Dr. H. Courtney Gage

Abstract

It is given to few men of determined character and of high principles to pass through life and yet to make no enemies, to be regarded by all with sincere and deep affection. Courtney Gage was such a man. After a life devoted to the service of others, Gage died a few days before his sixty-second birthday on October 4, 1947. His death leaves a gap in British radiology that will not be filled. Before 1914, Gage worked with Sir James Mackenzie Davidson, one of the great pioneer radiologists; he went to France in 1914 with the Essex Yeomanry, was wounded early in the war, and was invalided out of the army. But before long he was back in France with the American Red Cross as an X-ray Technician and was responsible for a great volume of radiographic work for war casualties at Ris Orangis, near Paris; he also covered the work of two large French civil hospitals in that area. His work was recognised by the French Government when he was made “Officier de l'Instruction publique”. He originated a number of techniques for the adequate investigation of spinal injuries and the localisation of foreign bodies, which were published in the French Journal de Radiologie in 1916–1918. Courtney Gage joined St. Mary's Hospital Medical School in 1919 and qualified in 1924. Thus, on achieving his medical qualification, he came to medical radiology with an unrivalled technical experience behind him.