Louis Barnett

Who was Louis Barnett?

Sir Louis Edward Barnett CMG was a professor of surgery and founder of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

His work at the Otago Medical School, where he was one of the schools earliest students, and with the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons led to the recognition of hydatid disease, a potentially fatal parasitic disease.

Working and teaching in Dunedin, Barnett established a national reputation for safe and sound surgery. He was the first surgeon in New Zealand to wear rubber gloves and a gauze mask in the operating theatre.

Barnett retired in 1925 at the age of 60 and moved to Hampden where his home is protected today by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust.

In 1935, he was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal.