For almost 200 years there had been a doctor resident in Bow. I was the twenty-ninth.
This is our story
THE MEDICAL GENTLEMEN OF BOW
Sir Henry Davy and Mr Russell Coombe
- both attended Dr Haycroft in his last illness.
Sir Henry Davy KBE CB MD FRCP
Born in Ottery St Mary in 1855, he trained at Guys Hospital. In 1881 he was appointed as one of the two physicians at RD&E. He was Sheriff of Exeter in 1887. In 1907 he was President of the BMA. During the First World War he was consulting Physician to Southern Command; for this he was knighted in 1919.
“He was implicitly trusted by his medical colleagues in all parts of Devonshire; his work was much increased by the self-forgetting readiness with which he responded to, any call to attend them, their wives or children, in sickness; he never failed to go to the help of any who needed him.”
He died at his residence in Southernhay of a stroke in 1922.
Russell Coombe
He was born in Waterford, Ireland in 1855 and was a mature student when he trained at Cambridge and St Georges, London, qualifying in 1886. He was a house surgeon at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital in 1887, and appointed a specialist there in 1894.
He was involved in the introduction of X-ray diagnosis in Exeter in 1898 with an amateur photographer when 40 minute exposure time was needed
Like his contemporary Davy he was Sheriff of Exeter in 1914, and was involved in BMA
In 1911 he proposed the surgical treatment for congenital pyloric stenosis later adopted by Rammstedt.
He also died of a stroke in 1933.
How to prepare for operations in private houses : a paper read before the Devon and Exeter Medico-Chirurgical Society / by Russell Coombe.1909
