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Archive photographs of Anatomical Society meetings

Photographs published in Anastomosis, 2006

In 2000, when I was leaving Imperial College School of Medicine, I managed to rescue four photographs taken at various meetings of the Anatomical Society, that nobody else wanted to save. I suggested that they should be kept as part of the Society's archives. At the Council meeting in July 2005, I agreed to coordinate a further search. To begin, I digitised the group photographs which appear below. In the first , taken in 1931 in Belfast, there are some famous anatomical names and faces, some of which are amazingly young looking.

Anatomical Society Archive: Summer Meeting, Belfast, May 1931

The caption relates:

ANATOMICAL SOCIETY OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, SUMMER MEETING.

QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, BELFAST, MAY, 1931.

Back Row – H.A.Harris, E.P.Stibbe, E.Barclay-Smith, Mrs. Elliott-Smith, J.Beattie, Mrs. J.Beattie, R.D.Lockhart.

Second Row – W.W.Bassett, Miss G.Michael, J.D.Boyd, J.S.Baxter, D.Stewart, D.M.Blair, W.J.Hamilton, D.J.Hurrell, Miss P.Symmers, R.G.Inkster.

Third Row – H.A.Dunlop, D.R.Dow, T.Nicol, C.M.West, S.R.Shea, M.A.MacConaill, Miss J.L.McNeill, F.Davies, A.J.E.Cave, C.P.Martin.

Front Row – W.E.Harper, H.H.Woollard, A.R.Thompson, E.J.R.Evatt, T.Walmsley, T.H.Bryce, G.Elliott-Smith, A.F.Dixon, D.Waterson, J.M.Thompson, R.H.Hunter.

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Anatomical Society Archive: Summer Meeting, Cardiff, June 1946

After the Summer Meeting in Belfast in 1931 we come a little more up-to-date, to Cardiff in June 1946, and some of the older timers will recognise a number of names, and maybe faces. I certainly see my own Professor of Anatomy, Wilfred Le Gros Clark, about whom I also contribute a short article in this edition. Then there is WJ Hamilton, my predecessor at Charing Cross (who was a mere boy in the 1931 picture!). Other Oxford colleagues are Geoffrey Harris and Paul Glees. But each of you will see his or her own kith or kin, or at least recognise some famous anatomical names.

I do not need to transcribe the names this time, as the photographer had kindly done it already.

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Anatomical Society Archive: Summer Meeting , Edinburgh, June 1947

Further to the previous two photographs of early meetings of the Society, published in Anastomosis, here is the third. It was sent in by Dr A Mohiuddin, and shows the members present at the Summer Meeting in Edinburgh, 26 June 1947, 60 years ago.

Dr Mohiuddin is visible fifth from the left in the third row. I was very pleased to read a letter from him, published on page 4 of Anastomosis, Winter 2006. As he said, he is now 91 years old, but is obviously very alert and pointedly critical! All this prompted me to look into his career a little, and I found two fascinating papers. The fate of the nerves of the deciduous teeth appeared in the Journal of Anatomy of July 1950, 84, 319-323, and formed part of his Ph.D. thesis accepted by the University of London in October 1949. He was at the time at the Department of Anatomy, St Mary's Hospital Medical School, but states that his work was begun in St Thomas's Hospital Medical School (my own clinical school).

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1273306&pageindex=4#page

In the Journal of Anatomy of January 1951, 85, 24-35

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/pagerender.fcgi?artid=1273610&pageindex=11

another article on the post-natal development of the inferior dental nerve of the cat completes his PhD work. I was struck by the fact that he thanks Professor F Goldby for guidance, as well as Dr JJ Pritchard and Mr DA Scholl for advice on statistics. I was particularly interested in the reference to Professor Goldby, for he was one of my own DPhil examiners! Both Goldby and Pritchard appear in the 1947 picture. So does Paul Glees, with whom Dr Mohuiddin worked at one stage (Glees PA, Mohiuddin A, Smith AG,1949. Transplantation of Pacinian corpuscles in the brain and thigh of the cat. Acta Anat 7, 213–229).

A few years later, I found Dr Mohiuddin active in Singapore, another of my old haunts! (Suckling Reflex in the Cat, Nature, 1953,172, 688)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v172/n4380/abs/172688a0.html

and Variable Height of Intestinal Absorptive Cells (Nature, 1962, 195, 734 – 735)

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v195/n4842/abs/195734a0.html

Later still he was in Lagos, and now peacefully retired in Neston, Cheshire.

I wonder how many others of those in the photograph are still alive. Certainly, not many write letters to the editor of Anastomosis!

Several of those who were in Cardiff a year earlier are present in Edinburgh, but the total number has increased considerably, as has the number of spouses. I transcribe the names below, as they are difficult to distinguish on the scanned picture.

Back row: JW Smith, BS Robertson, R O’Rahilly (who seems to be about to photograph the photographer), RJ Harrison, DV Davies, JJ Pritchard, GW Harris, AGH Menzies, HD Darcus, JW Millen, RG Harrison, EJ Field, JB Brierley, EW Walls, JNM Parry, HWY Taylor, MM Bull, GF Hamilton, S. Mottershead, FR Wilde, EL Patterson, JDB MacDougall, GI Boyd

Third row: J Brander, GJ Romanes, FW Fyfe, CJOW Brandt, A Mohiuddin, CH Tonge, RJ Scothorne, RC Craig, HA Kashef, JWA Duckworth, WJ Hamilton, JS Baxter, J McKenzie, WCO Hill, RE Rewell, JH Mulligan, Mr WA Coutts (Asst. Secy., E.U.), Mr RO Curle (Accountant, E.U.), G Weddell, RG Inkster, WH Feindel, LJ Panting

Second row: Mr AF Giles (Deputy Secy., E.U.), Dr LW Sharp (Librarian, E.U.), Dorothy Cogswell (Mt. Holyoake), Mrs Tonge, Helen S Barrett, Lilian M Dickson, GAG Mitchell, FE Jardine, R Walmsley, IW Monie, P Bacsich, JD Boyd, T Grahame, J Whillis, Dr D Guthrie (Lecturer, History of Medicine), Eliz. Boyd (Mt. Holyoake), Mrs Hamilton, Mrs Brodal, Mrs Glees, P Glees, A Brodal (Oslo), Mrs Panting

Front row: Mrs Goldby, Mrs Dow, DR Dow, Mrs O’Rahilly, T Nicol (Treasurer), Mrs Brandt, Mr Alex Miles (Univ. Court), Mary F Lucas Keene, WF Harper (Recorder), Mrs West, J Kirk (Vice-President), Mrs Brash, Prof Sydney Smith (Dean, Faculty of Medicine, E.U.), JC Brash (President), Mrs Sydney Smith, Alex. Low, LS Stone (Yale), Mrs Stone, Dr HM Traquair (Univ. Court), JM Yoffey (Vice-President), CM West (Vice-President), T Walmsley, F Goldby (Secretary), Mrs McKenzie, Mrs Fyle

I presume that the “Mt. Holyoake” mentioned with the names of Dorothy Cogswell and Eliz. Boyd refers to Mount Holyoake College, South Hadley, Massachusetts. Dorothy Cogswell was Professor of Art History, and Elizabeth Boyd was Professor of Biological Sciences. Can anyone enlighten me further, and also on the significance of their presence?

We really should readopt the habit of a “family” photo like these at our modern Summer Meetings.

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