston, Humphry Davy, 1862-1944.
Date:
1912
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Obituary : Clinton Thomas Dent, M.A., M.C. Cantab., F.R.C.S. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    CLINTON THOMAS DENT, M.A., M.C.Cantab., F.R.C.S. To a wide circle of friends the news of the death of Clinton Dent, on August 26th, must have come as a painful shock, for he was apparently in his usual health when he began his summer holiday, and his fatal illness—a virulent pure septicaemia, possibly due to oral sepsis—lasted little more than a fortnight. He was the eighth child and fifth son of Thomas Dent, and was born on December 7th, 1850, at Sandgate. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took the ordinary B.A. degree in 1873. Subsequently he examined in surgery for many years, and was made Hon. M.C. in 1899. He entered the Medical School of St. George’s Hospital, and after holding the usual appointments was elected Assistant Surgeon in 1880, and for a time was Joint Lecturer on Physiology in the Medical School. In 1895 he became full Surgeon, and at the time of his death was Senior Surgeon and Chairman of the Medical School Committee. He was also for many years Surgeon to the Belgrave Hospital for Children, which owed much to his constant guidance and generosity. In 1904 he undertook the congenial duties of Chief Surgeon to the Metropolitan Police, thus serving in the same capacity as his former teacher and colleague, the late Timothy Holmes. Ample private means, which sometimes interfere with professional activity, had no such paralysing influence on Dent, and merely enabled him to concentrate his energies on worthy objects. He took an active part in the medical societies of London; he served as Secretary (1901-4) to the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society, before which he read papers on “ Four Hundred Cases of Amputation ” (1890, with W. C. Bull), “The Behaviour of a Tendon Ligature” (1891, with S. Delepine), “ Amputation of the Entire Upper Extremity for Recurrent Carcinoma ” (1898), “ Con- genital Hypertrophic Stenosis of the Pylorus and its Treatment by Pyloroplasty” (1903, with E. Cautley), and at the time of his death was President of the Surgical Section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was also Secretary and Vice-President of the Medical Society of London, and in 1908 delivered the annual oration on “ The After-Results of Injuries,” in which he embodied some of the experiences derived from work among the Metropolitan Police in connexion with the difficult subject of [485/12]