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Sir Jonathan Hutchinson

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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SIR JONATHAN HUTCHINSON (1828-), English surgeon and pathologist, was born on the 23rd of July 1828 at Selby, Yorkshire, his parents belonging to the Society of Friends. He entered St Bartholomew's Hospital, became a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1850 (F.R.C.S. 1862), and rapidly gained reputation as a skilful operator and a scientific inquirer. He was president of the Hunterian Society in 1869 and 1870, professor of surgery and pathology at the College of Surgeons from 1877 to 1882, president of the Pathological Society, 1879-1880, of the Ophthalmological Society, 1883, of the Neurological Society, 1887, of the Medical Society, 1890, and of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical in 1894-1896. In 1889 he was president of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was a member of two Royal Commissions, that of 1881 to inquire into the provision for smallpox and fever cases in the London hospitals, and that of1889-1896on vaccination and leprosy. He also acted as honorary secretary to the Sydenham Society. His activity in the cause of scientific surgery and in advancing the study of the natural sciences was unwearying. His lectures on neuropathogenesis, gout, leprosy, diseases of the tongue, &c., were full of original observation; but his principal work was connected with the study of syphilis, on which he became the first living authority. He was the founder of the London Polyclinic or Postgraduate School of Medicine; and both in his native town of Selby and at Haslemere, Surrey, he started (about 1890) educational museums for popular instruction in natural history. He published several volumes on his own subjects, was editor of the quarterly Archives of Surgery, and was given the Hon. LL.D.

degree by both Glasgow and Cambridge. After his retirement from active consultative work he continued to take great interest in the question of leprosy, asserting the existence of a definite connexion between this disease and the eating of salted fish. He received a knighthood in 1908.