Sampson Handley

Who was Sampson Handley?

William Sampson Handley MD, MS, FRCS was an English surgeon who influenced the development of cancer surgery.

He was born in Loughborough, Leicestershire, England, he was the son of a Chemist Thomas Handley. He was educated at Loughborough Grammar School.

Sampson Handley trained as a medical doctor at Guy's Hospital from 1889 where he qualified in 1895 and became a MD the following year. He took in an interest in pathology as a route to becoming a surgeon and became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1897.

He worked at the cancer research wing at the Middlesex Hospital where he researched the methods by which cancer spread. He found that the main extension of breast cancer was along the lymphatics and he coined the words Lymphatic permeation. In 1905 he became an Assistant Surgeon at the Middlesex Hospital and continued his research into cancer. In 1906 he published Cancer of the Breast and its Operative Treatment which created his reputation with the wider medical establishment. In 1911 he was awarded the Walker Prize by the Royal College of Surgeons for advancing the knowledge of the pathology and therapeutics of cancer. As well as his work with cancer he was also a skilled abdominal surgeon.