Address of Sir Andrew Clark ... President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, at the annual meeting, March 1st, 1893.

  • Clark, Andrew, 1826-1893.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address of Sir Andrew Clark ... President of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, at the annual meeting, March 1st, 1893. 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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    fortunate in securing the co-operation of able and enthu- siastic colleagues, and despite the numerous diflSculties besetting a venture of this kind, the school soon obtained a considerable reputation. The foundation of St. Mary^s Hospital followed, and very largely through the efforts made by Mr. Lane. He himself was elected Senior Surgeon, and many of his former colleagues followed him to the new hospital. Mr. Lane was also a member of the sur- gical staff of the Lock Hospital. He served for several years on the Council of the Royal College of Surgeons, but he declined the Presidency. In this Society Mr. Lane was at one time a well-known Fellow. He was a member of the Council in 1849, and Vice-President in 1865. Mr. Lane was a man of untiring energy and indomitable resolution. As a surgeon he was skilful, wide in his views, and opposed to every form of specialism. An old pupil writes of him that he was one of the first to practise ovariotomy, but he declined to commit himself to a special career as an abdominal surgeon, although he knew that by doing so he might win wealth and distinction. The same writer also tells us that Mr. Lane once commenced a series of papers on syphilis. Six of these papers had been published in the ‘ Lancet,’ and were attracting great attention, when their author suddenly refused to carry them farther; the reason he gave being that they would bring him what he did not wish—a reputation and a fortune as a specialist. Above all, however, Mr. Lane was a teacher. He had a thorough knowledge of anatomy and surgery, and a gift of clear and interesting exposition. Able and enthusi- astic himself, he also possessed in a rare degree the power of rousing the ability and the enthusiasm of his pupils. With a strong passion for his work, and with such capa- bilities for carrying it out, we cannot wonder that he achieved a reputation and a success scarcely, if at all, excelled by any of the medical teachers of his time. Mr. Lane was a gentleman of the olden school j and in his dress always retained the old-fashioned swallow-tailed