REX v. BATEMAN

362 OBITUARY.

REX v. BATEMAN.

To the Editor of THE LANCET.

SIR,—You are no doubt aware that this appealcame on for hearing to-day at the High Court, whenthe same was allowed and the conviction quashed.Judgment however was reserved, but will be givenin due course. Dr. Bateman was of course discharged.Our client wishes us to thank you for the great

financial and moral support which you have givenhim, and which has enabled him to bring this appealto such a successful conclusion. It is extremelydoubtful whether we could have brought sufficientweight to support the appeal, without the interestwhich you have taken throughout the proceedings,and in support of the medical profession generally.We ourselves desire to join in our client’s gratitude.

We are, Sir, yours faithfully,AMERY-PARKES & CO.

66 and 68, Whitcomb-street, Coventry-street,London, W.C. 2, FeD. 10th, 1925.

Obituary.SiR GEORGE ANDERSON CRITCHETT, BART.,

K.C.V.O.,SURGEON-OCULIST TO THE KING ; CONSULTING OPHTHALMIC

SURGEON TO ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL.

WF regret to announce the death of Sir GeorgeAnderson Critchett, which occurred at a nursing homeon Monday last in the eightieth year of his age, afteran operation. He was a hereditary ophthalmologist,for not only could he look back on a career of over50 years as an ophthalmic surgeon himself, but. assuccessor to a distinguished father, he was a link withthe founders of modern ophthalmology. WilliamBowman, Tonathan Hutchinson, George Lawson, andGeorge Critchett were the great names in the ophthal-mic world in the ’sixties a,nd’seventiesof last century,and George Anderson Critchett, the son of the last, wasborn in the atmosphere of ophthalmology and wasapproaching manhood at the time when the discoveryof the ophthalmoscope produced a renaissance in thestudy of diseases of the eye. " La reputation d’unpere est un lourd fardeau pour Ie fils." But in the caseof Anderson Critchett, great though his father hadmade the name, he undoubtedly added to its repute,and it is safe to say that few British ophthalmicsurgeons were better known in the world.Born in London in 1845, Anderson Critchett was

educated at Harrow, where he gained the prize forEnglish literature, and Caius College, Cambridge,where he captained the College cricket eleven and mademany friends, but did not proceed to a medical degree.On leaving Cambridge as a Bachelor of Arts in 1867,he entered the Middlesex Hospital and’ qualifiedM.R.C.S. in 1872, later proceeding to the F.R.C.S.Edin. There was a period in his career, however,when it seemed doubtful whether medicine or musicwould- claim him. He possessed a fine baritone voice,a love for the drama, and social qualities which actedtogether to draw him away from the profession ofmedicine, but affection for his father and a desire tobe of help to him prevailed. He decided to followin his father’s footsteps and accordingly filled juniorophthalmic appointments until he secured electionfirst to the Royal Free Hospital as ophthalmicsurgeon and then to St. Mary’s Hospital as lectureron ophthalmic surgery. There followed upon thisgood start a life of steady professional success. Hewas appointed ophthalmic surgeon to St. Mary’sHospital in 1881 and rapidly became known both asoperator and learned man, and from the beginninghis reputation was as high on the continent as inEngland. It is of interest to note that his first

published paper on " Inoculation in Ophthalmic

Practice" was published in a French journal,A nnales d’Oculistique, in 1877. It was his work atSt. Mary’s Hospital that finally established his reputa-tion and incidentally built up one of the biggest eyecliniques at any of the general hospitals in London,a,nd he was the first to recognise how much he wasaided in his work at St. Mary’s by the late HenryJuler and how loyally they worked together when afew years later Juler was co-opted as his colleague.His career from now onwards is a simple record ofincreasing honours accorded to him. He was appointedsurgeon-oculist in ordinary to the late King Edwardin 1901, in which year he was knighted, being advancedto a baronetcy in 1908.The public positions held by Sir Anderson Critchett

were very numerous. He was at different timesPresident of the Ophthalmological Society, Presidentof the Council of British Ophthalmologists, Presidentof the Ophthalmological Section of the InternationalCongress of Medicine, and President of the Inter-national Ophthalmological Congress, in this wayrepeating an honour which had been bestowed uponhis father a generation before. He had been President.of the Section of Ophthalmology in the Royal Societyof Medicine, and his conduct in the presidential chairon so many occasions never failed to win respect.His polished speaking was especially happy on cere-monial occasions, while his contributions when heintervened in debate were founded on vast clinicalexperience.

Critchett was also a member of the Société Françaised’Ophtalmologie, and certain of his papers were

published in the Transactions of that society andsimultaneously in THE LANCFT. He contributed, ashas been said, to the Annales d’Oculistique and, ofcourse, to the Transactions of the OphthalmologicalSociety. From beginning to end his writings were of apractical character. The first paper published in ourcolumns was instigated by the arrival of cocaine.Before the introduction of cocaine, in England at anyrate. the majority of ophthalmic surgeons administeredan anaesthetic during the operation for extraction ofcataract, but Anderson Critchett pointed out thatvhe absence of pain secured by the new agent, thoughof the greatest possible value, had certain drawbacks,and described his own technique for iridectomy,using the ring-finger to elevate the upper lid, as

" Nature’s speculum." Thirty years later, in hisaddress to the Seventeenth International Congressof Medicine as President of the Section of Ophthalmo-logy, he described the value of the X rays as an aidto the location of foreign bodies in the eye and itsadnexa, and amongst similar new adjuncts to diagnosismentioned the delicate manometers assisting thesurgeon to estimate the tension of the eye. Of othercontributions to the technical side of his specialtywe may mention his method of employing the cauteryin the operation for conical cornea and his advocacyof treating certain cases of lamellar cataract by makingan artificial pupil, but he generally preferred to practisewell-tried methods rather than to devise new onesHe was never a prolific writer, and to the regretof many of his pupils, much of his teaching, whichwould have been of great value, is lost for want ofrecording. For he was a great clinician and unrivalledas an operator. To see Critchett removing a cataractin the heyday of his skill was to see the perfection ofoperative technique. Never a hurried or purposelessmovement was made, and if any untoward complica-tion had to be met, it was faced with the same steadyplacidity as if it had been foreseen from the first.He had to a very high degree the most valuablecapacity of rousing in his patients an implicit feelingof confidence and the equally valuable capacity ofcreating a feeling of friendship in his colleagues.During the war lie served as ophthalmological

surgeon to King Edward VII. Hospital and to KingGeorge’s Hospital, and in 1919 received the K.C.V.O.His last professional honour reached him as recentlyas 1924, when he was chosen Master of the OxfordOphthalmological Congress. Apart from the distinc.tions which he received from two kings, Critchett