LISTER AND HIS DISCIPLES
record that " this young man's name was Henderson, and that
he was a native of Dumfries." x
ARTHUR BARKER (1850-1916) was the first in this country to
drain successfully an otitic brain abscess in 1886, and he was
closely followed by Sir WILLIAM MAGEWEN (1848-1924) of
Glasgow,2 whose series of early successes in the treatment of
brain abscess (twenty-four operations, twenty-three recoveries)
remains unequalled. His Pyogenic Diseases of the Brain and Spinal
Cord (Glasgow, 1893) is a medical classic.
Sir VICTOR HORSLEY (1857-1916), who, like Godlee, was
surgeon to University College Hospital, was the first, in 1887,
to operate successfully for the removal of an accurately localized
tumour of the spinal cord. Horsley died of sunstroke while on
military service in Mesopotamia during the Great War.3
In America the pioneer was WILLIAM WILLIAMS KEEN (1837-
1932) of Philadelphia, who made notable contributions to surgical
literature, and who successfully removed a brain tumour in 1888.
The greatest neurological surgeon of America was HARVEY
GUSHING (1869-1939), a highly skilled neurologist and pathologist,
who evolved a technique of his own, and who published classic
monographs on the pituitary body (1912), and on tumours of the
nervus acusticus (1917). His Life of his friend Sir William Osier
(1926) is a gem of medical biography. He served in France
during the Great War, and wrote an account of his experiences.4
His Bio-bibliography of Andreas Vesalius was not published until
1943-
Early workers in the field of neuro-surgery in Europe include
FRANCESCO DURANTE (1844-1934) of Rome, who introduced the
osteoplastic flap in brain surgery, and PAUL BROCA (1824-80)
of Paris, whose achievements as an anthropologist (p. 6) are
equalled by his skill as a surgeon and anatomist. He was one
of the first to apply his knowledge of cerebral localization to the
diagnosis of brain tumours, and by some authorities he is regarded
as the founder of modern neuro-surgery.
Another highly specialized field which at this time became
differentiated from general surgery, was the surgery of the genito-
urinary system, briefly called Urology. A great impetus was given
1 Wilfred Trotter, "A Landmark in Modern Neurology," Lancet, 1934, vol ii,
p. 1207
1 A. K. Bowman, Sir William Maeewen : A Chapter in the History, of Surgery, 1942
* Stephen Paget, Life of Sir Victor Horsley, 1919
* Harvey Gushing, From a Surgeon's Journal, 1915-18, 1936
333