Sir Henry Morris, 1st Baronet

FRCS Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons (FRCS) is a professional qualification to practise as a senior surgeon in Ireland or the United Kingdom. It is bestowed on an intercollegiate basis by the four Royal Colleges of Surgeons (the Royal C ...

(7 January 1844 – 14 June 1926) was a British medical doctor and surgeon, president of the

Royal Society of Medicine The Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) is a medical society in the United Kingdom, headquartered in London. History The Society was established in 1805 as Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, meeting in two rooms in barristers’ chambers ...

and the author and editor of significant works on anatomy. He was also known for his work in the field of cancer.‘MORRIS, Sir Henry’, Who Was Who
A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2008; online edition, Oxford University Press, December 2007. Retrieved 2 Sept 2013.Sir Henry Morris.

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

(Obituaries). Tuesday, 15 June 1926, issue 44298; p. 11, column C.Morris, Sir Henry – Biographical entry – Plarr's Lives of the Fellows Online
Livesonline.rcseng.ac.uk. Retrieved 31 May 2015.

Early career

Morris was the son of William Morris, surgeon from

Petworth Petworth is a small town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Chichester (district), Chichester District of West Sussex, England. It is located at the junction of the A272 road, A272 east–west road from Heathfield, East Sussex ...

, Sussex. After his education at

Epsom College Epsom College is a co-educational independent school on Epsom Downs, Surrey, England, for pupils aged 11 to 18. It was founded in 1853 as a boys' school to provide support for poor members of the medical profession such as pensioners and orph ...

and

University College, London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = � ...

(BA 1863, MA 1870), he entered

Guy's Hospital Guy's Hospital is an NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre. ...

where, after graduating M.B., he became first a house surgeon and then the Resident Medical Officer. In 1870 he was appointed Surgical Registrar at the

Middlesex Hospital Middlesex Hospital was a teaching hospital located in the Fitzrovia area of London, England. First opened as the Middlesex Infirmary in 1745 on Windmill Street, it was moved in 1757 to Mortimer Street where it remained until it was finally clos ...

, in 1871 Assistant Surgeon and Surgeon to the Out-Patient Department and from 1872-1881 Lecturer in Anatomy. From 1879 to 1889 he was Consulting Surgeon to the hospital.

Publications in anatomy

His time as lecturer in Anatomy led to some of his most distinguished publications, the first of which was ''The Anatomy of the Joints of Man'' (8 volumes, 43 plates, 1879; 8th American edition, Philadelphia, 1925). He later became the editor of the 1893 work, ''A Treatise on Human Anatomy''. Morris himself was the author of "The Articulations" section, with other contemporaries contributing the rest. Even after his death, the work was published for quite some time.

Work in cancer

He specialized in

cancer surgery Surgical oncology is the branch of surgery applied to oncology; it focuses on the surgical management of tumors, especially cancerous tumors. As one of several modalities in the management of cancer, the specialty of surgical oncology has evolved ...

and the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, now

Cancer Research UK Cancer Research UK (CRUK) is the world's largest independent cancer research organization. It is registered as a charity in the United Kingdom and Isle of Man, and was formed on 4 February 2002 by the merger of The Cancer Research Campaign and t ...

, was established at a meeting in his house, with Morris appointed Treasurer and Vice-President. He pioneered a number of procedures, being the first surgeon at the Middlesex Hospital to perform a total colectomy (1877), pylorectomy (1885) and total excision of the larynx (1885). In 1880, he successfully removed a large calculus from an undilated kidney, the first operation of its kind in the UK and in 1889 successfully removed a large part of a malignant urinary bladder. He delivered the

Bradshaw Lecture The Bradshaw Lectures are prestigious lectureships given at the invitation of the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Surgeons of England. List of past lecturers at Royal College of Physicians List of past lecturers at Royal C ...

at the

Royal College of Surgeons The Royal College of Surgeons is an ancient college (a form of corporation) established in England to regulate the activity of surgeons. Derivative organisations survive in many present and former members of the Commonwealth. These organisations a ...

in 1903 on the subject of cancer.

Later life and honors

He was elected President of the

, 1906–09 and President of the

, 1910–12. He was created a

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

in 1909. Morris supported

Sir William Osler Sir William Osler, 1st Baronet, (; July 12, 1849 – December 29, 1919) was a Canadian physician and one of the "Big Four" founding professors of Johns Hopkins Hospital. Osler created the first residency program for specialty training of phys ...

in the founding of The History of Medicine Society at The Royal Society of Medicine, London in 1912. He married a Russian dancer but, as she predeceased him having no children, the baronetcy became extinct upon his death in 1926.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, Sir Henry, 1st Baronet 1844 births 1926 deaths People educated at Epsom College Alumni of University College London British surgeons Presidents of the Royal Society of Medicine Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom People from Petworth British anatomists