FREDERIC WOOD JONES: HIS ACADEMIC MEDALS AND THOSE THEY HONOURED

Aust. N . Z . J . Surg. (1995) 65, 122-134 SURGICAL HISTORY

FREDERIC WOOD JONES: HIS ACADEMIC MEDALS AND THOSE THEY HONOURED

B. E. CHRISTOPHERS

THE MEDALS Wood Jones bequeathed to Enfield Grammar School his academic medals, both British and Australian, in recognition of the educational benefits he had derived from his school. Nine medals were duly lodged with the school after his death and are now sealed in a display panel fixed to the wall of the garret of the Tudor School House. The medals shown in Figs 1 and 2 are:

(1) The Medal issued in connection with the 17th Inter- national Medical Congress.

(2) The Sure Shield. (3) The R. M. Johnston Memorial Medal. (4) The Lister Medal. ( 5 ) The Mueller Medal (missing from the display panel). (6) The Bancroft Medal. (7) The John Smyth Memorial Medal. (8) The Clarke Medal. (9) The Honorary Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons

of England. (10) The Heberden Medal.

Inscribed on the plaque below the medals is: ‘These medals were presented to the Governors of the

Enfield Grammar School by Professor Frederick [sic] Wood Jones FRS, FRCS, a former scholar of this school in recognition of the educational benefits he derived from this school. ’

Two of the medals exhibited are ‘ring-ins’ and one of his authentic medals is missing from the collection. Medals one and two are not academic medals and The Mueller Medal, which Wood Jones won in 1926, is not on display.

That which follows is a rambling discourse centred rather tenuously round these medals.

Medal one: The 17th International Medical Congress On the reverse of this medal is inscribed: ‘MCMXIII. 17TH INT. CONGRESS MED. LONDON’. This congress was held in London in 1913 from August 6-13. Wood Jones did attend this meeting, and in fact was secretary and editor for the anatomical section of the congress.

This is not an academic medal. Perhaps it was issued to all executive officers of this congress.

Medal two: The Sure Shield Inscribed on the obverse of this medal is: ‘The Sure Shield 1914-1919’, and on the reverse is inscribed: ‘Sea Services

Correspondence: Dr B. E. Christophers, 377 Church St. Richmond, Vic. 3 I2 I , Australia.

Fig. 1. A photograph of the medals in their display pant (by courtesy of Mr James Guest).

in situ

J J I

Accepted for publication 21 July 1994. Fig. 2. The medals numbered chronologically and diameter of each in millimetres.

FREDERIC WOOD JONES: HIS MEDALS 123

Commemoration 4th August 1914-1919’. Like medal one it is not an academic medal. It is most unlikely that the Sure Shield belonged to Wood Jones. He had nothing to do with Sea Services in the period 1914-19. The author would be pleased to hear from a reader who knows of ‘The Sure Shield’.

Medal three: The R. M. Johnston Memorial Medal Robert Mackenzie Johnston Robert Mackenzie Johnston was born at Petty near Inverness in the north highlands of Scotland on 27 November 1844. At the Andersonian Uni- versity of Glasgow he studied chemistry, geology and botany. In 1870 Johnston emigrated to Tasmania and was employed by the Tasmanian Government Railway Commissioners as an accountant to the Launceston and Western Railway. He transferred to the Auditor-General’s Department in 1882 as chief clerk and in the same year was appointed Registrar- General and Government Statistician for Tasmania, a position that he held until his death in May 1918.

As Government Statistician he earned his living but his consuming interests were geology and natural history. His original observations were published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Tasmania. These dealt with palaeontol- ogy, stratigraphical geology, zoology and botany. It is by his Systematic Account of the Geology of Tasmania that John- ston is most widely remembered. History of the R. M . Johnston Memorial Medal To perpetuate his memory a fund was subscribed by his friends and handed over to the Royal Society of Tasmania for the purpose of establishing the R. M. Johnston Memorial Medal to be presented to the person who delivered the R. M. Johnston Lecture. Society records reveal that ‘The Medal is to be awarded to a scholar of distinction in any field within the Society’s purview . . .’. Sir T. W. Edgeworth David was the first recipient of the Medal in 1923. Hobart 1925 Wood Jones was invited to deliver the 1925 R. M. Johnston Memorial Lecture in Hobart. At that time he was Professor of Anatomy at the University of Adelaide. His crossing from the mainland to Tasmania was made from Melbourne to Launceston on the Steamship Nairana, and the final leg of the journey to Hobart was by motor car. This part of the journey may have been with his friend, H. H. Scott, Curator of the Launceston Museum, or possibly with one or other of the medical practitioners of Launceston who

Fig. 3. The R. M. Johnston Memorial Medal.

were members of The Royal Society of Tasmania at that time. These doctors were: C. C. Henry FRCS; Ernest Wil- liam Ireland, Surgical Superintendent, Launceston General Hospital; and Gustave Heuze Hogg, a foundation Fellow of the Australasian College of Surgeons.

Records of the Royal Society of Tasmania show that Wood Jones’ R. M. Johnston Memorial Lecture:

‘was delivered in the room of the Royal Society of Tasmania on Thursday 7th May, 1925, and His Excellency the Governor (Sir James O’Grady) presided. At the con- clusion of the lecture Mr L. Rodway, Vice-president of the Society presented Professor Wood Jones with the R. M. Johnston Memorial Medal’.

Of all Wood Jones’ orations cited in this present paper, this one entitled ‘The Mammalian toilet and some considerations arising from it’ must surely be the jewel in the crown.’ This lecture was based upon the methods by which animals clean, scratch and preen themselves using their tongue, teeth, digits, muscles, horns, antlers, tail, nails and claws. In a manner characteristic of so many of his contributions to anatomy this lecture was based entirely upon keen observation. Forks and fingers In this lecture Wood Jones made the point that in almost all toilet operations nature invented some peculiar device for the performance of the function, and that this device was rudimentary or absent when the animal possessed fingers which could perform the operation better.

On the question of forks and fingers Wood Jones spoke thus:

‘Who first invented proverbs I do not know. There is a suggestion of the East about many of them, but probably they are common to all humanity. Most proverbs are retained in common usage since they may be employed as maxims wherewith age and experience may advise or admonish youth and inexperience. But some are double-edged. The child who is reproved for adopting the natural method of eating with his fingers has always in the background, even if it comes no further into usage as a very present help in time of trouble, the saying that “Fingers were made before forks”. The child is in the right. It is true, fingers were made before forks, and herein lies the charm that captivated Samuel Butler.

‘Butler’s was the mind that placed forks and fingers in their proper perspective. What is a fork but a fingelrmade, as we say, artificially? What is a fork but an extended organ - an external organ? Did we not make both? As Butler himself said: “The organs external to the body, and those internal to it are, the second as much as the first, things which we have made for our own convenience, and with a prevision that we shall have need of them; the main difference between the manufacture of these two classes of organs being that we have made the one kind so often that we can no longer follow the processes whereby we made them, while the others are new things which we must make introspectively or not at all, and which are not yet so incorporate with our vitality as that we should think they grow instead of being manufactured. The manufacture of the tool and the manufacture of the living organ prove, therefore, to be but two species of the same genus, which, though widely

1 24 CHRISTOPHERS

‘I went again to Scotland [in 19121 for the British Association [for the Advancement of Science] meeting in Dundee, and at the meeting Elliot Smith and I gave some account of the Nubian [Archaeological] Survey work and to me was left [the task of describing] the Anthropological results of the extensive excavations at Shellal [in Nubia].

‘I described at one meeting of the Association the skeletons that we had unearthed in the Roman period [an] executioner’s trench in Shellal and I had declared my belief that the curiously uniform fracture of the skull bones of these skeletons was caused by hanging with the knot of the noose placed under one ear.

Fig. 4. Samuel Butler. Self sketch April 1878. Original lodged at St Johns College, Cambridge (by permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge).

differentiated, have descended, as it were, from one common filament of desire and inventive faculty.”*

‘Tools and limbs - there is not much between them. The limbs are part of us, and made in our own making; the tools are only temporarily part of us, and made independently of our structural unfolding. Forks and fingers; if we regard them as Butler did, there is not a great difference between them. Fingers grow on us, forks are part of us only during meal times; but we shall see that there is a very pretty sequence in the development of these things.’

Medal four: The Lister Medal Lord Lister The illustrious Lord Lister (Joseph) was born at Upton in Essex on 5 April 1827 and died in Walmer on 10 February 1912.

Lister was appointed Professor of Surgery in the Univer- sity of Glasgow in 1860. By 1865 his experiments on, and his campaign against, wound infections were well underway. In April of 1865 a medical practitioner of Glasgow, a Dr Edward William Pritchard, was charged with the murder of his wife and his mother-in-law by poisoning. Dr Pritchard was an eminent member of the profession and it was commonly held that he might be freed under the unsatisfac- tory verdict of not proven. This was not the case, and he was found guilty. Lister was satisfied with the verdict and said: ‘As to the poor wretch himself, my regard for the general interests of society keeps me from thinking of him individ- ually. No doubt within three weeks he will be hung, yet the miserable man still protests his innocence! May God have mercy on his soul is what we may all d e ~ i r e . ’ ~ Hung he was, and publicly at that. Wood Jones and Dr Pritchard wood Jones’ interest in Dr Pritchard was somewhat different as he describes in his autobiographical material:4

Fig. 6. The Royal Automobile Association of South Australia building, on the western side of Hindmarsh Square, Adelaide. It was Lister Hall, the headquarters of the South Australian Branch of the BMA from 1913 to 1926 (by courtesy of Mr Brian Cornish).

FREDERIC WOOD JONES: HIS MEDALS I25

‘After giving that paper I received a letter from an old doctor [Dr C.S.] who told me that he well remembered witnessing the execution of Dr Edward William Pritchard who was hanged in public outside Glasgow jail in 1865 [47 years previously]. He said he vividly recalled that the knot was placed under Pritchard’s left ear and he also remembered, among many other details, that the hanging had not been a triumph for the executioner, for Pritchard, who at his own request was hanged wearing his gloves, had actually taken them off after the drop. Fortunately Pritchard’s skull had been preserved and had been accurately described and photographed and on it were the exact lines of fracture and disruption that were present on those of the Negroid Nubians executed by the Romans at Shellal. This was of the greatest interest to me for I had become interested in the anatomical aspect of judicial hanging and had grave doubts as to the fracture of the neck and the instantaneous death that was always said to be the result of our accepted method of conducting executions. I published a brief note on the subject with the result that I found I was not alone in having these doubts. Dr de Zuche Marshall had long been interested in the subject. . . He wrote to me and suggested that we should join forces and that he and I should conduct certain experiments and that I should thoroughly explore the anatomical factors involved.’ Experiments with Marshall und Frederick Parsons Part of the experimental work Wood Jones did with Marshall was done with the connivance and with the assistance of Frederick Parsons, head of the anatomy department at St Thomas’s where Wood Jones was then working. It involved dropping cadavers down the lift well at St Thomas’s. These experiments were done clandestinely in the dead of the night: the variables were the weight of the body, the height of the drop, and the position of the knot. They hanged an adult cadaver weighing 73 pounds with the knot placed submentally using a 4 foot drop. In this case the second cervical vertebra was clearly fractured and the lesion would certainly have caused sudden death. Wood Jones noted that the odontoid process played no part in producing death, but that the posterior arch of the axis was snapped clean off and remained fixed to the third vertebra, while the atlas, the odontoid process and the anterior arch of the axis remained fixed to the skull. The Medico-Legal Society of Victoria Many years later in Melbourne, Wood Jones delivered the inaugural address to the newly formed Medico-Legal Society of Victoria on the subject of judicial hanging. This oration was delivered in the B.M.A. Hall, East Melbourne on 29 August 193 1. This was his most comprehensive statement on the subject. The history of the Lister Oration and Medal This Oration and Medal was established by the South Australian Branch of the British Medical Association in 1914; the first Oration was delivered on Thursday, June 25th of that year. On that day the new premises of the Branch was opened. Subse- quently, this annual Oration became recognized as the most important scientific event in the calendar of branch Scientific Meetings. In 1948 it was delivered by one of South Aus- tralia’s famous sons, Sir Hugh Cairns. There has been no Lister Oration since 1979. The obverse of the Lister Medal shows a portrait of Lord Lister 1827-1912, and on the reverse is inscribed ‘British Medical Association, South Australian Branch, Lister Oration’. Wood Jones’ Lister Oration 1926 ‘Before a large attend-

ance of members of the South Australian branch of the British Medical Association at Lister Hall, Hindmarsh Square [Adelaide] on Thursday evening [May 27thl Professor F. Wood-Jones, F.R.S. of the Adelaide University, was heard with close attention during his lecture on “Disease and Individuality ’ ’. ’

That is how Wood Jones’ Lister Oration for 1926 was reported in the Adelaide press the following day. This Oration was composed by Wood Jones in Honolulu and on board ship during March and April on his return journey from a visit to America. The ship was the Steamship Niagara. This ship was not long out of Honolulu bound for Adelaide when the ship’s surgeon died suddenly. So, as well as composing the Lister Oration, Wood Jones was also acting ship’s surgeon. Disease and Individuality In this oration Wood Jones pointed out that what there is of individuality inherent in the original cell will be shared in some manner by the whole of the vast progeny of the fertilized ovum - the human body. He argued that temperament and diathesis are in their essential nature an inherited proclivity of cells, tissues, organs, and of the whole human body. Concerning congeni- tal cataract he said:’

‘The individual peculiarity that shows itself as an opacity of the lens, is carried in the chromosomes of the cell from which the patient is begot. Every cell in the whole compli- cated body resulting from the division of this original cell shares in that peculiarity, but only in certain of those cells which constitute the tissues of the lens of the eye, is the peculiarity capable of manifestation. A patient who mani- fests an inherited cataract, has in reality inherited more than a mere opacity of a portion of his lens. He has inherited a cellular individuality which in the cells composing his lens reveals itself in a manner that we may recognise, but which in all the other cells of his body remains unrevealed by any manifestations that we can detect.’

Wood Jones paid homage to Sir Jonathan Hutchinson in this Oration by quoting from his book on this topic, viz:

‘Our forefathers, who knew far less about the details of pathology than we do, attached far more importance to such matters as temperament and diathesis. They were accustomed to prescribe for a man’s temperament: we think only of his disease and turn aside with weariness from classification of diathesis in which the physicians of an older day delighted.’

Medal five: The Mueller Medal Ferdinand Von Mueller Ferdinand Jakob Heinrich Mueller was born in the city of Rostock, Germany on 30 June 1825. He graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Kiel at the age of twenty-one. By then he was an accomplished botanist. His parents and an older sister died of tuberculosis. With two of his sisters he migrated to Australia in 1847. After spending 5 years in Adelaide he moved to Victoria and in 1853 was appointed Victoria’s Government Botanist. As a botanist he joined in 1855 the North-West Australia Expedition of which Augustus Gregory and his brother were the leaders. The expedition took them by sea from Sydney to the mouth of the Victoria River south-west of Darwin. This river they explored extensively and then the group split into two. One party sailed to Timor

126 CHRISTOPHERS

for supplies while the Gregory brothers and others commenced a trek eastward overland, and then finally south to Moreton Bay in Queensland. Mueller went with the Gregorys and on the journey he collected over 2000 kinds of plants of which 800 were new species.

In 1859 Mueller became President of the Philosophical Society of Victoria, the forerunner of the Royal Society of Victoria. Queen Victoria awarded Mueller the Knight Commander of St Michael and St George in 1879. Some years before the King of Wurttemburg had made him a hereditary baron.

The Australian Association for the Advancement of Science had its birth in 1890 and Mueller was elected its first President. Six years later he died of apoplexy in the Melbourne suburb of South Yarra. History of the Mueller Medal In 1902 the Australian (now Australian and New Zealand) Association for the Advance- ment of Science honoured Mueller by establishing a Medal in his name. The Medal was (and still is) awarded to a scientist who had made important contributions to anthropology, botany, geology or zoology, preferably with special reference to Australia. Dr Alfred William Howitt was the first recipient in 1904. Between 1904 and 1926 when Wood Jones received the Medal it was bestowed on seven occa- sions. Now it is presented each year at the official opening of the Congress of the Association. Wood Jones’ Mueller Medal is missing. Wood Jones in America Mueller was responsible for ex- porting Eucalyptus seeds and plants by the thousands to overseas countries including America, India, Italy, Algeria, Hong Kong and Abyssinia (Ethiopia).

Wood Jones paid his first visit to America in early 1926 and spent 3 months there observing and conferring with anthropological institutes. In San Francisco he walked in groves of gum trees and he was aware that these were the result of Mueller’s endeavours.

On his homeward journey to Australia, for he was then Professor of Anatomy at the University of Adelaide, as well as composing the Lister Oration he wrote a series of four articles for the South Australian newspaper, the Register. Aptly this series was entitled ‘Lessons Learned Abroad’, and the first of this series was called ‘The Spread of the Eucalyptus” and it was published on 8 May 1926, just 2

days after his return. In that article he paid homage to San Franciscans:

‘San Francisco has cherished the beauty of Australian trees as no other place that I have seen. It has planted Eucalyptus by the million, and no more stately gums live than those that clothe the beautiful world to which the Golden Gate gives admission.’ The claims offhe Australian Aborigine Three months after his return from America, Wood Jones was awarded the Mueller Medal at the 18th Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science held in Perth in August of 1926. Although no oration was, or is now associated with the Mueller Medal, Wood Jones did deliver the Presidential address to the Anthropology Section of this meeting. The title of the address was ‘The Claims of the Australian Ab~rigine’.~

It was a blistering attack on the treatment of the Aborigine by the European colonizers. One sentence gives the general tenor of the address: ‘The white colonists of Australia have contracted a huge debt: they are under a moral obligation of no less magnitude than that of making some reparation for the filching of a whole vast continent from its real owners’.

Medal six: The Bancroft Medal Joseph Bancroft Dr Joseph Bancroft was born on 21 Feb- ruary 1836 at Stretford near Manchester, England and died

Fig. 7. The Mueller Memorial Medal. Fig.8. Frederic Wood Jones. Taken by Rembrant’s Studios in Adelaide in 1926.


on 16 June 1894. His medical education began with a 5 year apprenticeship to Dr Jeremiah Renshaw at Sale in Cheshire. He then went on to study medicine at the Manchester Royal School of Medicine and Surgery, graduating from there in 1859. Five years later he emigrated to Queensland. A botanist, clinician, medical researcher, horticulturalist, phar- macologist, anthropologist, pastoralist and medical admin- istrator; he was all of these. Wuchereria hancrofri On 2 1 December 1876 Bancroft opened an abscess on the arm of a young male resident of Brisbane, who had microfilariae in his blood. A dead worm about 4 inches long was found in the pus from this abscess. Three months later he found four live worms in a hydrocele in another patient.

Bancroft sent a report of his findings to the eminent parasitologist, T. Spencer Cobbold, MD, FRS, Professor of Botany and Helminthology in the Royal Veterinary College, London. Before even receiving specimens of the worms Cobbold wrote a letter to the Lancer saying:’

‘. . . further researches [by Bancroft] have resulted in the record of novel facts which, in response to his courtesy, I now make public.

‘In a communication dated from Brisbane, Queensland, April 20th, 1877, Dr Bancroft wrote as follows: “The worm is about the thickness of a human hair and from three to four inches long. By two loops from the centre of its body it emits the filariae described by Carter in immense numbers.

My first specimen I got on Dec. 2 1 st 1876, in a lymphatic abscess of the arm. This was dead. Four others I obtained alive from a hydrocele of the spermatic cord, having caught them in the eye of a peculiar trocar I use for tapping. These I kept alive for a day, and separated them from each other with great difficulty. The worm, when immersed in pure

water, stretches itself out and lies quite passive. In this condition it could be easily washed out of hydroceles through a large-sized trocar from patients known to suffer from filariae.

I will forward you full particulars of my cases (and the worms) at an early date.”

‘Such, Sir, is Dr. Bancroft’s account of his “finds”, and from the brief description furnished I propose to call the adult nematode Filaria hancrofi.’

Subsequently the human parasite was reclassified into a

Fig. 10. Obverse of The Bancroft Medal.

~~ ~~

Fig. 9. Dr Joseph Bancroft ( 1 836-94). Fig. 11. Reverse of The Bancroft Medal.

128 CHRISTOPHERS

new genus Wuchereria, so Filaria bancrofii is now known as Wuchereria bancrofii. Duboisia myoporoides Bancroft investigated the pharma- cological properties of extracts of a native cork-wood Duboisia hopwoodii. He found that extracts from this cork- wood had no useful clinical application. On the advice of Mueller, Bancroft extended his research to a related species, Duboisia myoporoides. Extracts of this cork-wood were found by Bancroft to have among other properties a mydri- atic effect when applied locally to the eye, and he used this extract as part of his ophthalmological armamentarium.

It was used in place of atropine by Bancroft and some of his colleagues in Brisbane, and also by some doctors in Sydney.

The subsequent story of Duboisia myoporoides was given by Sir Edward Ford in his Bancroft lecture of 1959:9

‘The interest which was felt in Bancroft’s time in the pharmacology of D. myoporoides waned as the years passed. However, this species and the related D. leichhardtii were later found to be rich sources of hyoscine, hyoscyamine, atropine and a number of other alkaloids, and formed the basis of a flourishing Australian industry during the last war.

‘The foundation of this industry, according to Sir Russell Grimwade, resulted from inquiries made in 1940 by Sir Alan Newton, who was then directing the war-time Medical Equipment Control Committee, as to whether hyoscine hydrobromide, already in short supply, could be locally manufactured. Bancroft’s work was remembered, and a few ounces were soon made from the leaves of D. myoporoides. Research on large-scale manufacture was then undertaken by Drug Houses of Australia and in 1942 a plant for alkaloid extraction was erected in Melbourne. As a result, Australia became the main producer of atropine sulphate, hyoscine hydrobromide and certain other alkaloids for the world market. In 12 years, 180 OOO oz (over 5 tons) of these were supplied. By the end of the war, the perennial Duboisias had displaced European annual plants as the main source of these drugs. However, at this time the government lifted an embargo which had been previously placed on the export of Duboisia leaf, and consequently the greater part of the world’s supply of atropine and hyoscine is now made abroad from leaves grown in Australia.’ History of the Bancroft Oration and Medal Professor John Peam and Professor Lawrie Powell, both of the University of Queensland, edited a book entitled The Bancrofi Tradi- tion.” This book gives a definitive account of the life and works of Dr Joseph Bancroft (1 836-94). his illustrious son, Dr Thomas Bancroft (1860-1933) and his equally illustrious granddaughter, Dr (Mabel) Josephine Mackerras (nte Ban- croft, 1896-1971), and it also gives a full account of the history of the Bancroft Oration and Medal.

‘The President and Council of the B.M.A. in Queensland were aware that the South Australian Branch of the B.M.A. had established a prestigious annual Oration, the Lister Oration, as a highlight of the year’s postgraduate medical education calendar. It was deemed appropriate that a similar Named Oration would be an enjoyable and perhaps uplifting focus of the medical lecture programme in Queensland.”O

A Joseph Bancroft Memorial Lecture was established in 1926 and was delivered annually until 1978. Since that time the Oration has been held once every 2 years.

The first Bancroft Medal was struck in 1928. On the

Fig. 12. Frederic Wood Jones in the uniform of the Royal Army Medical Corps.

obverse of the medal is the frontal bust of Joseph Bancroft and there is written: ‘clinician and researcher, and benefactor of humankind’; the reverse shows his microscope, symbolic of the spirit of the researcher. Wood Jones’ sea trip to Brisbane Just prior to leaving Melbourne to deliver the Bancroft Lecture in Brisbane, Wood Jones wrote to Ulrica Hubbe saying:’’

‘But I dream of the sea trip - the decks, a deck chair, nothing but sea and sea birds to watch idly - no letters, no students, no coloured chalk, cadavers or white coats. I have done the trip so often in imagination during the last few weeks, that I know the deck quite well. It is white and sunlit; there is pleasant white canvas and shining brass - several deck hands ready to place the chairs - general stewards with silver trays - napkins and glasses, and maybe some amber coloured fluid with froth on top. And then in reality she will be dirty and unpainted and smelling of tom-cats and oil - and there won’t be any chairs - only wet benches: and a steward will be unobtainable because he is off duty. But there will still be the sea and the sea birds.’ Sir Thomas Goodwin Word had passed around that Wood Jones was to be in Brisbane on June 5th to deliver the 1931 Bancroft oration. He received a letter dated 30th April, inviting him to stay at Government House, Brisbane, while he was in Queensland, which read: ‘I shall be here (between two tours) from June 1st to June loth, and if it would suit you to come and stay here with us, my wife and I should be more than delighted. I’m afraid we have no Spectral Tarsiers in the grounds but nevertheless we hope very much that you will come. I have told Meyers that I am asking you.’ The letter was signed John Goodwin.’*

Sir Thomas Herbert John Chapman Goodwin (1871-1960) was the Governor of Queensland at that time. Goodwin graduated in medicine from St Mary’s Hospital, London, in


1892. One year later he was commissioned in the British Army Medical Service as a surgeon lieutenant. In June 1918 he was appointed Director General of the British Army Medical Services. It may well have been in this capacity that he met Wood Jones who was serving in the Royal Army Medical Corps at that time. Both had an interest in wildlife preservation. Goodwin’s letter indicated that he must have been conversant with Wood Jones’ ideas concerning the Tarsius spectrum; namely, that the human stock arose from a Tarsioid form of which there is only one direct living descendant, the Tarsius specmm.

The Meyers referred to in the letter was Errol Solomon Meyers who was a Fellow of the Australasian College of Surgeons. Both Meyers and Goodwin were key figures in the establishment of the Medical School in Brisbane. Meyers was appointed lecturer in Anatomy and Operative Surgery at the Brisbane University in 1936.

Because Wood Jones’ invitation to stay at Government House was unofficial there is no documented evidence that he did stay there. However, evidence that he was a guest at Government House is contained in a letter from Goodwin to Wood Jones dated September 30th, 1931: ‘Very many thanks indeed for so kindly sending me reprints of your [Bancroft] lecture, I am more than glad to have them for, honestly, I have never in my life enjoyed a lecture more than I did yours . . . My wife is so glad to hear that the green frogs are fit and well in their new home . . . ’ I ’ The frogs for Wood Jones’ menagerie at his East St Kilda home in Melbourne may well have been from the grounds of Govern- ment House in Brisbane. Wood Jones‘ Buncroft Oration Wood Jones in his book Man’s Place Among the Mummuls quotes from Erasmus Darwin’s book Zoonomiu” published in 1794 as follows:

‘From their first rudiment, or primordium, to the termination of their lives, all animals undergo perpetual trans- formations; which are in part produced by their own exertions in consequence of their desires and aversions, of their pleasures and their pains, or of irritations, or of associations: and many of these acquired forms or propensities are trans- mitted to their posterity.’

The views espoused by Wood Jones in his Bancroft Oration as to the functional aspect of evolutionary change were not unlike those expressed by Erasmus Darwin in 1794. In paying homage to Bancroft, Wood Jones placed him in the company of this country doctor naturalist Erasmus Darwin.

This was high praise indeed, for Wood Jones held Erasmus Darwin in great esteem. Dr Erasmus Darwin of Litchield (1721-1802) was grandfather of the scientists Francis Gal- ton and Charles Darwin. He anticipated later theories of evolution that tended to lean towards Lamarkianism rather than towards the ideas of his grandson, Charles Darwin.

Medal seven: The John Smyth Memorial Medal

John Smyth John Smyth was born on 3 November 1864 at Tollcross, Scotland, and died in Tokyo whilst on a visit to Japan on 20 August 1927. He worked as a teacher in Ireland and New Zealand. His doctoral thesis from the University of Edinburgh was entitled ‘Truth and Reality with Special Reference to Religion’. In 1902 he was appointed Principal of Victoria’s Training College (later Melbourne Teachers College), a position he held until his death in 1927. From

1918 to 1927 he was also Professor of Education at the University of Melbourne. Clive cf India The author’s parents, Annie Jessop East- wood and Harry Mortimer Christophers, were both students at the Teachers Training College in 1903 when Doctor Smyth was Principal. They both adored him. As part of his course, the author’s father was called upon to give a dem- onstration lesson in front of an examiner. ‘Clive of India’ was the subject of the lesson, and he was failed for flippancy. He was duly summoned before the ‘Old Doc’, and was required to give a lesson before him, and the topic prescribed was ‘The Gerund and the Gerundive’. In a talk to trainee students in 1965 when he was 85 the author’s father when recalling the incident described a gerund as ‘like a griffin but it has three eyes and no tail, [and] the gerundive has one eye and three tails’. I‘ History of the John Smyth Modd und Lecture Soon after Smyth’s death a committee was formed to make arrange- ments to honour the substantial contributions that he had made to teacher training in the State of Victoria. The outcome was the institution of the John Smyth Memorial Lecture; and a medal was struck to commemorate the occasion. The medal was presented each year to the person who delivered the lecture. Frank Tate, who was Smyth’s predecessor as Principal of the Teachers College and then became the Director of Education in Victoria, delivered the inaugural John Smyth Memorial Lecture on 22 September 1928 in the hall of the Melbourne High School. The lectures continued on an annual basis except that no lectures were given in the years 1961-64. Since 1965 the lectures have been organized by the Victorian Institute of Education Research . Wood Jones’ John Smyth Lectirre Wood Jones delivered the sixth John Smyth Lecture at the University of Melbourne on Friday 8 September 1933, and the title of the lecture was ‘The Anatomical Bases of Human Behaviour’. A short abstract of the lecture was published 3 days later in the Melbourne Argrrs. I t was reported that Wood Jones said: I’

‘We live in an age which is too apt to condone lapses of conduct . . . Owing to the tremendous output of psycholo- gists . . . we were apt to lose a clear idea of what conduct really was . . . Even in the highest vertebrates, apart from man. the brain did not have ful l control of the lower limbs. Man was the only creature that had ful l control and knowledge of the actions of all of his limbs by the exercise of the brain. ’

On the output of one psychologist Wood Jones wrote in a letter to Ulrica Hubbe that: I I

‘One thing has greatly amused me. 1 have recently read the abstract of a new work by a Frenchman or woman with an English name “Broughton” - can’t be French - on the psychoanalytic interpretation of the behaviour of white ants and bees. I have white ants in my house. I used to hate them - now I pity them. Do you know that the poor little fellows suffer terribly from the “castration complex”? I don’t know what to do about it. I long to tell them not to mind - it’s not worth worrying about, but they are so difficult to deal with in a suggestive way.’

In his book The Matrix ofthe Mind, Wood Jones explains the details of the control and knowledge of the actions of the limbs in animals. Here he points out that in reptiles there is no cortico-spinal tract at all and in the lowest mammals the

130 CHRISTOPHERS

cortico-spinal tract extends only to the brain stem and hence exerts its influence only upon the cranial nerves. He also pointed out that some marsupials have pallial influence over the brachial nerves, whilst only in the primates does the pyramidal tract extend the whole length of the cord; and that only in Homo sapiens does the pyramidal tract reach its full development.

It would seem that the overall message of his Smyth Lecture was that humans have the necessary cerebral where- withal to behave in a civilized fashion.

Medal eight: The Clarke Medal William Branwhite Clarke The Reverend William Bran- white Clarke was born at East Berghalt, Suffolk on 2 June 1798. He was educated at Dedham Grammar School and then went on to take his BA at Cambridge in 1821 and his MA in 1824. Whilst at Cambridge, in addition to his divinity subjects, he attended lectures in geology and mineralogy given by Professor Sedgwick and Dr E. Clarke. In 1821 he received his deacon’s orders and his priest’s orders in 1823, and became an outstanding example of that 19th century phenomenon, the clergyman-geologist. Before he came to Australia in 1839 he had made many contributions to the science of geology. His colleagues in England had requested that he investigate the carboniferous formation of Australia. This he did, discovering the Hunter Valley coalfields and he was the first person to find gold in Australia in 1841.

This and much more earned for him the right to be called the ‘father’ of Australian geology. In 1876 he was elected FRS, it being especially stated that this was in recognition of his discovery of gold in Australia. He died on 17 June 1878 at North Shore, Sydney. Conservators of the Hunterian Museum A definitive history of the origin of the Clarke Medal is given in a publication of the Royal Society of New South Wales (Fig. 14). In that publication it is pointed out that Sir Richard Owen was the first recipient of the Clarke Medal in 1878 and that Wood Jones was the 50th recipient in 1941. It happens that Owen was the second and Wood Jones was the eighth Conservator of the Hunterian Museum. The Hunterian Museum bombed in I941 One of the heavi- est air attacks on London during World War I1 occurred on the nights of 10- 1 1 May 1941. During this attack incendiary bombs, a high explosive, and the subsequent fire caused destruction of a large part of the Hunterian Museum. At the end of the war in 1945 Wood Jones was appointed the Sir William Collins Professor of Human and Comparative Anatomy and Conservator of the Hunterian Collection at the Royal College of Surgeons of England. His task as Conser- vator to the Museum was to reassemble and reclassify the scattered collection of over 13 OOO specimens. Thus it was that in his task of restoring the Museum Wood Jones came to know well the work of those Conservators who had gone before. By 1948 he was able to write:”

‘There was a time when I thought the chaotic mess at the College would never get cleared up, but at last I can see a hope, even if it is a good way ahead and not in my time. The mess the collection and catalogue were in is indescribable. When Owen did his business he somehow put a specimen of the tail of a porcupine into the respiratory specimens and gave it a number in the larynx series. It has been there since

Fig. 13. William Branwhite Clarke, circa 1856 (by courtesy of The Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales).

Fig. 14. Appendix of Newsletter No. 3, 1975 of the Royal Society of New South Wales.

1836 or so, without anyone noticing that it was a tail and not a larynx. I could tell you lots more things like that. Even the celebrated Irish giant is all muddled up - the bones and a boot belonging to one man, the gloves and slippers to another.’

This was not meant as a criticism of Owen, whom Wood


Jones held in the highest esteem, but an expression of surprise that the mistakes had not been noticed before. Parathyroid of a rhinoceros In 1950 soon after the 150th Anniversary of the creation of the Royal College of Sur- geons of England, Wood Jones wrote to an Australian friend saying: I

‘I have just survived the 150th Anniversary of this institution coupled with an attack of podagra . . . I and all the staff have been badly overworked in looking out specimens to interest people who have dined well and don’t care if Owen did put up a specimen of the parathyroid of a rhinoceros in 1850 or if John Hunter knew the anatomy of barnacles over a century before Charles Darwin had a go at the subject.’

Manchester 1941 Wood Jones was in Manchester in 1941 when he was awarded the Clarke Medal for that year. It is likely that the Medal was not sent to him till later because of the risk (due to the war) of it not arriving at its destination.

Medal nine: The Honorary Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons of England

Wood Jones lived in Flat 19, Rusholme Gardens, Platt Lane when he was in Manchester from 1938 to 1945. In 1986 the author wrote to this address in the rather vain hope of obtaining information regarding his stay in Manchester. This letter advised the occupant that Wood Jones had lived there many years ago and requested that the letter be passed on to the person in the block of flats who had resided there for the longest time. Sir Hurry Platt One can imagine the author’s surprise and delight when a reply was received from Sir Harry Platt. Part of the letter reads: l 6

‘. . . The Wood Jones’ lived in this block (No. 19 not far along from No. 14). During the relatively short period (1938- 1945) he held the Chair of Anatomy in our University. I knew Freddy W-J well - first when he was lecturer under Grafton Elliot Smith for a short spell [1909-19101; later when he returned to Manchester; and in his final years at the R. C. of S . . . I am approaching my 100th birthday (October 7th) and no longer come up to London.’

Sir Harry Platt attended the celebrations in Manchester marking his 100th birthday organized by the University of Manchester. Sir Harry Platt had been Professor of Ortho- paedic Surgery in the University of Manchester and was elected President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England on 8 July 1954, a position that he held for 3 years. His relevance to this paper is that he was a council member of the College when the Honorary Medal of the College was

Fig. 15. Sir Richard Owen with femur and tibia of Moa (Repro- duced from: Owen R. The Life of Richard Owen. London: John Murray, 1894).

Fig. 16. Part of the ruined Hunterian Museum following its bomb- ing in May 1941, showing the statue of Sir Richard Owen among the debris (reproduced by kind permission of the President and Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England).

Fig. 17. Sir Harry Platt (reproduced by kind permission of the President and Council of the Royal College of Surgeons of England).

I32 CHRISTOPHERS

decreed to Wood Jones. There is no Oration associated with this Medal.

Medal ten: The Heberden Medal Dr William Heherden Dr William Heberden was born in Southwark on 13 August 1710. In 1724 he entered St John’s College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1728 and MA in 1732. Starting with these qualifications he commenced the study of medicine, and obtained his MD in 1739. Six years later he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and, in 1749, a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Heberden’s ability as a first-class physician became widely known and his services were much sought after. One of Heberden’s patients was Dr Johnson who referred to him as ‘ultimus Romanorum, the last of the learned physicians’, because of his skill as a Latinist, and it was for this same reason that William Osler referred to Heberden as ‘The English Celsus’.

In the period 1768-85 16 papers by Heberden were published in the Medical Transactions of the College of Physicians, which he founded in 1767. During this period his treatises on angina and chickpox were published, which were the first definitive accounts of these conditions.

As a result of a fall in the Chapel Royal, St James, he fractured a femur. Although this injury limited his activities, he lived 5 more years; and the fourth of these years he claimed as one of his most rewarding. He died at 79 Pall Mall, London on 17 May 1801. This site was once owned by Nell Gwyn. History of the Heherden Medal and Oration TO honour this eminent physician The Heberden Society was officially created in 1936. According to the Constitution of The Heberden Society: ‘The objects of the Society shall be to stimulate and promote the development of scientific knowledge about rheumatology; . . .’. The history of the Heberden Society, the Heberden Orations and Medalists are given in a book by the British rheumatologist and medical historian, Dr John M. H. A large section of this book is given over to portraitures and biographies (both by the author) of Heberden personae including, of course, the Heberden Orators.

In 1938 the Society appointed its first Orator and Medal- list, being an award for research in the rheumatic diseases. These have been given and bestowed annually since then, apart from a break in the years 1943-48 inclusive due to World War 11. The Heberden Society and the British Asso- ciation for Rheumatology and Rehabilitation amalgamated in 1984 to form the British Society for Rheumatology. Part of the Constitution of this latter society reads: ‘Certain initiatives undertaken by the [British] Society for [Rheuma- tology] are associated with the name Heberden. This des- ignation is adopted in honour of the memory of William Heberden the Elder (1710-1 801) and his pioneer contributions to British Rheumatology in writing of the Rheumatism and the Gout and in describing the Nodi Digitorum that bear his name’. Wood Jones’ Heherden Oration Wood Jones delivered the fourth Heberden Oration to the Society on 9 December 1949. The subject was ‘Classical Gout’. Like so many of the ProhYes of his orations, this one was Pertinent, eloquent and tinged with humour:’*

Fig. 18. Photograph of testimonial scroll presented to Wood Jones by the Royal College Of Surgeons Of

~ i ~ . 19. portrait of wi1liam Hekrden the Elder by Sir wi1liam Beechey in the Royal College of Physicians of London (photograph by courtesy of the Royal Society of Medicine, London).


‘It would seem that custom has sanctioned, and indeed almost imposed, a very definite form of introduction to an address such as this. To this accepted formula I am prepared to subscribe in so far as the usual opening consists in a general confession on the part of the speaker of his unworthiness to be accorded the honour of discussing the subject before so distinguished a body of experts. But I have noticed that there is commonly some passage made from this opening note of humility to a later and slowly emerging atmosphere of omniscience. This transition I shall not make. To the end I shall remain painfully conscious of the fact that upon the very partial knowledge of only a single example I am venturing to generalise upon a clinical condition of the utmost complexity.

‘We do not greatly value the opinions of a man who, having persuaded some woman to become his wife, assumes that he is the fount of all knowledge concerning the ways of women. We are not in the habit of attaching much importance to the views of any man who, on the strength of possessing a David Cox, poses as a great authority on British water-colours. There is far less reason why regard should be had for the ideas of one who, happening to own a little private gout, assumes that the secrets of that baffling disease are in his special keeping.’

When Wood Jones delivered the oration he had suffered from podagra (as he was wont to call gout) for 37 years. One strongly suspects that Fig. 1 in the published version of his oration is a reproduction of an X-ray of his own big toe. The legend to this figure reads: ‘The metatarso-phalangeal joint of the big toe of a man aged 71 who has suffered from podagra for 37 years. Taken at the termination of the acute stage of the attack.’

That portion of the text relevant to this figure reads: IX

‘That a typical attack of podagra is manifest in the neighbourhood of the metatarso-phalangeal joint of the big toe is patently true; but to postulate that the seat of the disease is in the metatarso-phalangeal articulation is a mere supposition: . . . it is an incontrovertible fact that after repeated attacks of podagra extended over a period of more than thirty years there may be no signs whatever of arthritis or of any pathological changes in the joint revealed by X-ray examination. ’

As well as gout Wood Jones also suffered severe bouts of sciatica. Only a person who had suffered both complaints would have dared to compare the pain in these conditions as he did in this oration:

‘A man with sciatica may suffer acute pain, but once he has learned the difficult art of changing position in the manner that produces the minimum of pain he is far on the road to being able to regard the complaint with some equanimity. He dreads the advent of a sneeze; he does not wish to be made to laugh; but beyond that he has no particular anxieties. Sciatica is indubitably a very painful complaint, but it is one that can be faced with perfect psychic composure.

‘It is far otherwise with gout: from the first twinge in the big toe a dreadful apprehension overwhelms the patient. He fears lest anyone should come near him and thoughtlessly touch him, or jar him with their footfall, or cause him to move. He dreads the presence of anyone who moves hur- riedly, and is terrified lest the fussy Person should Slip, Or drop something, or give him a start of any kind. And in all

Fig. 20. The original legend reads: ‘The metatarso-phalangeal joint of the big toe of a man aged 71 who has suffered from podagra for 37 years. Taken at the termination of the acute stage of the attack.’

Fig. 21. Australian orthopaedic surgeon Mr Henry Crock in front of a portrait of Wood Jones (by courtesy of the Age).

134 CHRISTOPHERS

this it is to be remembered that it is not the actual touch, the jar, or the change of position that causes the pain, it is the apprehension that it might happen. Although there is local pain, enough and to spare, it is the psychic state of dread that characterises an attack of gout. The initiation of an exacerbation may be caused almost as readily by a mental concept as by physical contact. I do not know the original source of the account of the gouty patient who, having seen a fly upon the ceiling. lay in agony of anticipation lest it should lose its hold and drop in the neighbourhood of his gouty limb. The picture is doubtless an exaggerated one, and yet it contains a very real element of truth.'

Perhaps at the time of the oration the pain of the gout was the more recent in his mind. Evidence of this is contained in a letter he wrote to Ulrica Hubbe not long before he delivered the oration:

'. . . I had broncho-pneumonia and lots of fun and injec- tions of God knows what. When I was well enough they shifted me froin home to hospital - and there I recovered and got my lungs going and got uppish - and then that damned sneaking disease - gout - got me. I am now well of everything except the residue of the gout in my right big toe.'

EPILOGUE

In the order of things Numismatics does much to encourage an interest in history. Interest created by academic medals is of necessity two-fold: the person commemorated, and the person upon whom it is bestowed. In the order of things some scientists who were honoured by academic medals in their lifetime were post- humously honoured by having a medal struck to perpetuate their memory.

Wood Jones died in 1954 and in 1975 the Royal College of Surgeons of England inaugurated the Wood Jones Oration (triennial) and presented the orator with a medal to highlight the oration. In 1981 the Wood Jones medal winner was an Australian orthopaedic surgeon, Mr Harry Crock, awarded to him for his research into the blood supply of bone.

One-third of Wood Jones' teaching years were spent in Australia and he was the recipient of six Australian academic medals, but there is no Wood Jones Oration or Medal in Australia.

By virtue of the generosity of a number of Australian doctors and the willingness of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science to strike a duplicate of their Mueller Medal the set of Wood Jones' academic medals will be made complete. Arrange- ments have been made for this medal to be presented to Entield Grammar School. There it will be displayed with Wood Jones' other academic medals on the wall of the garret of Tudor House of this school. This would be in accordance with the wish expressed by Wood Jones in his will.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Dr Elaine Atkinson of the Centre for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Melbourne helped the author with material concerning The John Smyth Memorial Medal as did Dr John Moll of the Nether Edge Hospital in Sheffield, England with The Heberden Medal and The Heberden

Orations. Others who helped the author with obtaining information for this paper were: Ms Eileen Jones, Research Officer, Government House, Brisbane; Ms L. McGregor, State Archivist of Queensland; and Ms K. Greig, Librarian, the Victorian Branch of the AMA.

Acknowledgements are due to the Mcdird J ourwul of AiisIiuIiu (Copyright 0 the M e d i c ~ ~ l Joiirtid of' Aii.sti.uliu 1926: 11: 65-71: reprinted with permission. Copyright 0 the Medical Jourriul oJ' Ausirdiu 196 1 ; I: 153-70; reprinted with permission), the British Medicul Journul, The Austral- ian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science, The Melbourne Teachers College and The Royal Societies of Tasmania and New South Wales for permission to publish material from their journals and publications.

Acknowledgement is also due to Amphion Press for permission to reproduce material from a book published by them. The South Australian Branch of the Australian Medi- cal Association supplied the author with information concerning The Lister Medal. Permission to use material from their library was granted by the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

The author is grateful to Mr Leonard J. T. Murphy for helpful comments on a draft of this paper. The author would like to thank Mrs Rosemary Mulder for word processing the manuscript.

REFERENCES I . Wood Jones F. The mammalian toilet and some considerations

arising from it. Papers and proceedings o f the Royal Society of Tasmania: 1925: 14-62.

2. Butler S. Ewlutioti 0111 m r l N m ' . 2nd edn. Fitield: 191 I . 3. Godlee RJ. Lord Listiir. London: Macniillan. 191 8. 4. Wood Jones F. Autohiographical material (circa 1952). Origi-

nal manuscript lodged in the Wood Jones Collection in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

5. Wood Jones F. Disease and individuality. Mid. ./. Aiist. 1926;

6. Wood Joncs F. The Spread of the Eucalyptus. 7'hc Ri~,qi.s/vr. Adelaide I926 May 8; 13.

7. Wood Jones F. The claims of the Australian Aborigine. Report of the Eighteenth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science 1926; 18: 497-5 19.

8. Cobhold TS. Discovery of the adult representative of micro- scopic tilariae. L N I I ~ . P I 1877: 2: 70- I .

9. Ford E. The life and influence of Joseph Bancroft, M.D. M c ~ l . . / .A/tst. 1961: 1: 153-70.

10. Peam J. Powell J . (eds). Tlic Huwrwfi Trtirl i t ioii . Brisbane: Amphion Press, I99 I .

1 I . Wood Jones F. Letter to Ulrics Hubhe. Lodged in the Wood Jones Collection in the Library of the Royal College ol' Surgeons of England. 3 July I 950.

12. Goodwin THJC. Letter to Wood Jones. Lodged in the Wood Jones' Collection in the Library of the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

13. Darwin E. Zooiroi~riri, Vol. I. Section xxxix . London: J. John- son 1794; SO I .

14. Christophers HM. Harry Christophers at Assembly. 7'rriiirc~. Tlie Airrruul Mo,qu:i/ri. o j Mclhorr/.rii~ T i~~c~l i e r ' s Colli~gc 1065: part 2: 143-51.

15. Wood Jones F. The anatomicnl bases of human hehaviour. T h Argirs, Melhounie 1933 September 1 I ; 9.

16. Platt H. Letter to B.E. Christophers. 17 July 19x6. 17. Moll JMH. Thc Hchiwlr/i Society. London: Chapman and

18. Wood Jones F. Classical gout. Hr . Mid. J . 1950: 1: 561 -7.

2: 65-7 1 .

Hall, 1987.

Documents

FREDERIC WOOD JONES: HIS ACADEMIC MEDALS AND THOSE THEY HONOURED