helped by him in some serious personal difficulty.
He was not a philanthropist in the ordinary sense;
his horizon was not a wide one; he was not a member of societies for improving this and that.
But in his chosen sphere his intense zeal was matched by his generosity. There were occasions when someone connected with the Wingfield was in need of money, and more than a small sum. The usual deliberations provided no solution. Then Girdlestone would say that he was trustee of a fund that could be drawn on in such circum- stances and that the matter could be left to him.
The source of the fund was never disclosed; it was sometimes suspected that he sought help from Lord Nuffield, but it was a nearer guess that he himself provided the money. It was not, therefore, surprising that the hospital had an esprit de corps that was apparent even to the casual visitor.
Girdlestone used to refer very frequently to the Wingfield spirit—it sometimes became rather an old joke—but it was a very real thing, an influ- ence that made for happiness and good work, and it was felt throughout the region.
There is a tendency, a natural and a proper one, for eminent men gradually to enlarge their spheres of activity; it would be unfortunate if it were otherwise, for the State and our profession must be able to command the services of and receive guidance from men of exceptional intelli- gence and experience. The price to be paid for work in a wider field, and paid often with sorrow, is the abandonment of many local interests, which the passage of years and old associations have made peculiarly sweet. Girdlestone chose other- wise and for him the choice was right. He knew what he could do well and he stuck to it; in his own line of work he was as confident and superbly skillful as in the two games he played (he was outstanding at tennis and golf and reached the semi-finals in a competition at St.
Andrews only a few months before he died). He directed all his energies to the development of his hospital, his region, the scheme that they embod- ied, and the link he had forged with his univer- sity. His influence extended far and wide, but it was chiefly in virtue of what he did in Oxford.
G.R. Girdlestone died on December 30, 1950.
Girdlestone’s entry into the field of orthopedic surgery was an accident of circumstance. He had become a general practitioner surgeon in Shrop- shire and went to Baschurch first as a spectator and later to assist at operations. It was not long
before his own natural pioneer spirit, inspired by the work of those two great personalities, Agnes Hunt and Robert Jones, convinced him that ortho- pedic surgery was to be his life work.
In appearance he was a striking figure—tall, handsome and with a beautiful voice. His many contributions to the literature of his subject were expressed in delightful prose; they bore the mark of wide reading and of a cultivated mind. He was also a devoted listener to classical music. He shared all these tastes with his wife in an idyllic partnership; but there was also another Girdle- stone—a natural player of ball games, a golfer with a beautiful style, which remained with him almost to the end. He won the Irish Amateur Championship after leaving Oxford and he might have gone far if his busy professional life had not claimed the larger part of his reserves of energy.
No memoir of this man of high quality—one of the most distinguished surgeons of his genera- tion—would be complete without reference to the deep religious convictions that sustained him in all his work. This was a Girdlestone known to a host of witnesses.
118 Who’s Who in Orthopedics
Denis Joseph GLISSAN
1889–1958
Denis Glissan was one of the pioneers of ortho- pedic surgery in Australia—one of the first three Australians who trained in orthopedic surgery and who specialized in this field in Australia after the First World War. Before that there was
one orthopedic practitioner, a German; Gordon Craig and Robert Wade of Sydney did a certain amount of orthopedic practice as part of the general field of surgery; and Kent Hughes of Melbourne found a curious common interest in otolaryngology and orthopedics. Not until the First World War did a real interest in orthopedic surgery arise in Australia, and the first men to devote themselves entirely to it were all disciples of Robert Jones.
Denis Glissan was educated at Riverview and Sydney Grammar School. After graduation in Sydney he served as a Resident Medical Officer at Goulburn Hospital, and then for a short time pursued an assistantship in country practice. In July 1915 he enlisted and served for 4 years in Gallipoli, Sinai, France and England. He was one of the small group of men selected from the Australian Army Medical Corps for special orthopedic training in England, and learned his first principles at Alder Hey Military Hospital at Liverpool. He returned to Australia in 1919 and thereafter served on the honorary staff of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and of St. Vincent’s Hospital for over 20 years.
In the Second World War, he was the first orthopedic surgeon to be appointed to the 113th Military Hospital at Concord, and he gave to it 5 years of unremitting work. He was a foundation Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Sur- geons, a founder member and for 2 years Presi- dent of the Australian Orthopedic Association.
Perhaps the body that owes him the greatest debt is the Australian Occupational Therapy Associa- tion, of which he was a founder and for some years President.
Lennox Teece writes:
At St. Vincent’s Hospital he was senior honorary surgeon of the orthopedic department which he built up from nothing to its present pitch of efficiency. He set the standard of work on a firm, rational basis, avoiding the showy and the ephemeral. Many young men and several of the present honorary staff owe him a debt of gratitude for their early training. It is to some consid- erable extent due to him that the speciality of orthope- dic surgery in Australia today is accorded a high standard of public and professional respect. His tireless energy and enthusiasm established the Australian Occupational Therapy Association on its present firm footing. As a surgeon he was conservative and a per- fectionist. He was not to be led astray by some widely acclaimed new procedure or by ill judged enthusiasm.
Everything had to be tried and tested. His meticulous attention to detail was largely responsible for the high
standing of his surgical results. Time meant nothing to him. At hospital his operation list would be completed no matter what the hour, and at the end of a long after- noon he would be the freshest person of the whole theater staff. He had no mercy for laziness, inefficiency or carelessness, and was not slow to speak his mind when he encountered these shortcomings. He devised an effective operation for extensor contraction of the toes and saw it widely adopted throughout the ortho- pedic world. He was a man of quiet and unassuming manner; his friends were many and of long standing;
yet in addition he enjoyed the respect of his junior colleagues.
John Hoets writes:
My acquaintance with D.J. Glissan began between the first and second world wars with a friendship which became cemented with a real regard for his professional work. His students spoke with affection and reverence of his insistence on correct methods. I personally came under his professional care at that time; I can speak with gratitude and with respect for his discipline and after-care of wounds. I worked with him at 113th Mil- itary Hospital at Concord where, in addition to routine visits, every Sunday morning we met together and talked over the problems of our patients. It was a very happy association though pretty hard work and I was impressed more than ever with his meticulous and thoughtful care of patients.
A.F. Dwyer writes:
When Dinny Glissan was forced to retire from practice, orthopedic surgery in this country lost not only one of its pioneers, but also one of its most original minds.
Very few men had as deep an understanding of the form and function of the human foot, and it is a pity that his illness prevented him from writing the mono- graph he intended. His originality in outlook and tech- nique showed themselves in his highly original solution to the problem of the old, completely avulsed capsulo- tendinous cuff of the shoulder. He was the first to realise the usefulness of the transradiancy and mal- leability of aluminium for splintage and devised many ingenious ways of using it. He tried to enrol at the Tech- nical College but lacked the necessary union card; but he did become an authority on the use and care of wood-working and metal-working hand tools. A natural teacher, he left his stamp on generations of house sur- geons. Irascible in temperament yet patient in demon- stration, he impressed on all the importance of methodical clinical work and operative technique, down to the smallest details of nursing. His last years were saddened by confinement to a bed and a wheel- chair. Only those who knew his restless temperament realised the frustration he suffered and the genuine for- titude he displayed.
119
Who’s Who in Orthopedics
H. Jackson Burrows writes:
Dinny Glissan was a perfectionist, who looked for this quality in his patients and in his assistants. They were left in no doubt when they failed to rise to his own high standards. He held strong principles, and when these were at issue he was formidable indeed. Yet he had the kindest, gentlest and most generous character—with a sense of humour—that made him the most lovable of men. He both gave and inspired loyalty. His integrity was complete. Everything interested him, particularly natural history in a land richly endowed. He had a rare command of the mother tongue, and his letters were a joy to read because of the grace of their construction and perfection of their vocabulary. He was most happily married to a devoted wife, who shared the tribulations of the illness that clouded his last five years.
Denis Glissan died on May 19, 1958.
dling of this disaster guaranteed success for many future ventures.
He became President of the local Medical Association, ABC Traveling Fellow to North America in 1956 and Hunterian Lecturer of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1956.
He was appointed OBE in 1959, and traveled to Africa in 1961 as Nuffield Traveling Fellow.
In 1965 he was appointed to the Princess Alice Chair in Tropical Orthopedics and Rehabil- itation. He was Secretary General of World Orthopedic Concern and on the board of Ortho- pedics Overseas. He ran the Jamaican wheelchair sports team. In 1984 he received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Toronto. He received the Order of Jamaica and was knighted in 1986. He was the Lipmann Kessel Traveling Professor to the Third World in 1990 and was currently Chairman of the Caribbean Medical Research Council. He wrote on many subjects including sickle-cell disease, bone infections and tibia vara.
John believed that an operation was but an inci- dent in a patient’s life. He worked on all aspects of a person’s recovery. He started schools for the handicapped, initially for those with polio and paraplegia, a company to employ the disabled, a farm for the handicapped, a Cheshire village, a fairground to employ the handicapped and to raise money for a rehabilitation center, a prosthetics and orthotics center, a physiotherapy school, a wheelchair sports program, and a hospice. In addition, he initiated the introduction of safe driving laws and legal aid for the injured. He had a unique ability to see what was needed, to find like-minded people and to set things in motion despite the economic woes of Jamaica. He wrote that “The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because all we can do is a little.”
He initiated projects with great enthusiasm and they developed a momentum of their own. For example, the school at Mona began in a wooden refugee camp; today it has 2,000 students and has been taken over by the university.
John was a dynamo. He was an early riser and wrote letters for a couple of hours before visiting the rehabilitation center between 7 and 8 a.m. He would then go on to the university to attend clinics, to do undergraduate teaching and to operate. Patients knew and loved him as both friend and doctor. All day he was networking. He described his sense of the orthopedic obligation in an editorial entitled “Religio medici 1994” in the December 1994 issue of the American volume 120
Who’s Who in Orthopedics
Sir John GOLDING
1921–1996
John Golding was born in London and educated at Marlborough College, Cambridge University and the Middlesex Hospital, where he was in- fluenced by Philip Wiles. Military service took him to Egypt and he later worked at the Royal National Orthopedic Hospital. In 1953 he was appointed Senior Lecturer in Orthopedics at the new University College of the West Indies. A year later the major epidemic of polio started. His han-
