ROWLANDS, GRIFFITH (1761 - 1828), surgeon

Name: Griffith Rowlands
Date of birth: 1761
Date of death: 1828
Gender: Male
Occupation: surgeon
Area of activity: Medicine
Author: Melfyn Richard Williams

born in the parish of Llanfair near Harlech, Meironnydd on 9 April 1761. Having spent his apprenticeship as a surgeon in Liverpool, he succeeded in obtaining a place at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London. Following completion of seven years of medical education, he was accepted, on 1 August 1782, as a member of the Company of Surgeons, the predecessor of the Royal College of Surgeons. He was a house surgeon in the hospital in London for two years before establishing himself as a surgeon in Chester. In 1785 he was appointed surgeon to the city hospital, a post he occupied for 43 years. Griffith Rowlands was one of the first in Europe to treat a broken hip by sawing away both ends of the bone each side of the fracture in order to seek a better bond - and that over fifty years before the time of anaesthetic. Under his treatment, the left thumb of Thomas Charles of Bala was amputated in 1799. The thumb had frozen as Thomas Charles travelled on a frosty night over the Migneint mountains between the counties of Caernarfon and Merioneth. With Rowlands's help also, a stone weighing two and a quarter ounces was removed from the gall bladder of Thomas Jones of Denbigh (1756 - 1820) in 1802.

Although he spent the greater part of his life in England, he never lost his knowledge of the Welsh language and he was prominent in the activities of the Chester Cymrodorion Soc.

He died on 29 March 1828, a few days before his 66th birthday.

Author

Published date: 2001

Article Copyright: http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/

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