Charles Hilton Fagge (1838–1883)

Abstract

THIS distinguished London physician was born on June 30, 1838, at Hythe in Kent, where his family had been in practice for two generations, and was the eldest of three brothers who joined the medical profession. He was educated at Guy's Hospital, to which he was appointed assistant physician with charge of the skin department in 1867, six years after qualification, and full physician in 1880 in succession to Dr. Habershon. He was also for many years curator of the museum, for which he compiled a catalogue of the models of the diseases of the skin in 1876. His literary output was considerable. His most notable papers were the articles on "Diseases of the Valves of the Heart"contributed to Russell Reynold's “System of Medicine"and those on “Sporadic Cretinism”, “A Line on the Gums Characteristic of Lead Poisoning”, and the “Probable Cause of Lead Colic"in the Medico-Chirurgical Transactions. To Guy's Hospital Reports, of which he was editor for some five years, he contributed a classical paper on “Acute Dilatation of the Stomach”in 1873, in addition to other articles. In 1866-68, in collaboration with J. H. Pye-Smith, he translated and edited for the New Sydenham Society two volumes of Hebra's “Diseases of the Skin”, the translation of the remaining five being the work of Mr. Waren Tay. His work on the “Principles and Practice of Medicine”, on which he had been engaged for ten years at the time of his death, was completed and edited by Pye-Smith. The cause of his death on November 19, 1883, at the early age of forty-five years was aneurysm of the aorta, the existence of which in his own person he had discovered about eighteen months previously while demonstrating the use of the binaural stethoscope. He nevertheless preferred to die in harness, a decision which met with the approval of Osier, among others.