William Thorburn

Who was William Thorburn?

Sir William Thorburn KBE, CB, CMG, FRCS DL was an English surgeon and pioneer in modern spinal surgery. At the time of his death he was Emeritus Professor of Clinical Surgery at the University of Manchester.

Thorburn was the son of Dr. John Thorburn, Professor of Obstetric Medicine at Owens College, William Thorburn was born on 7 April 1861, received his medical education at the Manchester Royal Infirmary, and afterward attended the practice of various hospitals in London. He took the degrees of B.Sc. and M.D. at the University of London with distinction, for he obtained the gold medals and was awarded a scholarship.

In 1886 he was elected F.R.C.S. Eng., and settled in Manchester, where he was appointed assistant surgeon to the Royal Infirmary. Here he made a reputation for the treatment of those injuries of the spine which at that time were frequent in the great manufacturing towns of the North. The subject had received little attention except in connection with railway accidents. In 1890 he gained the Jacksonian Prize for an essay on "The Nature and Treatment of Injuries to the Spinal Column and the consequences arising thereform." Four years later he delivered a course of lectures on these injuries as Hunterian Professor of Pathology and Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, the lectures being afterward printed. From this time onwards he was regarded as the leading exponent of this branch of surgery. He chose it as the subject of the Bradshaw Lecture in December, 1922, when he summed up the results of his experience of nearly half a century.