William Warwick Wagstaffe

William Warwick Wagstaffe (Sr) (1843-1910) was an English General surgeon and anatomist.

Belonged to the progressive school of surgery, an early advocate of the direct reduction of intussusceptions. Most notable was the application of his anatomical knowledge to the study of morbid anatomy, as a means of elucidating the problems of pathology.

Eponymously affiliated with the Wagstaffe Fracture (Wagstaffe-Le Fort fracture) and the Wagstaffe tubercle

Struck down by an obscure nervous malady in 1878, which slowly but steadily removed all his ability for physical activity and he never returned to surgical practice

Biography

Born 1843
1855-1859 Epsom College
1861 – BA Kings College, London
1864 – MRCS Member of the Royal College of Surgeons
1867 – 1st MB, University of London but never to completed his Bachelor of Medicine examinations.
1868 – FRCS Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons
1871 – Resident Assistant Surgeon the Assistant Surgeon (1874), St Thomas’s Hospital
1878 – Developed general spinal paralysis with severe attacks of lightning pains. He became bedridden, but with intellect unimpaired.
Unable to return to practical work he busied himself for some years in writing reviews for the British Medical Journal, translated Heiberg’s Atlas of the cutaneous nerve supply of the human body (1885), and edited Mayne’s Medical Vocabulary 6e (1889) and 7e
Died 22 January 1910

Medical Eponyms

Wagstaffe-Le Fort Fracture – avulsion fracture of anterior margin of distal fibula at insertion of anterior tibio-fibular ligament
Wagstaffe tubercle – insertion site of anterior tibiofibular ligament on the anterior fibula