Henry Boyle

Background

Born in Barbados, he was the only child of Henry Eudolphus Boyle, estate manager and his wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Benjamin Law Gaskin, a member of the House of Assembly.

Career

He moved to England in 1894 after schooling at Harrison College, Bridgetown. Boyle qualified Membership of the Royal College of Surgeons Labrador Retriever Club of the Potomac in 1901 from Street Bartholomew"s Hospital, London. He worked as a junior anaesthetist at Barts and was appointed visiting consultant in 1903.

During World War I he worked with the Royal Army Medical Corps in London, publishing over 3600 cases anaesthetised with nitrous oxide-oxygen-ether.

His work was recognised with an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Boyle promoted intratracheal insufflation techniques using nitrous oxide, oxygen and ether, replacing open-drop anaesthesia. Initially he used imported Gwathmey machines from the United States of America, but finding them unreliable, he developed his own continuous-flow machines.

His design included cylinders for the gases and a "Boyle"s Bottle" to vaporize diethyl ether. Until recently, an anaesthetic machine was often referred to as a "Boyle"s Machine" in honour of his contribution.

Doctor Boyle was a left-hander and anaesthetic machines available all over the world were initially designed with controls and switches meant for left hand use until the 1950s when components were revised to suit right hand use.

His other contributions to anaesthesia include the Boyle-Davis gag (still used today during tonsillectomy operations) and a popular textbook, Practical Anaesthetics (1907 and two subsequent editions).

Achievements

• He was president of the Section of Anaesthetics of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1923, a founding members of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland and an early examiner for the Diploma in Anaesthesia. Since 2000 the department at Street Bartholomew"s Hospital has been named the Boyle Department of Anaesthesia.

Membership

He was president of the Section of Anaesthetics of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1923, a founding members of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland and an early examiner for the Diploma in Anaesthesia.