Notes |
- Permanent Hemianopia and exaggeration of certain mannerisms of speech and gesture caused by a serious motorcycle accident around 1908. [Hemianopia is the loss of vision for one half of the visual field of one or both eyes].
CUMBERBATCH, Elkin Percy b. 20 June 1880 d. 28 Mar 1939
MA Oxon (1909) BM BCh OXON (1909) DMRE Cantab (1925) MRCP (1911) FRCP (1933)
Elkin Cumberbatch, son of Charles Walter Cumberbatch and his wife, the former Pamela Pillinger, was born at Queen Charlton, Somerset, was educated at St. Paul's School, and entered Keble College, Oxford, with an open science scholarship in 1899. He was a Christopher Welsh prize winner, and in 1904 was awarded the senor university scholarship to St. Bartholomew's, where his uncle, E. A. [Alphonso Elkin] Cumberbatch, had been appointed as the first aural surgeon in 1882. Just before qualifying he had a serious motor-cycle accident which left him with a permanent hemianopia and an exaggeration of certain mannerisms of speech and gesture. After graduating he held a house surgeon post at the Dorset County Hospital before returning to St. Bartholomew's as house physician to Sir Wilmot Herringham. Later he became a demonstrator in physiology and clinical assistant in the electrical department. At that time Dr. H. Lewis-Jones was head of the department, but on his retirement in 1912 it was split into the X-Ray and electrical departments and Cumberbatch, at the age of thirty-two, was appointed medical officer in charge of the latter. When the 1914-18 War started he was put in charge of the electrical department of the 1st London General Hospital (Camberwell), where he made a special study of muscle-nerve testing on which he soon became the leading expert.
Cumberbatch was an enthusiast, but a critical enthusiast, for electrotherapy, demanding of himself and of others satisfactory evidence before he would accept the claims of any new method. The same reservations in his attitude to medical diathermy were displayed in the work which he did with C.A. Robinson on the use of diathermy in gonococcal infections.
As a teacher he was pre-eminent, whether lecturing to medical students, visitors or post-graduates studying for the D.M.R.E. [Diploma in Medical Radiology and Electrology]. His lectures, like his writings, were clear and concise, delivered in perfect English and enlivened with flashes of humour or apt quotations, for he had a remarkable memory and the gift of explaining difficult points by diagrams or homely similes. These lectures were the foundations of some eighty articles and books. They formed the basis of his Lectures on medical electricity (1934) which proved very popular, as did E.R. Morton's Essentials of medical electricity, of which he edited the third edition but afterwards rewrote, so that the five subsequent editions (1919-1939) appeared under his own name.
Cumberbatch had a somewhat reserved manner. He was seldom ruffled, and showed the greatest consideration for all his patients who, like his staff, felt for him a real sense of affection. In the company of his friends he was a genial and indeed brilliant conversationalist, but he had few outside interests. As a student he had played golf, but after his accident he took to billiards, and was a very keen motorist. He married Isabel Gibbons, of Valparaiso, in 1918, and had a son and a daughter.
[Brit. J. phys. Med., 1939, 2, 116-17 (p); Brit. J. Radiol., 1939, 12, 317-18; Brit. Med. J., 1939, 1, 752; Lancet, 1939, 1, 792-3; St. Bart's Hosp. J., 1938-9, 46, 161-2 (p); St. Bart's Hosp. Rep., 72, 1-6. bibl.]
Source: Munk's Roll, Vol: V; pp 91-92; R926/1 Guildhall Library, Richard R. TRAIL Ed.; London: Published by The College [Royal College of Physicians] 1968.
CUMBERBATCH, Elkin Percy; Medical Officer in charge of Electrical Dept. St. Bartholomew's Hospital since 1912; Consultant to the Miller Hospital, Greenwich; and during war at the First London General Hospital (Military), Camberwell; b. Queen Charlton, Somerset, 20 June 1880; s. [son] of Charles Walter CUMBERBATCH; m. [married] 1918, Isabel, 2nd d. [daughter] of late Richard Gibbons, Valparaiso; one s. [son] one d. [daughter]. Educ.: St. Paul's School; Oxford University; St. Bartholomew's Hospital. Senior Foundation Scholar, St. Paul's School; left in 1899 with senior science exhibition; entered Keble College Oxford, with open scholarship in science; B.A. 1903, obtaining first-class honours in the School of Natural Science; Welsh-Memorial Prizeman, Oxford University, 1904; entered St. Bart.'s Hospital, 1904, with senior university scholarship; B.M., B.Ch (Oxon), 1909, and graduated M.A.; House Surgeon to the Dorset County Hospital, 1909-10; House Physician to St. Bart.'s Hospital, 1910-11; Member of Royal College of Physicians, 1911; and Fellow Royal Coll. of Physicians, 1933; Demonstrator in Physiology at the St. Bart.'s Medical School, 1911-13; Chief Assistant to the X-Ray Dept. St. Bart.'s Hospital, 1911-12; Fellow of Royal Society of Medicine, 1912 (President of section of Electro-therapeutics, 1921-22); President of Section of Electrology, Bi-Lingual Congress, London, 1922; President of Section of Electrotherapeutics, 6th International Congress of Physical Medicine, London, 1936; D.M.R.E. (Camb.), 1925; Examiner in Medical Electrology, Cambridge University, 1921-23 and 1927-37. Publications: Essentials of Medical Electricity, 7th edition; Treatise on Diathermy, 3rd edition; Treatment of Gonococcal Infection by Diathermy (joint author); Lectures on Medical Electrology, 1934; various papers on Electrotherapeutics in the medical journals and text-books. Recreation: motoring. Address: 18 Manchester Square, W.1. T.[Telephone]: Welbeck 3036, Ealing 0623. (Died 24 March 1939)
Source: Who Was Who 1929 - 1940 R920/042 Guildhall Library p. 315
The Times Newspaper Index: January - March 1921 CUMBERBATCH, Elkin P.:-"Diathermy" -noticed (L.S.) Mar. 24, 198d
His funeral service was held at St. Bartholomew-the-Less, Smithfield, London and was attended by: Family attendees: Mrs. E.P. Cumberbatch (widow), Mr Richard Cumberbatch (son), Miss Eileen Cumberbatch (daughter), Mrs. G.W.S. Willins (sister) Mr Hugh Willins, Mr & Mrs Norman Evans plus numerous staff from St. Barts Hospital. He was buried at All Souls' Cemetery, Kensal Green, London. [1]
- CUMBERBATCH, Elkin Percy b. 20 June 1880 d. 28 Mar 1939
MA Oxon (1909) BM BCh OXON (1909) DMRE Cantab (1925) MRCP (1911) FRCP (1933)
Elkin Cumberbatch, son of Charles Walter Cumberbatch and his wife, the former Pamela Pillinger, was born at Queen Charlton, Somerset, was educated at St. Paul’s School, and entered Keble College, Oxford, with an open science scholarship in 1899. He was a Christopher Welsh prize winner, and in 1904 was awarded the senor university scholarship to St. Bartholomew’s, where his uncle, E. A. Cumberbatch, had been appointed as the first aural surgeon in 1882. Just before qualifying he had a serious motor-cycle accident which left him with a permanent hemianopia and an exaggeration of certain mannerisms of speech and gesture. After graduating he held a house surgeon post at the Dorset County Hospital before returning to St. Bartholomew’s as house physician to Sir Wilmot Herringham. Later he became a demonstrator in physiology and clinical assistant in the electrical department. At that time Dr. H. Lewis-Jones was head of the department, but on his retirement in 1912 it was split into the X-Ray and electrical departments and Cumberbatch, at the age of thirty-two, was appointed medical officer in charge of the latter. When the 1914-18 War started he was put in charge of the electrical department of the 1st London General Hospital (Camberwell), where he made a special study of muscle-nerve testing on which he soon became the leading expert.
Cumberbatch was an enthusiast, but a critical enthusiast, for electrotherapy, demanding of himself and of others satisfactory evidence before he would accept the claims of any new method. The same reservations in his attitude to medical diathermy were displayed in the work which he did with C.A. Robinson on the use of diathermy in gonococcal infections.
As a teacher he was pre-eminent, whether lecturing to medical students, visitors or post-graduates studying for the D.M.R.E. His lectures, like his writings, were clear and concise, delivered in perfect English and enlivened with flashes of humour or apt quotations, for he had a remarkable memory and the gift of explaining difficult points by diagrams or homely similes. These lectures were the foundations of some eighty articles and books. They formed the basis of his Lectures on medical electricity (1934) which proved very popular, as did E.R. Morton’s Essentials of medical electricity, of which he edited the third edition but afterwards rewrote, so that the five subsequent editions (1919-1939) appeared under his own name.
Cumberbatch had a somewhat reserved manner. He was seldom ruffled, and showed the greatest consideration for all his patients who, like his staff, felt for him a real sense of affection. In the company of his friends he was a genial and indeed brilliant conversationalist, but he had few outside interests. As a student he had played golf, but after his accident he took to billiards, and was a very keen motorist. He married Isabel Gibbons, of Valparaiso, in 1918, and had a son and a daughter.
[Brit. J. phys. Med., 1939, 2, 116-17 (p); Brit. J. Radiol., 1939, 12, 317-18; Brit. Med. J., 1939, 1, 752; Lancet, 1939, 1, 792-3; St. Bart’s Hosp. J., 1938-9, 46, 161-2 (p); St. Bart’s Hosp. Rep., 72, 1-6. bibl.]
Source: Munk’s Roll, Vol: V; pp 91-92; R926/1 Guildhall Library, Richard R. TRAIL Ed.; London: Published by The College [Royal College of Physicians] 1968.
- CUMBERBATCH Elkin Percy of Ethelburga 13 Elm Grove-road Ealing Middlesex died 24 March 1939 at St. Bartholomews Hospital West Smithfield London EC1 Probate London 20 June [1939] to Lloyds Bank Limited. Effects £13,274 7s 9d. [20]
- CUMBERBATCH, Elkin Percy; Medical Officer in charge of Electrical Dept. St. Bartholomew’s Hospital since 1912; Consultant to the Miller Hospital, Greenwich; and during war at the First London General Hospital (Military), Camberwell; b. Queen Charlton, Somerset, 20 June 1880; s. [son] of Charles Walter CUMBERBATCH; m. [married] 1918, Isabel, 2nd d. [daughter] of late Richard Gibbons, Valparaiso; one s. [son] one d. [daughter]. Educ.: St. Paul’s School; Oxford University; St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Senior Foundation Scholar, St. Paul’s School; left in 1899 with senior science exhibition; entered Keble College Oxford, with open scholarship in science; B.A. 1903, obtaining first-class honours in the School of Natural Science; Welsh-Memorial Prizeman, Oxford University, 1904; entered St. Bart.’s Hospital, 1904, with senior university scholarship; B.M., B.Ch (Oxon), 1909, and graduated M.A.; House Surgeon to the Dorset County Hospital, 1909-10; House Physician to St. Bart.’s Hospital, 1910-11; Member of Royal College of Physicians, 1911; and Fellow Royal Coll. of Physicians, 1933; Demonstrator in Physiology at the St. Bart.’s Medical School, 1911-13; Chief Assistant to the X-Ray Dept. St. Bart.’s Hospital, 1911-12; Fellow of Royal Society of Medicine, 1912 (President of section of Electro-therapeutics, 1921-22); President of Section of Electrology, Bi-Lingual Congress, London, 1922; President of Section of Electrotherapeutics, 6th International Congress of Physical Medicine, London, 1936; D.M.R.E. (Camb.), 1925; Examiner in Medical Electrology, Cambridge University, 1921-23 and 1927-37. Publications: Essentials of Medical Electricity, 7th edition; Treatise on Diathermy, 3rd edition; Treatment of Gonococcal Infection by Diathermy (joint author); Lectures on Medical Electrology, 1934; various papers on Electrotherapeutics in the medical journals and text-books. Recreation: motoring. Address: 18 Manchester Square, W.1. T.[Telephone]: Welbeck 3036, Ealing 0623. (Died 24 March 1939)
Source: Who Was Who 1929 – 1940 R920/042 Guildhall Library p. 315
- Obituary
E. P. CUMBERBATCH, B.M., F.R.C.P.
Medical Officer in Charge of the Electrotherapeutic Department,
St. Bartholomew’s Hospital
By the death on March 24 of Dr. Elkin Percy Cumberbatch at the age of 58 St. Bartholomew’s Hospital loses a fine teacher who was himself a pioneer and inspired others to become later in their turn eminent in the branch of medicine towards the creation of which he had contributed so much. His career was brilliant from its start. He held a senior foundation scholarship at St. Paul’s School, and left it in 1899 with a senior exhibition in science to enter Keble- College, Oxford, with an open scholarship in science. He graduated B.A. in 1903, with first-class honours in the School of Natural Science, and entered St. Bartholomew’s with a senior university scholarship, having already won the Welsh Memorial Prize at Oxford. Five years later he graduated M.A., B.M., B.Ch. A tradition was already being created at St. Bartholomew’s by his cousin, A. E. Cumberbatch, F.R.C.S., who had been aural surgeon since 1882, after serving for many years as demonstrator of anatomy; in spite of great difficulties due to the nearness of the old surgery, the traffic of Smithfield, and grievous lack of space, he was bringing into existence a school of practical otology. After passing the final medical examinations, E. P. Cumberbatch became house-physician at St. Bartholomew’s in 1910; he had spent the previous year as house-surgeon to the Dorset County Hospital. He took the M.R.C.P. in 1911, and was elected a Fellow in 1933. He was examiner in medical electrology for the Cambridge D.M.R.E. in 1921-3 and 1927-33. In earlier years at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital H. Lewis Jones and W. E. Steavenson were engaged in the pioneer work which has been described as having “elevated medical electricity in England from scientific empiricism to a recognized branch of medicine.” These two physicians were followed by Hugh Walsham and E. P. Cumberbatch, and it has been recorded that diathermy, ionization, treatment by sinusoidal currents, and the “condenser method” of testing reactions were first practised in England in the old electrical department at Bart’s, which was developing under Dr. Lewis Jones, the “father of medical electricity.” When Cumberbatch succeeded Walsham he brought skill and initiative into a field in which his predecessors had already achieved so much. He was president of the Section of Electrotherapeutics of the Royal Society of Medicine in the year 1921-2, president of the Section of Electrology at the Bilingual Congress held in London in 1922, and president of the Section of Electrotherapeutics at the sixth International Congress of Physical Medicine in 1936.
A member of the British Medical Association since 1911, Cumberbatch was secretary of the Section of Electrotherapeutics at the Annual Meeting at Cambridge in 1920, vice-president of the Section of Radiology at Glasgow in 1922, and vice-president of the Section of Physical Medicine at the Centenary Meeting in London in 1932. He was a member of the conference in 1933-4 which dealt with the training and recognition of balneological assistants, and served on the Physical Medicine Group Committee from 1933 to 1937.
Dr. Alastair MacGregor writes:
The unexpected death of Dr. E. P. Cumberbatch has removed from our midst one who could be ill spared, and has created a great void among the ranks of scientific electrotherapists which will be hard to fill. Many years ago, when already recognized by the authorities in Great Britain as a leader in his special branch of medicine, he attained an international reputation after the publication of his two standard works, Essentials of Medical Electricity and Diathermy, both of which have passed into several editions. I first met Cumberbatch in the early days of his career, in 1913, and soon struck up a friendship with him. This friendship was further cemented when, in the following year, I was appointed chief assistant in the electrical department at St. Bartholomew’s, a post which I held for seventeen years. I soon found out that his reserved manner could not conceal a delightful personality with a clever and versatile brain and high ideals of his profession. He was a brilliant conversationalist with a keen sense of humour, often expressing itself in anecdotes of his school, Oxford, and Bart’s days. One envied his wonderful memory when he recited screeds of Latin, Greek, and English poetry, grave and gay, and long quotations from Dickens and other authors. He was not only a master of his special subject but was a fine teacher of it. His lectures to the candidates for the Cambridge D.M.R.E. who came to Bart’s were models of what lectures should be clear, concise, delivered in perfect English enlivened at intervals with flashes of humour; the most difficult points explained either by diagrams or by homely similes which made them patent to the meanest capacity. He was always most painstaking in his examination of hospital patients, and treated the poorest of them with the same kindness and courtesy which he would extend to the most affluent of his private patients. All the years during which I was working with Cumberbatch I have rarely or never seen him ruffled or impatient, except when he was talking about any practitioner who had done something unprofessional, especially if it savoured of quackery, that quackery from which his eminent predecessor, Dr. Lewis Jones, and he had done so much to emancipate medical electricity. He was ever a seeker after the truth, and would examine every new theory or suggested method of treatment from every point of view before making a decision; and I do not remember him ever making a statement which he had afterwards to retract. Many will remember Cumberbatch in after-years as a great master and teacher of medical electricity. I shall, moreover, ever keep a spot of memory green for a great man whose unbroken friendship, through weal and woe, I enjoyed for twenty-six years, and from whom I received many acts of kindness.
Elkin Percy Cumberbatch’s Obituary
British Medical Journal 8 April 1939 p.752
[Source: http://www.bmj.com/content/1/4083/752.full.pdf visited: 12 Sep 2011]
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