DOYEN OF DOCTORS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 74, 1 April 1929, Page 9

DOYEN OF DOCTORS

SIR DAVfD SERJEANT

DEATH AT NIXETY-NJNB

(From "The Post's" Representative.) - LONDON, 7th February.

Sir David Maurice Serjeant, the doyen of the medical profession, died at his home in London last month.

Sir David, who would have attained tho age of 99 next week, fell and broke his leg in November as he was stooping to pick up something from the floor. Me was in hospital in a critical condition for some days, and when he recovered suflicicntTy ho was taken home. He retired from, practice only three years ago. Ho was the son of a Huntingdonshire, lawyer, and had an adventurous youth. After being articled to a Peterborough doctor ho went to Australia in the early days of the gold rash-, and worked as a digger at Mount Alexander. Ha knew Melbourne before it was developed. . .

"Gold-digging," he once said, "did not make my fortune. I was a-gar-dener, a gold buyer, a painter, a paperhanger, and n conveyancing and en-, grossing clerk before I made enough money to come back to England in 1859 to complete my studies at Guy's Hospital and take my degree."

As an Australian colonist, Sir David played in the first two inter-colonial cricket matches, and was tho only survivor of those composing tho elevens. He hit, for two runs, the first ball ■bowled in Australian inter-State cricket. Formerly in tho P. and 0. Medical Service, ho possessed a keen intellect, and delighted to talk with his medical friends of the great changes in modicine and surgery that had taken place in his lifetime. He could recall the times when surgeons performed operations with the aid of. unskilled "Sairey Gamp" nurses smoking clay pipesi. Ho received his knighthood in 1922. A CHANGED SUBURB. Sir David was fond of recalling the great changes in Caniberwcil since ho "went to live in that suburb in the late ''sixties.

"It was full of wealthy people then," he once said. "In one house in I'eckham placo lived three brothers— one an admiral; one an insrjoctor of fleets, and the third a colonel —and all were wealthy. Nowadays they are all tradesfolk and lodgers. To give you an idea of the wealth of Camberwell people in the 'seventies, I remember holding ono of the plates in Gamden Church on a Sunday when the total offertory was £2500. "C'amdcn Church was enlarged and beautified by Mir Gilbert Scott with Ituskiu'a advice, and Buskin and Browning were both members of its congregations. It had a succession of able preachers, such as iVlelville and Homing. I remember that for this very house, before I moved into it, a distinguished member of my profession departed one day with a thousandguinea fee in his pocket. I regret to say that the patient —a lady—died two or three days after the operation, but how many Camberwell people could pay a fee o£ that size nowadays?"

Sir David was very proud of liis literary work, for which he had received, the thanks of Queen Victoria, King Edward Vll.,,KingVeosge V., and other members of the Royal Family. His book on Australia, -with many interesting reminiscences of Australian cricket, brought him a message of "sincere thanks" from the King. Sir David had three daughters, two of whom are doctors, and ono, son, who is also a doctor. Dr. Helen Serjeant is well known for her hifunt-welt'uro work in (•'amberwcll, ami an illuminated address, presented to her by the Borough Couu-.i-il, recorded the fact that as a, result "f'her. book, ■"Hints on Infant Feeding,." infant mortality in Camberwell was reduced by 20 per cent.