Vivian Green-Armytage

Biography

• Born 14 August 1882 in Clifton, Bristol
• 1906 – Medical degree (MB ChB), University of Bristol. MD (1912); MRCP (1917)
• 1907-1913 Indian Medical Service
• 1914-1918 Royal Army Medical Corps [Croix of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour; Mons Star; and the Order of the White Eagle of Serbia with Crossed Swords]
• 1922-1933 Professor of midwifery and gynaecology at the Medical College of Calcutta
• 1929 – Foundation Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
• 1933 – Gynaecological surgeon, West London Hospital
• 1936 – Gynaecological and obstetric surgeon to the British Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith
• 1949-1952 Vice-president of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists
• Died 11 April 1961

Medical Eponyms

Green-Armytage Forceps (1937)

Atraumatic, broad-ended, haemostatic forceps reduce uterine muscle blood loss in caesarean section

…there is often considerable haemorrhage, venous or arterial, which obscures the view. Hitherto, I have dismissed this by using my hand as a vectis and delivering the foetus, catching up the bleeding edges afterwards, but the severe haemorrhage in one case taught me to devise a better method, and that is to get my assistant to apply to the edges of the incision as it is made, the forceps illustrated which have been constructed for me

They are soft-springed and have transverse serrations. Four of them are applied to the lower, and four to the upper, edges of the incision. They do no injury and stop all oozing. Moreover, being so grooved they can be pulled upon, and so the lower edge is not lost after delivery in a welter of blood and liquor amnii. This manoeuvre permits approximation of the edges, and enables easy and rapid suture of the incision

Green-Armytage 1937

Major Publications

• Green-Armytage VB. Oriental Medicine-Stray Jottings. Bristol Med Chir J (1883). 1910;28(107):40-45.
• Green-Armytage VB. Hypnotism and Psychotherapy. Ind Med Gaz. 1912;47(2):57-60.
• Green-Armytage VB. Ligation of the Internal Iliac and Ovarian Arteries. Ind Med Gaz. 1913;48(7):270-271.
• Green-Armytage VB. Obstetric Teaching. The Live Method. Ind Med Gaz. 1924;59(3):143-145.
• Green-Armytage VB. Pelvic Inflammatory Diseases and Pyosalpinx: Diagnosis, Pathology and Treatment. Ind Med Gaz. 1927;62(5):270-274.
• Green-Armytage VB. A Plea for Vaginal Hysterectomy in India: Its Indications and Technique. A Record of 150 Consecutive Cases. Ind Med Gaz. 1928;63(11):613-617.
• Green-Armytage VB. Gynæcology and Tropical Diseases in Shakespeare. Ind Med Gaz. 1930;65(6):333-339.
• Green-Armytage VB. Ovarian Tumours. A Ten Years’ Record of 547 Cases. Ind Med Gaz. 1931;66(6):313-315.
• Green-Armytage VB. The Twenty-Sixth Long Fox Memorial Lecture: The Debt of Western Medicine to the East. Bristol Med Chir J (1883). 1937;54(206):239-260.
• Green-Armytage VB. The Relative Values of the Upper- and Lower-Segment Caesarean Operations: (Section of Obstetrics and Gynaecology). Proc R Soc Med. 1937;30(5):551-562.
• Green-Armytage VB. Sterility and subfertility. Nurs Mirror Midwives J. 1947;84(2186):i.
• Green-Armytage VB. The dramatic in gynaecology and obstetrics. Bristol Med Chir J (1883). 1949;66(239):69-73.

Controversies

References

• Biography: Vivian Bartley Green Armytage. Lives of the Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians of London. Munk’s Roll: Volume V: 163.
• Bibliography. Green-Armytage, Vivian Bartley. WorldCat Identities
• Baskett TF. Eponyms and Names in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. 3e. 2019: 161-162