Papers consist of series of four volumes containing press cuttings of articles in The British Medical Journal 1891-1912, mostly on subjects that relate to Saundby's specialist interests in diseases of the stomach and intestine and diabetes, but also including reviews of Saundby's published lectures, and published transcripts of talks and addresses by Saundby and others, also medical practice and treatments. The first volume, described at US104/1, also contains loose and pasted in items of correspondence. There is also a volume containing press cuttings on a number of subjects relating to medical ethics and medical law
University of Birmingham Staff Papers: Papers of Robert Saundby
This material is held atUniversity of Birmingham, Cadbury Research Library, Special Collections
- Reference
- GB 150 US104
- Dates of Creation
- 1891-1912
- Language of Material
- English
- Physical Description
- 2 Boxes
Scope and Content
Administrative / Biographical History
Robert Saundby, MB CM Edin (1874) MD MSc Birm Hon LLD McGill St And FRCP (1887) Hon FRCPI JP, was born in London in 1849. As a young man he travelled to India as a tea planter but after a short period returned to the UK due to ill health caused by a riding accident. He enrolled as a medical student at the University of Edinburgh where he was elected senior president of the Edinburgh Royal Medical Society and graduated as M.B, C.M. in 1874. Saundby was house physician at the Royal Infirmary and then the Royal Hospital for Diseases of the Chest.
In 1876 he was appointed pathologist to the Birmingham General Hospital and he became a physician there in 1885, a position he held for 27 years. On his retirement in 1912 he was appointed as a consulting physician. Saundby was elected to the staff of the Birmingham Eye Hospital, the Birmingham and Midlands Hospital for Women and the West Bromwich Hospital. He was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1887. During the 1914-1918 War he served as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Territorial Service at the 1st Southern General Hospital in Birmingham.
Saundby was lecturer on comparative anatomy at Queen’s College and afterwards Professor of Medicine at Mason University College and the University of Birmingham, on his retirement he was appointed Emeritus professor. He gave the Ingleby Lecture in 1894 On the Common Forms of Dyspepsia in Women and represented the University on the General Medical Council from 1905 to 1917. At the Royal College of Physicians, he delivered the Bradshaw Lecture of 1890 Morbid Anatomy of Diabetes Mellitus and the Harveian Oration on Harvey's Work Considered in Relation to Scientific Knowledge and University Education in His Time in 1917.
He was president of the British Medical Association in 1911 and was a member of the Midland Medical Society, and from 1895 to 1899 was president of the Birmingham Medical Institute. It was during this time he oversaw the development of the library and was the librarian for many years.
Saundby's specialist interests were in diseases of the stomach and intestine, nephritis (Bright’s disease), diabetes, old age care, and medical ethics. His Lectures on Bright's Disease published 1886 in which he described the clinical features of the disease is considered a milestone of nephrology literature. His 1907 book Medical Ethics: a guide to professional conduct was an important treatise on the responsibilities of the medical profession and the relationship between the doctor and the patient. This book is considered to have laid the foundations for the ethical work of the British medical Association.
Unlike many of his contemporaries who were dismissive of homeopathic treatments, Saundby was interested in natural therapies and believed they had a place in modern medical practice. One of his early works was a pamphlet on Metalloscopy, the use of metals and magnetics in patient care. During WWI at the 1st Southern General Hospital Saundby supported the idea of open-air treatment of injuries because ‘fresh air is the best tonic, the best antiseptic’. Noting that the university buildings at ‘Bournbrook, Birmingham, have been transformed at very considerable expense into a hospital of 600 beds, but it is likely that many more will be needed’, he recommended new annexes of brick, wood and asbestos sheeting to ‘furnish shelter without diminishing that supply of pure air and light which is necessary to health’.
Saundby was married in 1880 and had three sons and a daughter. His eldest son was killed in action in France in 1916 in WWI and his second son later became Air Marshal Sir Robert Henry Magnus Spencer Saundby. Robert Saundby died in 1918 following a long illness.
Sources: Obituary, British Medical Journal, 7 September 1918, p.271; Royal College of Physicians website: https://history.rcplondon.ac.uk/inspiring-physicians/robert-saundby; 'The Harveian Oration on Harvey's Work Considered in Relation to Scientific Knowledge and University Education in His Time. Delivered Before the Royal College of Physicians of London on October 18th, 1917, Robert Saundby', The British Medical Journal, Volume 2, Number 2965, 27 October 1917, pp.543-548; 'Open air hospitals in war time' by Robert Saundby, British Medical Journal, Volume 2, 19 September 1914, pp.493-494; also published in The Lancet, Volume 184, Number 4751, 19 September 1914, pp.759-761.
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