James Wardrop

James Wardrop MD FRCSEd FRCS (1782–1869), Scottish surgeon. Born in Torbane Hill, Lanark, Wardrop trained in Edinburgh 1897, London 1801 and Vienna 1803. Ophthalmic surgeon in Edinburgh 1804–08; London 1809–69; gained MD St Andrews 1834.

Wardrop taught surgery from 1826 at the Aldersgate Street medical academy with Lawrence and Tyrrell, and published surgical treatises. ["The concise DNB" (Dictionary of National Biography): volume 1 to 1900. Oxford University Press. p1367] Wardrop, an excellent surgeon, was early appointed surgeon-extraordinary by the Prince Regent, the future George IV. This infuriated his rivals in London, and he found the doors of the large hospitals closed to him. In retaliation he founded the West London Hospital for Surgery near the Edgware Road, and invited general practitioners to watch him operate. Further royal honours came, but he declined a baronetcy (in lieu of royal fees) and moved out of royal circles. His social gifts, a knowledge of horseflesh and marriage to a wife with aristocratic connections brought him popularity. [Brook C. 1945. "Battling surgeon". Strickland Press, Glasgow. p36]

Wardrop was associated with Thomas Wakley in the founding of "The Lancet" in 1823, for which he first wrote savage articles and, later, witty and scurrilous lampoons in his column 'Intercepted Letters'. The letters, under the pseudonym 'Brutus', were thinly disguised as by leading London surgeons, 'accidentally' revealing their nepotism, venality and incompetence. There was enough truth in them to make the parodies sting.

He was later rehabilitated with the College of Surgeons, becoming a Fellow in 1843. [Desmond A. 1989. "The politics of evolution: morphology, medicine and reform in radical London". Chicago. p428]

References

* Wardrop, James 1808. "Essays on the morbid anatomy of the human eye".