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PAGET, SIR JAMES, BART

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Originally appearing in Volume V20, Page 452 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PAGET, See also:SIR See also:JAMES, See also:BART . (1814-1899), See also:British surgeon, See also:born at See also:Yarmouth on the Ilth of See also:January 1814, was the son of a See also:brewer and shipowner. He was one of a large See also:family, and his See also:brother Sir See also:George Paget (1809–1892), who became regius See also:professor of physic at See also:Cambridge in 1872, also had a distinguished career in See also:medicine and was made a K.C.B. He attended a See also:day-school in Yarmouth, and afterwards was destined for the See also:navy; but this See also:plan was given up, and at the See also:age of sixteen he was apprenticed to a See also:general practitioner, whom he served for four and a See also:half years, during which See also:time he gave his leisure See also:hours to botanizing, and made a See also:great collection of the See also:flora of See also:East See also:Norfolk. At the end of his See also:apprenticeship he publishedwith one of his brothers_ a very careful See also:Sketch of the Natural See also:History of Yarmouth and its Neighbourhood. In See also:October 1834 he entered as a student at St See also:Bartholomew's See also:Hospital. Medical students in those days were See also:left very much to themselves; there was no See also:close supervision of their See also:work, but it is probable that Paget gained rather than lost by having to fight his own way. He swept the See also:board of prizes in 1835, and again in 1836; and in his first See also:winter session he detected the presence of the Trichina spiralis, a See also:minute See also:parasite that infests the muscles of the human See also:body.' In May 1836 he passed his examination at the Royal See also:College of Surgeons, and became qualified to practise. The next seven years (1836–1843) were spent in See also:London lodgings, and were a time of poverty, for he made only £15 a See also:year by practice, and his See also:father, having failed in business, could not give him any help. He managed to keep himself by See also:writing for the medical See also:journals, and preparing the catalogues of the hospital museum and of the pathological museum of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1836 he had been made See also:curator of the hospital museum, and in 1838 demonstrator of morbid See also:anatomy at the hospital; but his See also:advancement there was hindered by the privileges of the hospital apprentices, and by the fact that he had been too poor to afford a See also:house-surgeoncy, or even a See also:dresser-See also:ship. In 1841 he was made surgeon to the See also:Finsbury Dispensary; but this See also:appointment did not give him any experience in the graver operations of See also:surgery.

In 1843 he was appointed lecturer on general anatomy (microscopic anatomy) and See also:

physiology at the hospital, and See also:warden of the hospital college then founded. For the next eight years he lived within the walls of the hospital, in See also:charge of about See also:thirty students See also:resident in the little college. Besides his lectures and his superintendence of the resident students, he had to enter all new students, to advise them how to work, and to See also:manage the finances and the general affairs of the school. Thus he was constantly occupied with the business of the school, and often passed a See also:week, or more, without going outside the hospital See also:gates. In 1844 he married See also:Lydia, youngest daughter of the Rev. See also:Henry See also:North. In 1847 he was appointed an assistant-surgeon to the hospital, and See also:Arris and See also:Gale professor at the College of Surgeons. He held this professor-ship for six years and each year gave six lectures in surgical See also:pathology. (The first edition of these lectures, which were the See also:chief scientific work of his See also:life, was published in 1853 as Lectures on Surgical Pathology.) In 1851 he was elected a See also:Fellow of the Royal Society. In October 1851 he resigned the wardenship of the hospital. He had now become known as a great physiologist and pathologist: he had done for pathology in See also:England what R. See also:Virchow had done in See also:Germany; but he had hardly begun to get into practice, and he had kept himself poor that he might pay his See also:share of his father's debts—a task that it took him fourteen years to fulfil.

It is probable that no famous surgeon, not"even See also:

John See also:Hunter, ever founded his practice deeper in See also:science than Paget did, or waited longer for his work to come back to him. In physiology he had mastered the chief See also:English, See also:French, See also:German, Dutch and See also:Italian literature of the subject, and by incessant study and See also:microscope work had put himself level with the most advanced knowledge of his time; so that it was said of him by R. See also:Owen, in 1851, that he had his choice, either to be the first physiologist in See also:Europe, or to have the first surgical practice in London, with a baronetcy. His physiological lectures at St Bartholomew's Hospital were the chief cause of the rise in the fortunes of its school, which in 1843 had gone down to a See also:low point. In pathology his work was even more important. He fills the See also:place in pathology that had been left empty by Hunter's See also:death in 1793—the time of transition from Hunter's teaching, ' This See also:discovery is usually credited to R. Owen (q.v.). The facts appear to be as follows: Paget was a first-year's student, and, by means of a See also:pocket See also:lens, found in the dissecting-See also:room that the specks in the infected muscles were parasitic See also:worms and not, as previously thought, spicules of See also:bone. See also:Thomas Wormal 1, the See also:senior demonstrator, who was no pathologist, sent a piece of the same muscle to Owen, who authoritatively pronounced the specks to be parasites and gave them their scientific name. It is probable that Owen did not realize that Paget had already made the discovery, and it was naturally associated with the name of the professor. which for all its greatness was hindered by want of the See also:modern microscope, to the pathology and See also:bacteriology of the See also:present day. It is Paget's greatest achievement that he made pathology dependent, in everything, on the use of the microscope—especially the pathology of tumours.

He and Virchow may truly be called the founders of modern pathology; they stand together, Paget's Lectures on Surgical Pathology and Virchow's Cellular-Pathologic. When Paget, in 1851, began practice near See also:

Cavendish Square, he had still to wait a few years more for success in professional life. The " turn of the See also:tide " came about 1854 or 1855; and in 1858 he was appointed surgeon extraordinary to See also:Queen See also:Victoria, and in 1863 surgeon in See also:ordinary to the See also:prince of See also:Wales. He had for many years the largest and most arduous surgical practice in London. His day's work was seldom less than sixteen or seventeen hours. Cases sent to him for final See also:judgment, with especial frequency, were those of tumours, and of all kinds of disease of the bones and See also:joints, and all " neurotic " cases having symptoms of surgical disease. His supremacy See also:lay rather in the science than in the See also:art of surgery, but his name is associated also with certain great See also:practical advances. He discovered the disease of the See also:breast and the disease of the bones (osteitis deformans) which are called after his name; and he was the first at the hospital to urge enucleation of the See also:tumour, instead of amputation of the See also:limb, in cases of myeloid sarcoma. In 1871 he nearly died from infection at a See also:post mortem examination, and, to lighten the See also:weight of his work, was obliged to resign his surgeoncy to the hospital. In this same year he received the See also:honour of a baronetcy. In 1875 he was See also:president of the Royal College of Surgeons, and in 1877 Hunterian orator. In 1878 he gave up operating, but for eight or ten years longer he still had a very heavy consulting practice.

In 1881 he was president of the Inter-See also:

national Medical See also:Congress held in London; in 188o he gave, at Cambridge, a memorable address on " Elemental Pathology," setting forth the likeness of certain diseases of See also:plants and trees to those of the human body. Besides shorter writings he also published Clinical Lectures and Essays (1st ed. 1875) and Studies of Old See also:Case-books (1891). In 1883, on the death of Sir George See also:Jessel, he was appointed See also:vice-See also:chancellor of the university of London. In 1889 he was appointed a member of the royal See also:commission on See also:vaccination. He died in London on the 3oth of See also:December 1899, in his eighty-fifth year. Sir James Paget had the See also:gift of eloquence, and was one of the most careful and most delightful speakers of his time. He had a natural and unaffected See also:pleasure in society, and he loved See also:music. He possessed the rare gift of ability to turn swiftly from work to See also:play; enjoying his holidays like a schoolboy, easily moved to See also:laughter, keen to get the maximun of happiness out of very ordinary amusements, emotional in spite of incessant self-See also:restraint, vigorous in spite of See also:constant overwork. In him a certain See also:light-hearted enjoyment was combined with the utmost reserve, unfailing religious faith, and the most scrupulous honour. He was all his life profoundly indifferent toward politics, both national and medical; his ideal was the unity of science and practice in the professional life. (S.

End of Article: PAGET, SIR JAMES, BART

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