Background
Benjamin Collins Brodie, Sr. was born on June 9, 1783, in Winterslow, Wiltshire, England, the third son of Reverend Peter Brodie, the rector of the parish of Winterslow, and Sarah Collins, the daughter of a banker from Salisbury.
1810 - 1861
Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, St. James's, London SW1Y 5AG, United Kingdom
On February 15, 1810, Benjamin Collins Brodie, Sr. was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, to which in the next four or five years he contributed several papers describing original investigations in physiology. In 1858, Sr. was elected president of the Royal Society, and this office he resigned in 1861, when he found that failing eyesight interfered with the discharge of the duties.
St. George's Hospital, Blackshaw Rd, Tooting, London SW17 0QT, United Kingdom
In June 1804, Benjamin Collins Brodie, Sr. became the trainee of Sir Everard Home at St. George's Hospital, London, where he graduated in 1805.
Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, St. James's, London SW1Y 5AG, United Kingdom
On February 15, 1810, Benjamin Collins Brodie, Sr. was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, to which in the next four or five years he contributed several papers describing original investigations in physiology. In 1858, Sr. was elected president of the Royal Society, and this office he resigned in 1861, when he found that failing eyesight interfered with the discharge of the duties.
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Lilla Frescativägen 4A, 114 18 Stockholm, Sweden
In 1834 Benjamin Brodie, Sr. was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, St. James's, London SW1Y 5AG, United Kingdom
In 1811 Benjamin Collins Brodie, Sr. was awarded the Copley Medal, the youngest member ever to receive it.
Institut de France, 23 Quai de Conti, 75270 Paris, France
In 1844 Benjamin C. Brodie, Sr. became a corresponding member of the French Institute.
educator physiologist scientist Surgeon
Benjamin Collins Brodie, Sr. was born on June 9, 1783, in Winterslow, Wiltshire, England, the third son of Reverend Peter Brodie, the rector of the parish of Winterslow, and Sarah Collins, the daughter of a banker from Salisbury.
Benjamin Brodie, Sr. received his early education at home, being taught - along with his elder sister and brothers - by his father. At eighteen he went to London to study medicine and began attending the anatomy lectures of John Abernethy, pupil and "disciple" of John Hunter, at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital.
Brodie, Sr. entered the Windmill Street School of Anatomy in 1802 and in 1803 became a surgical pupil of Everard Home, enrolling in St. George’s Hospital in June 1804. His father had died in March of that year, leaving the family in difficult circumstances. Fortunately, through his uncle, Thomas Denman, a distinguished obstetrician, Brodie, Sr. became known to, and was helped by, many of the prominent medical men in London at that time. In 1805, Brodie, Sr. graduated from St. George's Hospital.
In 1805 Benjamin Brodie, Sr. was appointed house surgeon at St. George's Hospital, and afterwards demonstrator to the anatomical school. When his term of office had expired, he assisted Everard Home in his private operations, and in his researches on comparative anatomy. He diligently pursued for some years the study of anatomy, demonstrating in the Windmill Street school, and lecturing conjointly with Wilson until the year 1812.
Brodie, Sr. was elected assistant-surgeon to St. George's Hospital in 1808, an appointment which he held for fourteen years, and in the next year entered upon private practice, taking a house in Sackville Street for the purpose. At this period he contributed his first paper - the results of original physiological inquiries - to the Philosophical Transactions. During the winter of 1810-1811 he communicated to the Royal Society two papers, one On the Influence of the Brain on the Action of the Heart and the Generation of Animal Heat; the other On the Effects produced by certain Vegetable Poisons (Alcohol, Tobacco, Woorara), the first of which formed the Croonian lecture. His unremitting devotion to the work of his profession, without holiday for the period of ten years, now told seriously upon his health, but change of air and rest enabled him to resume his duties. His interest when he was house-surgeon having been excited by a case of spontaneous dislocation of the hip, he was led to study other cases of disease of the joints, and in 1813 he contributed a paper to the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, which formed the basis of his treatise on Diseases of the Joints, published in 1818. This work went through five editions, and translations of it appeared in other countries. He again delivered the Croonian lecture at the Royal Society on the action of the muscles in general and of the heart in particular, and at this time performed the experiment of passing a ligature round the choledoch duct, the results of which were given in Brande's Journal. In a paper on Varicose Veins of the Leg, published in the seventh volume of the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions, he described the first subcutaneous operation on record.
In 1819, Benjamin Brodie, Sr. removed to Savile Row, as practice steadily increased. In the same year, he was appointed a professor of comparative anatomy and physiology at the Royal College of Surgeons, and delivered four courses of lectures. While he held this office he was summoned to attend George IV, and assisted at an operation for the removal of a tumor of the scalp from which the king suffered.
Brodie, Sr. was elected surgeon to St. George's Hospital in 1822, and his time was now busily employed with his hospital duties and lectures and increasing and lucrative practice. In his attendance upon the king during the illness which terminated fatally he used to be at Windsor at six o'clock in the morning, staying to converse with the king, with whom Brodie, Sr. was a favorite. When William IV succeeded to the throne, Brodie, Sr. was promptly made sergeant-surgeon (1832).
His lectures on diseases of the urinary organs were published in 1832, and those illustrative of local nervous affections in 1837. The numerous papers which he wrote from time to time will be found in his Collected Works. In 1854 he published anonymously Psychological Inquiries, essays in conversational form, intended to illustrate the mutual relations of the physical organization and the mental faculties. In 1862 a second series followed, to which he put his name.
Quotations:
"Humility leads to the highest distinction, because it leads to self-improvement."
"There may be instances of mere accidental discovery; but, setting these aside, the great advances made in the inductive sciences are, for the most part, preceded by a more or less probable hypothesis. The imagination, having some small light to guide it, goes first. Further observation, experiment, and reason follow."
"In the pursuit of the physical sciences, the imagination supplies the hypothesis which bridges over the gulf that separates the known from the unknown."
"Knowledge and wisdom are indeed not identical; and every man’s experience must have taught him that there may be much knowledge with little wisdom, and much wisdom with little knowledge. But with imperfect knowledge it is difficult or impossible to arrive at right conclusions. Many of the vices, many of the miseries, many of the follies and absurdities by which human society has been infested and disgraced may be traced to a want of knowledge."
Benjamin Brodie, Sr. was president of the Royal College of Surgeons (1844), having been for many years examiner and member of the council, and having introduced important improvements into the system of examinations.
He was also the first president of the General Medical Council, president of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London (now Royal Society of Medicine (RSM)), and of other learned societies. The estimation in which he was universally held is shown by his connection with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Academy of Medicine of Paris, and the National Institution of Washington.
As a surgeon Benjamin Brodie, Sr. was a successful operator, distinguished for coolness and knowledge, a steady hand, and a quick eye.
An accurate observer, his memory was very retentive, and he was never at a loss for some previous case which threw light upon the knotty points in a consultation.
In 1816, Benjamin Collins Brodie, Sr. married Anne Sellon, a daughter of an eminent lawyer, and they had several children of whom three survived into maturity.