Hugh Cairns, Rhodes scholar from Adelaide University, behind new school of neurological surgery in Britain
Hugo Cairns served in the Australian army medical corp during World War I before specialising in neurological surgery in England.
An energetic enthusiast from South Australia, Hugh Cairns created a new school of British neurological surgery of international stature between the 20th Century world wars.
Born in 1896 at Port Pirie and educated at Riverton and Adelaide high schools, where he was dux and journal editor in 1911, Cairns went to Adelaide University with an exhibition (scholarship).
1915, he joined the Australian Imperial Force as a private in the Australian Army Medical Corps, and served in the 3rd Australian General Hospital on Lemnos. Next year he returned to complete his medical course at Adelaide University that he represented at rowing and lacrosse. Graduating in 1917 as Davies Thomas and Everard Scholar, he was commissioned as military captain and elected to the South Australian Rhodes scholarship.
From 1918, he served in France with the 2nd and 3rd Australian general hospitals, the 47th British Division and the 15th Australian field ambulance. Cairns entered Balliol College, Oxford, in 1919, rowed as bow in the university boat race and was president of Balliol Boat Club. After six months in the Radcliffe Infirmary as house surgeon, he used his Rhodes scholarship to begin his long link with London Hospital, first in pathology, then in the surgical unit, becoming a fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons. In 1921 when he married Barbara Forster, youngest of the remarkable daughters of A. L. Smith, master of his Oxford college. At this stage, Cairns's special interest was genito-urinary work.
As Hunterian professor of the Royal College in 1926, he lectured on testicle tumours and the congenital cystic kidney. To develop neurosurgery at London Hospital, in 1926-27 he took leave with a Rockefeller fellowship to study the new speciality under Harvey Cushing at the Peter Brigham Young Institute, Boston, Massachusetts. He learned surgical technique, organising a clinic and the system of record collection to endow generations of pupils.
Back to England and London Hospital in 1927, he insisted on specialising in neurological surgery in an unorthodox way. His beds were scattered, theatres not easily made available, and nurses and especially radiologists were untrained in the new surgery unpopular with anaesthetists. Geoffrey Jefferson and Professor N. M. Dott faced similar obstacles and the trio soon created a new school of British neurological surgery of international stature.
Cairns consulting work was in London Hospital, operating in West End nursing homes. Another visit to Cushing strengthened Cairns' resolve to be an integral part of a medical school freed from the distractions and a busy metropolitan practice.
“Hugo” Cairns was the vital force in persuading Lord Nuffield, stunned by his unyielding energy, to become a benefactor of Oxford medicine. Cairns had by now an international reputation: when T. E. Lawrence was fatally injured on his motorcycle in 1935, it was "Mr Cairns, the brain surgeon” who was immediately called to treat him.
