Temple University School of Medicine - Skull Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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The Skull bulb was so fixed to the proximal end of the tube that only 50% of its light was available for illumination. Shortly afterwards. Killian's assistant, Bruning. improved the mechanism so that nearly 100% of light could be directed on the field of observation. But this proximal illumination involved a good deal of top-hamper, and the surgeon had to look through a sort of key-hole” during the manipulation of his forceps, etc. An enormous improvement was soon to follow when Chevalier Jackson placed the light bulb at the distal end of the tube and thus provided for a full, unhindered view of the regions under examination, and removed those hindering mechanisms to which I have first referred. It seems strange to some of us that proximal light is still used in some of the Continental Clinics. As one who used the Bruning-Killian instrument for five to six years, I have often thought that to Jackson's transference of the light from the near to the distal end of the tube, is due the perfection of the art of Direct Endoscopy as we know it to-day, and in consequence the saving of thousands of lives from imminent peril. Fourteen But The Moving Finger writes, and having writ Moves on; . . . and the exigencies of time and space preclude me from saying more of what humanity owes to our friend for all he has done to make of Peroral Endoscopy one ot the great beacon-lights in the history of Medicine, and to have substantiated the prediction of The Great Teacher, who some 2,000 years ago said: There is nothing hid which shall not be manifested. Mark iv. 22.) If these lines catch the eye of anyone whose work lies outside the ambit of the subject, but who may. nevertheless, be interested in it, let him open Jackson s Peroral Endoscopy —the Bible of the Endoscopist—where he will be able—alas:— to see how scant justice I have been compelled to do its author. His fellow-countrymen—professional and lay—have bestowed their highest honours upon him. and most of the medical centres of all civilised countries have in various ways shown their appreciation of his work. It will always be for me a proud recollection that in that Autumn of 1930, I was able to procure for him an invitation from the Royal Society of Medicine. London, to give a General Lecture on Bronchoscopy in Relation to Diseases of the Chests. It is an honour reserved for the few. The large lecture hall was packed as never before or since; the audience was held spell-bound by the quiet yet forceful delivery of the lecturer, and almost awed by his capacity for making chalk-drawings without interrupting his discourse. By my side sat Lord Moynihan —President of the Royal College of Surgeons—who turned to me and said: What an artist! A few weeks later ihe name of Chevalier Jackson was added to the small list 1933

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The Skull A Herbert Tilley, F.R.C.S., M.D. Consulting Surgeon (Dis. Ear. Noso and Throat) University Collego Hospital (London) Ex-President: The Medical Society of London $ I WRITE these lines, it is exactly a year ago (February 20. 1932) since Mr. Wilfred Trotter. F.R.S.. took, as the subject of his Hunterian Oration before the Royal College of Surgeons— The Commemoration of Great Men. In that memorable and profoundly thoughtful address, the following paragraph will be found: It is possible that a future and more realistic age may reach the conclusion that the time to celebrate its heroes is while they are alive, and not to wait with our remarkable patience until they are safely dead. Such an age will perhaps reason in its clear way that its duty towards its great men is to get as much out of them as it can. and that no piety after their death can equal in effectiveness for the purpose, a receptive and sympathetic understanding during their lives. These lines came to my mind when the invitation reached me to send some message for the annual publication of The Skull. which is to be dedicated to my long-time, valued, and loyal friend—Dr. Chevalier Jackson. Here—I said to myself—is a splendid opportunity for obeying the injunction of our Hunterian Orator to praise a Master-mind in medicine while he is yet with us, and who, for all time—will rank with those of whom it has been said—“These were honoured in their generations, and were the glory of the times. (Ecdesiasticus xliv. 7.) But. Mr. Editor, with only mere words as an executive medium, my task is as hopeless as it is honourable, nor would I undertake it, if it were not with the certain knowledge that the cement which binds an understanding friendship will not be loosened by any poverty of expression on my part. Memory takes me back some thirty years to the occasion when I first met Chevalier Jackson in London at a Medical Congress, and like many of my colleagues, I was struck with his modest demeanour, his stubborn adherence to facts acquired by personal experience, and his I don't know where he did not consider a final expression of opinion was warranted. It was in those days that Killian had already established the value of Direct Endoscopy of the Larynx, and Lower Air Passages and the Oesophagus, especially as a means of removing foreign bodies from those regions. In his instrument, the electric Thirteen 933

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The Skull of Honorary Fellows of The Royal Society of Medicine —it has no greater honour at its disposal. The following evening the Laryngological Section of that Society gave a dinner with Jackson as our chief guest, during which we were delighted to discover in him, a hitherto unknown but deep spring of sparkling humour which, as might have been expected, was frequently directed against himself. In these few halting lines, and with indifferent success—it has been my purpose to make such simple reflections as are fitting for an occasion when we all desire to commemorate one of the great Masters in Medicine, who is still amongst us. In St. Paul's Cathedral, London, there may be seen over the tomb of its architect—Sir Christopher Wren—the engraved lines: Si monumentum requiris. circumspice. He did not live to see them, but our colleague. Chevalier Jackson, whom we honour today, must be one of the few who has long since seen his own monument the Bronchoscopic Clinics, which a grateful city has erected in appreciation of his brilliant pioneer and still sustained work in that particular branch medicine. If I may be allowed to speak for my British associates, it would be to say that we would like to join the Graduating Class of Temple Medical School in expressing, in the columns of The Skull our respectful admiration of Chevalier Jackson s life's work in Peroral Bronchoscopy, to acknowledge how much we have learned and still hope to learn from him, and last but not least, how deep is our admiration of all those intangible virtues which make him so much beloved by his friends and so deeply respected by all. Fiftoen 933 ■