| Dr. Thomas Hancock Arnold Chaplin |
| The Times |
| Friday 20 Oct 1944 |
OBITUARYDr. T. H. Arnold ChaplinHARVEIAN LIBRARIANDr. T. H. Arnold Chaplin, M.D., F.R.C.P., Harveian librarian at the Royal College of Physicians, died at Bedford on October 18, as announced in our later editions yesterday. He had great learning of a very special character and it was his pleasure to put his knowledge at the service of his many friends.Born on August 30, 1964, Thomas Hancock Arnold Chaplin was the youngest son of the late Mr. A. T. Chaplin, of Fulbourn, Cambridgeshire. He was educated at Tettenhall College, and graduated at St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1886, with a second class in the Natural Sciences Tripos. After receiving his medical training at St. Bartholomew's Hospital he was elected F.R.C.P. in 1902. He then served as physician to the Metropolitan Dispensary in Fore Street, E.C., to the Hospital for Diseases Of The Heart And Lungs At Victoria Park, and to the East London Hospital For Children At Shadwell. For many years he was physician to the Marine and General Insurance Society, the Chinese Imperial Customs, and the Standard Life Assurance Society, and he was formerly medical inspector for the P. & O. Steam Navigation and the New Zealand Shipping Companies Dr. Chaplin published various medical works in collaboration with Sir Andrew Clark, Dr. W. J. Hadley, and Dr. Colbeck, and edited the fourth edition of a useful book entitled "The Shipmaster's Medical and Surgical Help and First Aid." originally written by Mr. W. Johnson Smith, the well known surgeon to the old Dreadnought. Being possessed of a sound knowledge of art, he prepared with the help of his wife a copy of Munk's Roll of the College of Physicians illustrated with a carefully selected series of engraved portraits of the Fellows of the College. He was also greatly interested in the island of St. Helena, contributing important papers on the last illness and death of Napoleon, and publishing in 1914 "A St. Helena Who's Who." In 1914, also, he published a life of Thomas Short, M.D., principal medical officer in St. Helena, with biographies of some other medical men concerned with the case of Napoleon from 1815 to 1821. In 1917 and 1918 he delivered the Fitzpatrick Lectures, which were afterwards published under the title "Medicine in England during the reign of George III." He was Harveian Orator in 1922, taking as his subject "Medicine in the Century before Harvey," and was president of the section of the history of medicine at the Royal Society of Medicine from 1922 to 1924. In 1909 he married Margaret Douie, daughter of J. H. Robertson, M.D., and widow of William Dougal. She died in 1938. |