John Thomson-Walker

Last updated

Sir John William Thomson-Walker, OBE, DL, FRCS (born 6 Aug. 1871, died 5 Oct. 1937, aged 67) was a Scottish surgeon, [1] [2] Hunterian Professor of Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England and a leader in the field of urology. [3] He was knighted in 1922, was President of the Urology Section of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1922, [4] president of the Medical Society of London in 1933 [3] and president of the Société internationale d'Urologie Congress in 1933. [5]

Contents

Career

Thomson-Walker was born in Newport-on-Tay, Fife, Scotland and was educated at the High School of Dundee, The Edinburgh Institution and Edinburgh University where he obtained his medical degree. [6] He did post graduate work in Jena, Germany, and Vienna, Austria where he became interested in urology. [4] [3] He joined St Peter's Hospital for Stone [7] in London in 1905 and also worked at the Cancer Laboratories of the Middlesex Hospital. [5]

He was a Surgeon Lieutenant to the East London (Tower Hamlets) Royal Engineers (Volunteers) from April 1902. [8] During the First World War, with the rank of captain, he was consulting urologist to King George V Red Cross Hospital, King Edward VII Hospital for Officers, and the Star and Garter Home for disabled soldiers. [3] Treatment of wounded soldiers convinced him that there was a high chance of infection and death, when "spinal bladders" were treated by catheterisation. He promoted widely instead the early use of cystoscopy which dropped deaths from 80 to 20%. [4] With his surgical skill he was able to reduce the mortality rate of prostate removal from the previous high rate down to 2%. [3] He treated Philip Snowden, 1st Viscount Snowden, David Lloyd George, Robert Baden Powell, and the first Lord French. [4] [5]

He married Isabella Nairn, daughter of Sir Michael Nairn, 1st Baronet in 1909 and had a son and daughter by her. [3]

Thomson-Walker Collection

As well as a surgeon he also was a passionate collector of prints and throughout his lifetime, he amassed a collection of engraved portraits of medical men., in his will he bequeathed this collection to the University of Edinburgh "in the hope of encouraging the study of the history of medicine on which this great medical school has had such a profound and lasting influence". The collection came to the University in 1939. and is composed of more than 3,000 prints. [9]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Urology</span> Medical specialty

Urology, also known as genitourinary surgery, is the branch of medicine that focuses on surgical and medical diseases of the urinary-tract system and the reproductive organs. Organs under the domain of urology include the kidneys, adrenal glands, ureters, urinary bladder, urethra, and the male reproductive organs.

Johan Naude is a South African surgeon and urologist. Naude was former president of the South African Urological Association and a pioneering transplant surgeon who worked closely with legendary heart transplant surgeon Christian Barnard.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Turner-Warwick</span> British urologist (1925–2020)

Richard Trevor Turner-Warwick was a British urologist who was internationally known for his work on the surgical restoration of the structure and function of the genitourinary tract. He introduced video-cysto-urethrography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Kirby</span> British surgeon

Roger Sinclair Kirby FRCS(Urol), FEBU is a British retired prostate surgeon and professor of urology, researcher, writer on men's health and prostate disease, founding editor of the journal Prostate Cancer and Prostatic Diseases and Trends in Urology and Men's Health and a fundraiser for prostate disease charities, best known for his use of the da Vinci surgical robot for laparoscopic prostatectomy in the treatment of prostate cancer. He is a co-founder and president of the charity The Urology Foundation (TUF), vice-president of the charity Prostate Cancer UK, trustee of the King Edward VII's Hospital and as of 2020 is president of the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), London.

Mahesh Desai is an Indian urologist who treats various kidney and urological diseases in India. He performs renal transplants in Gujarat, India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Innes Williams</span>

Sir David Innes Williams was a British paediatric urologist.

Lyall Stuart Scott FRCSED, FRCSGLAS was a Scottish consultant surgeon who specialised in urology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prokar Dasgupta</span>

Prokar Dasgupta is an Indian-born British surgeon and academic who is professor of surgery at the surgical academy at King's Health Partners, London, UK. Since 2002, he has been consultant urologist to Guy's Hospital, and in 2009 became the first professor of robotic surgery and urology at King's, and subsequently the chairman of the King's College-Vattikuti Institute of Robotic Surgery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John M. Fitzpatrick</span>

John M. Fitzpatrick was an Irish urologist, emeritus professor of surgery at the University College Dublin School of Medicine & Medical Science and Head of Research at the Irish Cancer Society.

André van der Merwe is a South African urologist. He is currently head of urology at the University of Stellenbosch and an associate professor at Tygerberg Hospital. He is best known for conducting the world's first successful penis transplant in 2014. He also performed the first laparoscopic kidney removal in South Africa.

Geoffrey Duncan Chisholm, CBE, FRCS, MRCS was a New Zealand-born, British urologist. He made extensive advances in renal x-rays. He was also a strong advocate of kidney transplants, promoting the advantages of live donors.

Sir Eric William Riches, was a British surgeon, urologist, and decorated British Army officer. In 1955, he developed a new cystoscope, which was named after him as the Riches Cystoscope, in order to standardise the equipment and its attachments. He gave the Hunterian Oration at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1938 and 1942, and the Bradshaw Lecture in 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Wade (surgeon)</span>

Sir Henry Wade PRCSE FRSE DSO CMG was a Scottish military and urological surgeon. He was elected president of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1935. His collection of anatomical specimens was donated to Surgeon's Hall in Edinburgh and is known as the Henry Wade Collection.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Wickham (urologist)</span>

John Ewart Alfred Wickham was a British urologist and surgeon, who was a pioneer of keyhole surgery and the autonomous transurethral resection of the prostate (TURP) robot, foreseeing the subsequent revolution in robotic surgery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Terence Millin</span> Irish urological surgeon, President of the RCSI 1963-1966

Terence John MillinFRCSI FRCS LRCP was a British-born Irish urological surgeon, who in 1945, introduced a surgical treatment of benign large prostates using the retropubic prostatectomy, later known as the Millin's prostatectomy, where he approached the prostate from behind the pubic bone and through the prostatic capsule, removing the prostate through the retropubic space and hence avoided cutting into the bladder. It superseded the technique of transvesical prostatectomy used by Peter Freyer, where the prostate was removed through the bladder.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Freyer</span> Irish surgeon

Sir Peter Freyer was an Irish surgeon with an expertise in genitourinary surgery, best known at first as an Indian Medical Service (IMS) officer, for making popular the procedure for crushing bladder stones to allow them to be evacuated through the natural passages, a procedure known as a litholapaxy. Following retirement from the IMS after 20 years of service in India, he returned to England and popularized a procedure for benign large prostates. This was known as the suprapubic prostatectomy, a transvesical prostatectomy or the Freyer operation, where the prostate is removed through an abdominal incision above the pubic bone but below the umbilicus and through the bladder, and it included using suprapubic drainage post-operatively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Wallace (surgeon)</span> Scottish surgeon (1862–1952)

Sir David Wallace, KBE, CBE, CMG., LL.D, FRCSEd. was a Scottish surgeon working in Edinburgh, with a particular interest in urological surgery. During the Boer War he was in charge of the Edinburgh South African Hospital, an experience which impressed upon him the importance of the Red Cross movement in reducing and mitigating the horrors of war. Becoming active in the British Red Cross Society, he was instrumental in forming the Edinburgh branch and was its Chairman for over 30 years. He was knighted in 1920 and elected President of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1921.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Urology Foundation</span> Charity organization

The Urology Foundation (TUF) is a charity that works across the UK and Ireland with the aim of improving the knowledge and skills of surgeons who operate on diseases of the male and female urinary-tract system and the male reproductive organs and funds research to improve outcomes of all urological conditions and urological cancers.

Albert Clifford Morson OBE,, was a surgeon who pioneered radiotherapy treatments for urinary tract cancers. After the First World War, he was appointed assistant surgeon to St Peter's Hospital for stone, with Peter Freyer, and became consultant in 1923. In 1933, he was elected president of the Section of Urology of the Royal Society of Medicine and, in 1947, he became president of the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St Peter's Medal</span> Award

The St Peter's Medal is awarded annually by the British Association of Urological Surgeons (BAUS) for contributions to the surgical field of urology.

References

  1. ↑ ‘THOMSON-WALKER, Sir John William’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2014; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014 ; online edn, April 2014 accessed 8 May 2014
  2. ↑ Sir John Thomson Walker (obituary). The Times (London, England), Thursday, 7 Oct 1937; pg. 16; Issue 47809. (376 words)
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 (27 November 2013) Thomson-Walker, Sir John William (1871 - 1937) The Royal College of Surgeons, Retrieved 30 September 2014
  4. 1 2 3 4 Sir John Thomson-Walker Archived 2014-10-06 at the Wayback Machine Famous Urologists, The British Association of Urological Surgeons, Retrieved 30 September 2014
  5. 1 2 3 Morson, C. (1949). "Editorial, Sir Peter Freyer and Sir John Thomson Walker". Postgraduate Medical Journal. 25 (286): ii. doi:10.1136/pgmj.25.286.ii. PMC   2529950 .
  6. ↑ The British Medical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 4006 (16 Oct. 1937), p. 779
  7. ↑ St Peter's Hospital for Stone Archived 2014-10-06 at the Wayback Machine The British Association of Urological Surgeaons, Retrieved 1 October 2014
  8. ↑ "No. 27425". The London Gazette . 15 April 1902. p. 2510.
  9. ↑ "Thomson-Walker Portraits". images.is.ed.ac.uk. Retrieved 24 August 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.