Hamilton Bailey

Biography

• Born on October 1, 1894 at Bishopstoke, Hampshire son of Dr Henry James Bailey MB, MS (Edin)
• 1912 – entered London Hospital Medical College
• 1914 – volunteered for service with the Red Cross and was sent to Brussels, serving as a dresser. Belgium was rapidly overrun by the Germans and Bailey was taken prisoner
• 1916 – released and became temporary surgeon with the Royal Navy serving aboard HMS Inflexible, HMS M19, and HMS Iron Duke
• 1920 – FRCS, becoming surgical registrar and 1st surgical assistant at London Hospital. While operating on a patient with septic peritonitis, accidently pricked his finger, suffering an infection to right index finger leading to its amputation
• 1925 – moves to Liverpool. Marries Vera Gillender. Awarded Gillson Scholarship by Society of Apothecaries
• 1926 – first independent surgical post at Dudley Road Hospital, Birmingham
• 1927 – publishes Demonstrations of physical signs in clinical surgery
• 1930 – Joins Royal Northern Hospital, London. Publishes Emergency Surgery
• 1931 – Surgeon at Bruce Wills Memorial Hospital at Bristol
• 1949 – Admitted to mental health hospital in Sussex suffering manic-depression. He remained an inpatient for 2 years. Due for pre-frontal leucotomy but successfully treated with lithium
• Died 1961

Medical Eponyms

Sister Mary Joseph Nodule

Originally the Sister Joseph Nodule, now commonly referred to as a Sister Mary Joseph Nodule, the physical finding was eponymously named after Sister Mary Joseph (Julia Dempsey), nursing superintendent of Saint Mary’s Hospital, now known as the Mayo Clinic.

Entering the Congregation of Our Lady of Lourdes in Rochester, Julia Dempsey received the name of Sister Mary Joseph. She went on to study nursing and became the first surgical assistant under the guidance of Dr William James Mayo from 1890-1915.

While working under Dr Mayo, Sister Mary noted the paraumbilical nodules during skin prep and correlated these to the intra-abdominal malignancy then found during the operation.

Hamilton Bailey named the sign in recognition of Sister Joseph in his textbook Demonstration of Physical Sign in Clinical Surgery in 1949.

In advanced intra-abdominal carcinoma, a neoplastic nodule can sometime be seen or felt at the umbilicus. This is known as Sister Joseph’s nodule*.

* Sister Joseph of the Mayo Clinic imparted this clinical observation to Dr William Mayo

Hamilton-Bailey 1949: 227

…however… the sign had been previously published…many times

Controversies

In 1958, Sir Hamilton Bailey was preparing a new edition of his Short Practice of Surgery. As he later reported in letters to the Lancet and the British Medical Journal, he did not detect the falsity of the Coudé biography until his text was in page proof. Consequently several pages of the new edition had to be reset and biographical references to Coudé deleted.

Major Publications

• Hamilton Bailey H. Demonstrations of physical signs in clinical surgery. 1927
• Hamilton Bailey H, McNeill Love RJ. Bailey & Love’s Short practice of surgery. 1932 (13e)
• Hamilton Bailey H. Emergency surgery. 1930 (2e 1936)
• Hamilton Bailey H. Surgery of Modern Warfare. 1940 [Vol 2]
• Hamilton Bailey H, Bishop WJ. Notable names in medicine and surgery. 1959

References

Biography

• Hamilton BAILEY. Br Med J. 1961 Apr 8;1(5231):1043-4.
• HAMILTON BAILEY, (1894-1961). Br J Surg. 1965 Apr;52:241-5
• Martson A. Hamilton Bailey: a surgeon’s life. London: Greenwich Medical Media, 1999
• Bailey, Henry Hamilton (1894-1961). Plarr’s Lives of the Fellows Online. Royal College of Surgeons.

Eponymous terms

• McNeill Love RJ. Hamilton Bailey (1894–1961). BJS, 1965; 52(4): 241-245