The life and work of the Dumfries surgeon James Hill (1703-1776): his contributions to the management of cancer and of head injury.
James Hill was apprenticed to the formidable Edinburgh surgeon, physician and philosopher George Young from whom he learned the value of careful observation and scepticism in medicine. As a surgeon in Dumfries he was able to take advantage of newly established medical journals to publish case reports. His book Cases in Surgery summarised three aspects of his life's work as a surgeon. In it he provides a classical description of the features and transmission of sibbens (endemic syphilis) and suggests from careful clinical observation that sibbens and venereal syphilis were the same disease. His success with treatment of cancer led him to advocate curative rather than palliative excision, a view that ran counter to accepted contemporary practice. Hill's ability to diagnose cerebral compression caused by bleeding following head injury enabled him to treat this successfully by directed trephine and drainage. His results on the treatment of head injury were the best to be published in their day and an important addition to the increasing understanding of the basis of the management of head injury.
Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK iainmacintyre@blueyonder.co.uk.
Iain
I
Macintyre
D006259:Craniocerebral Trauma / Q000266:history* / Q000601:surgery; D049671:History, 18th Century; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000266:history* / Q000601:surgery; D012606:Scotland; D066231:Surgeons / Q000266:history*
Benjamin Bell; George Young; James Hill; cancer; epidural haematoma; head injury; sibbens