Sir Anthony Carlisle was an English surgeon. He was appointed Surgeon at Westminster Hospital in 1793, remaining there for 47 years.
Background
Carlisle was born on February 15, 1768, in Stillington, England, the third son of Thomas Carlisle and his first wife, Elizabeth Hubback. He was the half-brother of Nicholas Carlisle. He was brought up by his stepmother, Susannah Skottowe.
Education
Little is known of Carlisle's early circumstances, and nothing of his schooling, but family connections were sufficient to place him in York under Dr. Anthony Hubback, his maternal uncle. After Hubback’s death (c. 1783), Carlisle went to study under William Green, founder of the Durham Dispensary. Transferring to London to complete his medical education, he attended the lectures of George Fordyce and William Cruikshank, and worked under John Hunter at the Windmill Street School of Anatomy. Carlisle was an apt pupil who quickly won Hunter’s admiration and support.
Career
After spending some time under Henry Watson, the resident surgeon at the Westminster Hospital, Carlisle succeeded to his position in 1793. Thus began a fruitful and lifelong association with the hospital. Carlisle had great skill as a surgeon. He devised effective modifications to several instruments, such as the amputating knife.
The great bulk of his almost fifty published papers deal with anatomical and surgical questions, but contain no fundamental insights. His extraordinary success was due, rather, to his great ability to win and keep friends. Elected to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1800, his social connections ensured his election to the professorship of anatomy at the Royal Academy in 1808. These same connections led to his appointment as surgeon to the Duke of Gloucester, and later as surgeon extraordinary to the Prince Regent, on whose accession to the throne Carlisle was knighted. Carlisle served on the Court of Assistance (Council) of the Royal College of Surgeons from 1815 until his death. He twice gave the Hunterian Oration (1820, 1826), was vice-president of the College four times, and president in 1828 and 1837.
Carlisle’s medical work was competent but pedestrian, and he owes his enduring scientific reputation not to this, but to a famous experiment in the then new and sensationally developing science of galvanism. It is possible that he may have been the author of The Horrors of Oakendale Abbey, a gothic novel published anonymously in 1797 and attributed to a "Mrs Carver." The name "Carver" may be a reference to Carlisle's profession. The name Carlisle is even mentioned in the book itself.
Carlisle died on November 2, 1840, in London, England.