Timothy Holmes

FRCS Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons (FRCS) is a professional certification, professional qualification to practise as a senior surgeon in Republic of Ireland, Ireland or the United Kingdom. It is bestowed on an wikt:intercollegiate, ...

(9 May 1825 in

Islington Islington ( ) is an inner-city area of north London, England, within the wider London Borough of Islington. It is a mainly residential district of Inner London, extending from Islington's #Islington High Street, High Street to Highbury Fields ...

Greater London Greater London is an administrative area in England, coterminous with the London region, containing most of the continuous urban area of London. It contains 33 local government districts: the 32 London boroughs, which form a Ceremonial count ...

– 8 September 1907) was an English surgeon, known as the editor of several editions of ''

Gray's Anatomy ''Gray's Anatomy'' is a reference book of human anatomy written by Henry Gray, illustrated by Henry Vandyke Carter and first published in London in 1858. It has had multiple revised editions, and the current edition, the 42nd (October 2020 ...

''.

Life

Holmes was the third child of Elizabeth (Hanby) and John Holmes, warehouseman /merchant of 68 Watling St, London. In 1841, Holmes was living in Colebrooke Row, Islington. His siblings were Thomas Holmes, born 1821, and Elizabeth (Peterson Ward) born 1823. Holmes was educated at Merchant Taylors' School and then at

Pembroke College, Cambridge Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. The college is the third-oldest college of the university and has over 700 students and fellows. It is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from ...

with B.A. in 1847 and M.A. in 1850. He studied medicine at St George's Hospital. In 1853 he was made a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons without previously having acquired the usual diploma of M.R.C.S. At

St George's Hospital St George's Hospital is a large teaching hospital in Tooting, London. Founded in 1733, it is one of the UK's largest teaching hospitals. It is run by the St George's University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It shares its main hospital site i ...

he became house surgeon, surgical registrar, and in 1867 full surgeon. Also, at the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street, Holmes was assistant surgeon from 1859 and then full surgeon from 1861 to 1868. He was also appointed Chief Surgeon of the Metropolitan Police in 1865. In 1889 Holmes was the chairman of the Building Committee of the

Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London The Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London (RMCS), created in 1805 as the Medical and Chirurgical Society of London, was a learned society of physicians and surgery, surgeons, that received a Royal charter in 1834, and a supplement chart ...

; the committee was in charge of moving the Society from its old quarters in

Berners Street Berners Street is a thoroughfare located to the north of Oxford Street in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, originally developed as a residential street in the mid-18th century by property developer William Berners (property d ...

to a house in Hanover Square. In 1890 he was elected the Society's president.

Works

Holmes wrote ''A Treatise on the Surgical Treatment of the Diseases of Infancy and Childhood'' (1868) and was the editor of the third through ninth editions of ''Gray's Anatomy'', preceded in the editorship by

Henry Gray Henry Gray (1827 – 13 June 1861) was a British anatomist and surgery, surgeon most notable for publishing the book ''Gray's Anatomy''. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) at the age of 25. Biography Gray was born ...

and succeeded by T. Pickering Pick. Holmes was the co-editor of the first 8 volumes of the journal '' St George's Hospital Reports''. With John S. Bristowe, Holmes published in 1863 a report, commissioned by the Privy Council, on the state of hospitals and their administration in the U.K. He was the editor of 4 editions o
''A Treatise on Surgery: Its Principles and Practice''
(1st edition, 1875; 2nd, 1878; 3rd, 1882; 4th, 1886). He wrote a biography of Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie published in 1898. He was a friend of the pathologist and

syphilologist Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms depend on the stage it presents: primary, secondary, latent or tertiary. The primary stage classic ...

Henry Lee, writing his obituary in

The Lancet ''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal, founded in England in 1823. It is one of the world's highest-impact academic journals and also one of the oldest medical journals still in publication. The journal publishes ...

in 1898. Holmes also created the first English translation of ''Lay Down Your Arms!'' (''

Die Waffen nieder! The book ''Die Waffen nieder!'' (''Down with Weapons!'') or ''Lay Down Your Arms!'' is the best-known novel by the author and peace activist Bertha von Suttner, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1905 for the book. The book was published in 1 ...

)'' by

Bertha von Suttner Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicitas von Suttner (; ; 9 June 184321 June 1914) was an Bohemian nobility, Austro-Bohemian noblewoman, Pacifism, pacifist and novelist. In 1905, she became the second female Nobel laureate (after Marie Curie in 1903), th ...

in 1892. The second edition of his translation was published in 1908.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Holmes, Timothy 1825 births 1907 deaths English surgeons English book editors English medical writers Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of England Alumni of Pembroke College, Cambridge People educated at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood Physicians of Great Ormond Street Hospital Chief Surgeons of the Metropolitan Police