Victor Horsley: a continuing legacy: commemorating the centenary of Horsley’s death

Date:     23 November 2016, 5-8pm
Venue:   Lecture theatre, 33 Queen Square, London WC1N 3BG

2016 marks the centenary of the death of Sir Victor Horsley, who died in Mesopotamia, near Basra, serving his country during World War One.

Horsley (1857-1916) was the first neurosurgeon appointed to the National Hospital Queen Square, and was known worldwide as the ‘Father of Neurosurgery’. He was a brilliant experimentalist, elected as FRS at the age of 29 years for his work on cerebral localization and comparative anatomy. He pioneered resective neurosurgery for epilepsy, tumours, abscess, head injury, spinal and pituitary disease, and trigeminal neuralgia. He devised a stereotactic frame and a variety of new surgical techniques and technologies. He worked also on rabies, thyroid disease, vaccine, antisepsis, anaesthesia and military medicine. He was an iconoclast and social reformer, active in the Temperance Movement, a support of female suffrage, health care of the working class, vivisection and medical reform. He stood for Parliament and served as president of the British Medical Association, on the General Medical Council. He won the Gold Medal of the Royal Society, and was knighted in 1902.  He worked to reform the medical services of the British Army and died on active duty, the only casualty of the First World War amongst the National Hospital senior staff.

The meeting marks the centenary of his death, and celebrates the enduring legacy of one the greatest National Hospital doctors. Lectures will be presented by three speakers from Queen Square, and then the Victor Horsley Memorial Lecture will be given by Professor Zelma Kiss, University of Calgary, Canada.

Registration: All are welcome, and the meeting is free, Please register online via http://tiny.cc/horsley

CPD applied for.

PROGRAMME:

• 1700-1710 Welcome and Introduction
• 1710-1740 Simon Shorvon: “Sir Victor Horsley - life, wars and premature death”
• 1740-1800 Rob Brownstone: ‘Horsley and Sherrington and the discovery of the pyramidal tract”
• 1800-1820 Marwan Hariz: “Horsley and the women pioneers after him"
• 1820-1910 Sir Victor Horsley Lecture
• 1910 Reception

               Sir Victor Horsley Lecture
               Dr Zelma Kiss, neurosurgeon
               Department of Clinical Neuroscience, University of Calgary
               History of stereotactic and functional neurosurgery: A marriage of
               science and surgery

Note: There is a Victor Horsley exhibition in the Library, 1st floor, 23 Queen Square, Nov 2016 – Feb 2017