Emigrant etherist: the medical and scientific influence of John Henry Hill Lewellin (1818-86), pioneer anaesthetist and surgeon and patron of botany in Australia.
The pioneer anaesthetists in Australia came from varying professional backgrounds. To the influence of Belisario in Sydney. Pugh in Launceston and Buchanan in Stroud, can be added the role of John Henry Hill Lewellin (1818-86). Lewellin immigrated from Scotland to become a pioneer Melbourne etherist and surgeon from 1852. Born in India, he studied surgery at Bart's Hospital in London (1842) and as a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons from that year, practised as a surgeon and dentist in Glasgow. On 19 December 1746 he was the first to use the newly discovered ether in anesthetic practice in Glasgow, and one of the first to do so in the United Kingdom. He emigrated to Melbourne in 1852, where he achieved considerable success in the management of tetanus with ether. He was an active member of the Medical Society of Victoria and a vigorous participant in its clinical discussions. As a surgeon, Lewellin pursued a significant community role in the broader Melbourne society of the day. He served as a Magistrate, became Vaccination Officer in Victoria and, as an active doctor-soldier, served with sequential promotions finally to the rank of Surgeon-Major in the Volunteer Force (Rifles) of the Colony. He became a patron of science and a supporter of the Melbourne botanist, Ferdinand von Mueller. Of all his prodigious scientific writing, von Mueller dedicated Volume 8 of his Fragmenta to his surgical colleague, as one 'who is a most skillful physician' and later as 'a most generous promoter of my investigations'. Lewellin's legacy, in his pioneering contributions as an early anaesthetist in two continents, lives on in the scientific names of two floral species which perpetuate his name.
Pearn
J
J
Royal Children's Hospital, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
MacDonald
A
A
D000776:Anesthesiology / Q000266:history*; D001315:Australia; D001901:Botany / Q000266:history; D004986:Ether / Q000266:history; D013502:General Surgery / Q000266:history; D049672:History, 19th Century
D004986:Ether