'A Surgeon's Journey': Memoir of Richard Tottenham FRCOG

Typed memoir written by Richard Tottenham, Fellow of the RCOG, covering his childhood, in Mallow, County Cork, his medical training at Trinity College, Dublin (1906-1912) and experience as a student in Dublin’s Rotunda Maternity Hospital (1909), his first appointment to the staff of a mental hospital in Wexford, his service as a surgeon during the First World War with the Royal Navy in the South Atlantic, his appointment to Tsan Yuk hospital working for the Chinese Public Dispensary Committee to develop a maternity service there, with good notes on Chinese birth customs, developments in the Chinese medical profession, details of the Cantonese people among whom he worked, social activities and life in China, and experience of the ‘Great Typhoon’ (September 1937), concluding with his search for a home post and role as Honorary member of staff of the City and County Hospital in Londonderry, including interesting notes on the content of midwifery bags in the early 20th century, his duties as an ‘extern’ on home deliveries in Ireland, the method of anaesthesia used by obstetricians, his pre-war experiences as a ship’s surgeon in order to travel, a printed photograph of the Tsan Yuk Hospital, and some historical notes on the Russo-Japanese war.

Open to researchers by appointment, Monday to Friday, 10am to 4pm. mailto: archives@rcog.org.uk

Catalogued by Penny Hutchins, Archivist.

Copyright is vested in the estate of Richard Tottenham.

Reproductions are available at the discretion of the College Archivist.

Accessioned following discovery of the memoir among the biographical files in the RCOG Library collection in August 2012