David Goodsall was born in Gravesend, and educated at Saint Ann"s School. His father had decided to study medicine, but died while he was a student at Saint Bartholomew"s Hospital, as a result of a wound sustained while performing a post mortem examination.
He became house surgeon at Saint Mark"s Hospital in 1870, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1872, and full surgeon in 1888. He developed an interest in rectal surgery, writing a chapter in Diseases of the Anus and Rectum in which Goodsall"s rule is described. He is thought to have died of a myocardial infarction in 1906.
As a result, David Goodsall"s fees at Saint Bartholomews were waived, as his father"s wound was inflicted by a member of staff, and he studied medicine there from 1865.
