Famous 18th Century Surgeons

Military surgeon James Miranda Steuart Barry is most noted for making medical reforms and performing one of the first known successful Caesarean sections in Africa. Although during adulthood Barry lived as a man, at birth Barry was named Margaret Ann Bulkley and was known as a girl-child. Barry's birth sex became public after a post-mortem examination.     

John Hunter was a Scottish surgeon remembered for his efforts to study the human anatomy through investigation and experimentation. An early advocate of scientific method in medicine, Hunter was considered one of the most prominent surgeons of his generation. He is also remembered for paying for the body of Charles Byrne and displaying the skeletal remains in his Hunterian Museum.

Considered the founder of operative gynecology, Ephraim McDowell was also the first person to perfect lithotomy, a surgical technique for removing stones obstructing urinary bladder. He came to limelight when he successfully removed a 20-pound tumor from Jane Todd Crawford’s ovary, later performing twelve more ovariotomies, out of which seven were successful, thus demonstrating the viability of elective abdominal surgery.

James Lind revolutionized medical science by recommending lemon juice and citrus fruits as remedies for scurvy in British Navy officials. Though born into a Scottish merchant family, he ended up becoming a successful naval surgeon. His research also included the prevention of typhus among seamen.

The man who lent his name to Parkinson’s disease, which he described as paralysis agitans in Essay on the Shaking Palsy, James Parkinson was a leading English surgeon. An avid paleontologist and geologist too, he often collected specimens and fossils. He and his son also offered the first description of appendicitis.

Best known for his picaresque novels such as The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Scottish novelist Tobias Smollett was born into a family of lawyers and soldiers and initially attended medical training. Some believe he quit university without a degree, while it is also said he had served as a navy surgeon.

British naval surgeon George Bass is best remembered for his exploratory voyage to Australia, aboard the Reliance. He explored areas such as the Sydney coastline, Tasmania, and New South Wales. However, he was declared lost at sea after disappearing on a commercial voyage to South America.

Dominique Jean Larrey was a French military doctor and surgeon. He is best remembered for his service during the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolutionary Wars. A prominent innovator in triage and battlefield medicine, Dominique Jean Larrey is widely regarded as the first modern military surgeon.

Scotch-Irish American military-surgeon and politician James McHenry, who served as the 3rd United States Secretary of War, is noted as a signer of the United States Constitution from Maryland. He was elected a delegate to Maryland State Convention of 1788. He was instrumental in reorganizing the United States Army into four regiments and established the United States Department of the Navy.

Guillaume, Baron Dupuytren was a French military surgeon and anatomist. Although he gained immense popularity after treating Napoleon Bonaparte's hemorrhoids, Dupuytren is best remembered for his description of Dupuytren's contracture. Guillaume, Baron Dupuytren was also an astute diagnostician and a brilliant teacher.

George Crabbe was an English surgeon, poet, and clergyman. He began his career as a doctor's apprentice in the 1770s and later become a surgeon. After a few years, he pursued a living as a poet and also served as a clergyman in various capacities. He wrote poetry mainly in the form of heroic couplets. He was also a coleopterist. 

Apart from being a naval surgeon, John Richardson also made a named for himself as an explorer of the Canadian Arctic coast. He was also a talented author of natural history. His accurate surveys eventually got him knighted. Various species of reptiles and mammals have been named in his honor.

Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet, was an English surgeon and physiologist best remembered for his pioneering research into joint and bone disease. He was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1810 where he published many papers describing investigations in physiology. From 1858 to 1861, Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie served as the 29th President of the Royal Society.

Widely regarded as the father of hematology, Copley Medal-winning British physiologist William Hewson studied blood coagulation, the lymphatic system, and red blood cells, and isolated fibrin, which he named coagulable lymph. He was made a Royal Society member and was also named to the American Philosophical Society.

The son of surgeon John Munro, Alexander Monro followed in his father’s footsteps and became a leading surgeon and anatomist of his day. He, his son, and then his grandson held the Edinburgh University Chair of Anatomy for a collective 126 years. He was also named a Fellow of The Royal Society.

Alexander Monro was a Scottish physician, anatomist, and medical educator. Born into the famous Monro of Auchenbowie family, Alexander is best remembered for his work describing the lymphatic system. He spent most of his life as a lecturer and is credited with teaching several future physicians, including abolitionist and naval physician Thomas Trotter.