said, while listening to his favorite symphony, the Beethoven Eroica.
In 1869 and 1883 he published handbooks on first aid and founded the Samaritan’s schools, based on the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade, to teach first aid throughout Germany.
When I look back on my career as a surgeon I can say with truth that many and many are the times I have deplored that so very few people know how to render the first aid to those who have suddenly met with some injury. This specially applies to the field of battle; of the thousands who have flocked thither in their desire to help, so few have understood how to render aid.
His program of education has improved the situation.
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Who’s Who in Orthopedics
Peter Gordon Lawrence ESSEX-LOPRESTI
1916–1951
Mr. Essex-Lopresti was trained at the London Hospital and qualified in 1937. After several res- ident appointments, he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps serving as a surgical specialist in an airborne division. As a result of this experi- ence, he was able to give a comprehensive report on the injuries associated with 20,777 parachute jumps made by men in the Sixth British Airborne Division, one of the first such reports. A paper on the open wound in trauma followed. At the end of World War II, he went back to the Birmingham Accident Hospital where he reorganized the post- graduate training program. He was recognized as
Johann Friedrich August Von ESMARCH
1823–1908
Esmarch was a military surgeon who was con- cerned with blood loss and first aid.
He was born at Tonning, Schleswig-Holstein, at a time when the province was struggling for freedom from Denmark. The son of a doctor, he studied at Gottingen and Kiel, becoming an assistant to Langenbeck.
It was during the insurrection against Denmark in 1848–1850 that he began surgery; he also organized the resistance movement. In 1857 he became Professor of Surgery at Kiel, succeeding Stromeyer, the tenotomist, and marrying his daughter. He was engaged in military surgery again between 1866 and 1871 in the wars with Austria and France; in 1871 he became surgeon General of the army. Soon after, in 1873, he married again—this time a Princess of Schleswig- Holstein. In the same year he published his description of the bandage that bears his name.
He used this to produce a clear bloodless field for surgery and to diminish the blood loss during amputations in particular. His contributions to medicine were mainly derived from his battlefield experiences.
an outstanding young surgeon and was awarded a Hunterian Professorship. His Hunterian Lecture, delivered at the Royal College of Surgeons on March 6, 1951, was entitled “The Mechanism, Reduction Technique, and Results in Fractures of Os Calsis.” Essex-Lopresti is remembered eponymically for his cases of radial head fracture associated with distal radioulnar dislocations, i.e., Essex-Lopresti’s fracture. Mr. Essex-Lopresti was a talented and energetic young surgeon, whose death at the age of 35 cut short a promising career.
no exception, being based on the concept, as he put it himself, “that whereas in the normal foot the medial and lateral columns are about equal, in talipes equinovarus the lateral column is longer and in the calcaneo-valgus foot it is shorter than the medial. It is suggested that one requirement in the treatment of both deformities is that the length of the columns be made equal.” His paper on the relapsed club foot is a classic; his paper on the calcaneo-valgus foot will complete his contribu- tion to the subject and it is sad that he has not lived to see it. After the publication of his club foot paper, he was in great demand. He went to Brazil on two occasions as a visiting professor under the aegis of the British Council, and inau- gurated a system of training for Brazilians in this country. He went to Canada at the invitation of the Canadian Orthopedic Association. He had been a member of the British editorial board of The Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, and traveled and spoke as a member of the British Orthopedic Travelling Club. But he remained essentially as he always was—a teacher, a clini- cian, an original thinker—and he was always as ready to listen to the views of others as to put forward his own.
No account of Dillwyn’s services to orthopedic surgery would be complete without reference to the man himself. Quiet and unassuming as he was, he had complete authority in committee or discussion, and when he rose to speak at a meeting he would be heard with careful attention.
He was a born teacher, because he liked young people and liked imparting his knowledge, and his services to orthopedic surgery in Wales in this respect have been immense. To the writer, however, his most impressive attribute was his clinical honesty. The history was always taken with the same meticulous care, the examination was never hurried, and the conclusion was reached after due consideration; there were no shortcuts for him and he never falsified his findings to suit his ideas.
His interests were legion—golf, rugby football as befitted a true Welshman, music and traveling, all contributed to his progress through life. He came of farming stock and, although he did not farm himself, he allowed one of his daughters to marry a farmer, and so had the best of both worlds.
Dillwyn Evans died at his home at Cardiff on November 9, 1974, at the age of 64. Eighteen months previously he had suffered a severe hemiplegia, but with immense courage and with 100
Who’s Who in Orthopedics
Dillwyn EVANS
1910–1974
Dillwyn Evans intended originally to become an ear, nose and throat surgeon, but after house appointments at the Prince of Wales Orthopedic Hospital and at Oswestry he eventually joined his friend and teacher A.O. Parker in Cardiff, where he remained until his death.
His contributions to orthopedic surgery have been considerable, mostly papers read to various societies—on spinal disease, which reflected his great experience at Glanely Hospital; on subfas- cial ischaemic lesions of the limbs, a subject that he regarded as particularly important because of its medicolegal implications; and on eosinophil granuloma. His main work, however, and that which earned him an international reputation, was on the subject of foot deformities. Most of the important contributions to surgery have arisen from simple ideas, and Dillwyn’s work on feet is
