Gordon Morgan Holmes

Gordon Morgan Holmes

Sir Gordon Morgan Holmes CMG CBE FRS[1] (22 February 1876 – 29 December 1965) was a British neurologist. He is best known for carrying out pioneering research into the cerebellum[2] and the visual cortex.[3][4][5][6][7]


He was born in the son of a Louth farmer 40 miles north of Dublin and was educated at Dundalk academy and Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated in medicine in 1897.

He was initially employed at Richmond Lunatic Asylum and then, after working his way to New Zealand and back returned to studying neurology in Germany. In 1906 he was appointed Physician to the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, London.

At the outbreak of WWI he was appointed as consultant neurologist to the British Expeditionary Forces. Working in a field hospital he had a unique opportunity for the investigation of the effects of lesions in specific regions of the brain on balance, vision and bladder function. While in France, Holmes met his future wife, Dr Rosalie Jobson, an Oxford graduate and an international sportswoman, to whom he subsequently proposed marriage while rowing on the Thames. His wartime observations on gunshot wounds re-awakened his interest in cerebellar disease which led to his classical analysis of the symptoms of cerebellar lesions described in his Croonian Lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in 1922.[8]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in May, 1933 and delivered their Ferrier Lecture in 1944.[9]

He was made CMG in 1917, CBE in 1919 and knighted in 1951.

References

  1. ^ Walshe, F. M. R. (1966). "Gordon Morgan Holmes. 1876-1965". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 12: 311–326. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1966.0014.  edit
  2. ^ Head, H.; Holmes, G. (1911). "Sensory Disturbances from Cerebral Lesions". Brain 34 (2–3): 102. doi:10.1093/brain/34.2-3.102.  edit
  3. ^ Pearce, J. M. S. (2004). "Sir Gordon Holmes (1876–1965)". Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry 75 (10): 1502–1503. doi:10.1136/jnnp.2003.016170. PMC 1738734. PMID 15377710. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=1738734.  edit
  4. ^ Oswald, N. C. (2003). "A glimpse of Sir Gordon Holmes, MD FRS, neurologist (1876-1965)". Journal of medical biography 11 (3): 182. PMID 12870047.  edit
  5. ^ "Sir Gordon Holmes (1876-1965)". JAMA : the journal of the American Medical Association 213 (7): 1184–1185. 1970. PMID 4914581.  edit
  6. ^ Penfield, W. (1967). "Sir Gordon Morgan Holmes (1876-1965)". Journal of the neurological sciences 5 (1): 185–190. PMID 4863052.  edit
  7. ^ Walshe, F. M. (1966). "Sir Gordon Morgan Holmes, C.M.G., C.B.E., F.R.S". Nature 209 (5026): 853–854. PMID 5332144.  edit
  8. ^ "Gordon Morgan Jones". Who Named It. http://www.whonamedit.com/doctor.cfm/1189.html. Retrieved 20 November 2010. 
  9. ^ "Library and Archive Catalogue". Royal Society. http://www2.royalsociety.org/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Persons&dsqPos=3&dsqSearch=%28Surname%3D%27holmes%27%29. Retrieved 20 November 2010. 

Bibliography

  • Studies in Neurology, 2 volumes. London, H. Frowde, Hodder & Stoughton, 1920 with William Halse Rivers (1864–1922), G. Holmes, James Sherren, Harold Theodore Thompson (1878–1935), George Riddoch (1888–1947):
  • The National Hospital 1860–1948. Edinburgh & London, E & S Livingstone Ltd., 1954



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