Walter Rowley BRISTOW1882–1947

ideas, among which was a McBee card system, enabling him to keep track of the conditions that he was treating and to obtain long-term follow-up studies on his patients. Dr. Breck was active in his local community and in national and international orthopedic societies. He was a member of the closely knit group of friends who were founders of the Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons, and he was actively involved in creating the journal of this organization, Clinical Orthopedics.

His early report of the results of the treatment of 47 patients with hip disease using a cementless system consisting of a Urist acetabular cup machined to fit precisely a hip prosthesis was important, because it demonstrated that the use of cement was not always necessary in total hip arthroplasty. The quality of his technique can be assessed by the fact that no case was complicated by infection.

He died in El Paso on 24 September 1993 and was barried in Evergreen Cemetery.

widening circle of friends in many different walks of life—was conspicuous for his athletic skill. He represented the hospital at lawn tennis, soccer, and water polo; and quickly became a scratch golfer.

He was an early motorist, and being provided with an ample allowance by a generous father, was able to indulge his hobby in a series of sporting cars.

Unobtrusively, and with an apparent absence of effort, he passed all his examinations in due sequence and obtained the Conjoint Diploma of the Royal Colleges in 1907. One year later he graduated as MB BS in the University of London, and within 2 more years had successfully negoti- ated the formidable hurdles of the primary and final examinations for the FRCS (Eng). His first resident appointment at St. Thomas’ was that of house surgeon to Sir George Makins; this was fol- lowed by a term as senior house surgeon on the emergency block. Bristow’s practical acquain- tance with many forms of athletics and sport excited interest in the treatment of injuries of the locomotor system and, more especially, in the neglected field of “sprains and strains.” By the time of the outbreak of the First World War, he was well established in consulting practice in London. He had already entered into military commitments as medical officer to the Middlesex Yeomanry and served with this unit in Gallipoli, being mentioned in dispatches for his conduct at the Suvla Bay landing.

He returned to England in 1916 to convalesce from an attack of the prevailing dysentery and by a happy conspiracy of events came under the notice of Sir Robert Jones, who was then engaged in forming the staff of the Military Orthopedic Centre at Shepherd’s Bush, London. Bristow’s primary appointment was to organize and take charge of the electro-therapeutic department, but he was soon added to the surgical staff, and then joined the small band of younger orthopedic sur- geons who were to become the devoted disciples of Robert Jones in the post-war years. At Shepherd’s Bush, Bristow devoted much time and patience to the study of peripheral nerve injuries, and he made full use of the wealth of clinical and operative material that came his way. This led to his appointment on the Committee on Peripheral Nerve Injuries set up by the Medical Research Council. Ostensibly he was selected as an expert in after-treatment, for it brought him into contact with the minds of such men as Henry Head and Wilfred Trotter. Although Bristow was the first to disclaim any status as an academic, it became evident that his mental processes were as 39

Who’s Who in Orthopedics

Walter Rowley BRISTOW

1882–1947

Walter Rowley Bristow was born at Bexley, Kent, on December 12, 1882. He received his early medical education at St. Thomas’ Hospital Medical School, where among his contemporaries and close friends were Charles Max Page, Gathorne R. Girdlestone, and Godfrey Martin Huggins (later Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia). During his undergraduate years,

“Rowley”—as he became known to an ever-

acute as those of the intellectuals, and his keen intelligence pierced through a mass of facts to the essential principles of a problem. This faculty was to serve him well throughout his distinguished career and was to be one of his outstanding char- acteristics as a teacher and leader.

In 1919, St. Thomas’ Hospital set up an ortho- pedic department. It was the end of an epoch and a breakaway from old tradition. Sir Robert Jones was invited to become Director of Orthopedics at the hospital, and Bristow was formally appointed to the staff as Orthopedic Surgeon. Sir Robert, then at the height of his powers and deeply immersed in his extensive practice and in public work, cast his mantle over the new department and left his younger colleague to build it up from small beginnings. This was Bristow’s great chance. He had already learned many things from his association and growing friendship with Robert Jones. One thing above all he saw clearly—that the head of a surgical clinic must become a leader of younger men. In this ambition he achieved an outstanding success, as witnessed by the quality of the men he attracted in turn as his chief pupils—George Perkins, E. P.

Brockman. R.J. Furlong; and by the influence he exerted on many more who came to sit at his feet for shorter spells. Secure in his base at St.

Thomas’, he next looked out beyond the horizon of the orthopedic department of a general hospi- tal to discover a long-stay hospital, without which no orthopedic service was complete. At Pyrford in Surrey he found a cripples’ home in ample grounds, well suited for the purpose. By adapta- tions and new buildings, St. Nicholas’ Orthopedic Hospital was gradually transformed into an active country orthopedic hospital, at first limited to children, and later providing adult wards. In the Second World War, this hospital became an ortho- pedic center under the Emergency Medical Service, and it is to be known in future as the

Rowley Bristow Orthopedic Hospital, a fitting tribute to the life and work of

its first surgeon-in-chief.

During the years between the two wars, Bristow built up a large consulting practice. His patients came from far and wide, and among them were many men and women prominent in the public and social life of the nation. His practice was conducted in and from 102 Harley Street, a house that contained some beautiful examples of the work of Adam, most notably the ceiling in the front drawing room. Number 102 was the scene of bounteous hospitality, dispensed with taste and

grace by “Rowley” and his devoted wife. George Perkins has given a vivid account of a typical day at 102.

He (W.R.B.) breakfasted at eight and was in his office by eight-thirty. From then until seven-thirty in the evening, with a break for lunch, at which there was never less than one guest, he worked at top pressure, expending his own depthless energy and exhausting that of his secretaries. There followed champagne cocktail and a change for dinner. Dinner was an occasion. He had one of the best cooks in London, and could talk intelligently to any chef de cuisine on his subject.

Number 102, alas, is now a shell, blasted into ruins by the Luftwaffe.

Bristow was an original member of the British Orthopedic Association and served on the Exec- utive Committee for many years. He was presi- dent during the years 1936–1937 and infused the society with his dynamic leadership. A few weeks before his death he was accorded the rare dis- tinction of emeritus membership. He was in due course elected as a corresponding or honorary member of many foreign surgical societies—

among them the American Orthopedic Associa- tion and the French, German, Scandinavian, Australian, and Argentine Orthopedic Societies.

In 1937, he delivered the Hugh Owen Thomas Memorial Lecture in Liverpool, and in 1946, the Robert Jones Memorial Lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons.

In the Second World War, after a period as a Regional Orthopedic Consultant, Bristow was appointed Consulting Orthopedic Surgeon to the army and attained the rank of Brigadier. This was his heart’s desire—to recreate the orthopedic service in the army that Robert Jones had formed during 1914–1918. He was eager to don uniform again, and, in actual fact, his uniform from the First World War still fitted him. He gave most devoted and distinguished service to the army, organizing the orthopedic sections of the military hospitals in Great Britain, selecting the young surgeons to take charge of this work, and visiting hospitals in the Mediterranean and Middle East.

During these strenuous years he also flew to the United States where his visit will long be remem- bered. In 1946, the French Government appointed him Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and awarded him a Croix de Guerre with palm.

During his busiest years, Bristow maintained a steady output of contributions to surgical litera- ture. Two subjects held his interest throughout—

40

Who’s Who in Orthopedics

disabilities of the knee joint, and injuries of peripheral nerves. His Robert Jones Memorial Lecture on the latter topic was a masterly exposi- tion of the subject. As a teacher of undergraduates he was without rival in his own hospital. In G.R.

Girdlestone’s words: “He taught well, penetrating to the heart of his subject and picking on the essentials with clarity and emphasis. His out- patient clinics at St. Thomas’ were stimulating, memorable, and crowded. They were alive with humour and humanity, for he never failed to feel and show a friendly intimacy with the Lambeth folk.” Simplicity was his theme. Generations of St. Thomas’ students will still recall such apho- risms as “We treat patients, not disease.” He was par excellence the “good doctor.”

Rowley Bristow married in 1910, Florence, only daughter of James White, LLD, and they had one son and two daughters.

Morayshire; an Alexander Brodie of Brodie was Lord of Session in 1649 and his Jacobite descen- dant, also named Alexander, migrated to London in the earlier part of the eighteenth century. He married Margaret, daughter of another Stuart fol- lower, Dr. Samuel Shaw the physician. Two of the grandchildren, Lord Denman and Sir Benjamin Brodie, rose to eminence in law and medicine, one became Lord Chief Justice and the other President of the Royal College of Surgeons.

The Reverend Peter Brodie was unable to send his children to public school and university; he undertook their education himself.

They cer- tainly received a thorough grounding in the clas- sics and mathematics, of which Benjamin gave ample proof later in life. Part of parental tutoring was the inculcation of industrious habits; the son who became surgeon of St. George’s was noted at the hospital for his ceaseless industry. But it was not all work, there was play-acting, in which young Denman joined, and the pastimes of the countryside. In 1798, there was a diversion of more serious intent. In that year, Napoleon had an army at Boulogne watching out for a favorable moment for the invasion of Britain. There was considerable alarm in England, of which the still standing defensive Martello Towers of the south coast are a symbol. Brodie and his brothers raised a company of volunteers under a commission signed by George III whereby William was appointed Captain and “Our trusty and well- beloved Benjamin Collins Brodie, gent, Ensign in the company.”

In 1801, at the age of 18 years, Brodie came to London to study medicine, not that he felt any strong attraction towards the healing art at that time; he had family connections with distin- guished physicians like Dr. Matthew Baillie and Dr. Denman. He joined Abernethy’s school of anatomy; here he met William Lawrence, after- wards surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, with whom he formed a lifelong friendship. The following year he attended the lectures of James Wilson at the Hunterian School of Anatomy in Great Windmill Street and worked hard at dissection. After spending nearly 2 years at these studies, he entered St. George’s Hospital as a pupil of Everard Home in 1803. Early the fol- lowing year his father died, leaving Mrs. Brodie in strained circumstances, dependent on a fixed income in days of high prices, war taxation and depreciation of paper currency; an economy strangely descriptive of England 150 years on.

But with austere living, saving and some sacrifice 41

Who’s Who in Orthopedics

Sir Benjamin Collins BRODIE

1783–1862

Benjamin Collins Brodie increased our knowl- edge of diseases of joints by his prolonged studies of their clinical and pathological manifestations.

He was born in 1783, the fourth of six children

of the Rector of Winterslow in Wiltshire, the

Reverend Peter Bellinger Brodie, MA, who was

educated at Charterhouse and Worcester College,

Oxford, and of Sarah, daughter of Benjamin

Collins, banker and printer of Milford near

Salisbury. The Brodies derived from a clan of