Abstract
THE death on December 6 of Charles Bolton, at the age of seventy-seven years, removes one more member of that distinguished band of clinicians who, during the opening years of the century, so successfully combined general consulting practice and fundamental research. The impulse to contribute to the knowledge of his subject was undoubtedly the result of his early contacts. When Bolton went to University College, London, the Medical School had not yet separated from its parent body, and the department at University College combined both clinical and pre-clinical subjects and housed all the laboratories. At that time the medical faculty comprised a galaxy of talent. Thane and Schafer were at the height of their powers, and were soon to be joined by Bayliss and Starling. On the clinical side were Ringer, Barlow, Rose Bradford, Victor Horsley and Sidney Martin. Coming into this atmosphere as he did, fresh from an apprenticeship in general practice, Bolton was, as he often told later, first astonished and bewildered, and then inspired, He never lost the scientific enthusiasm then aroused. Following medical qualification, he began investigations on the bacteriology of typhoid fever and the morbid anatomy of diphtheria. These attracted sufficient attention to gain for him, in 1903, the ‘Grocers Company research studentship, and so the opportunity for laboratory research. This he utilized so well that five years later he was appointed, on a part-time basis, first director of the new Graham Research Laboratories at his own Medical School. This post he held until 1914, when it was merged with the lectureship in pathology—which Bolton also held—in a single whole-time post to which the late Prof. A. E. Boycott was appointed. But Bolton continued to work part-time in the Graham Department until the outbreak of another war, in 1939, closed his Medical School and so brought to an end his researches. In the intervening quarter of a century Bolton had been a busy general consulting physician, in wide demand, and with no source of livelihood but his practice. Yet, throughout that time, at least one afternoon a week was reserved for research.
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HIMSWORTH, H. Dr. Charles Bolton, F.R.S. Nature 161, 86–87 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161086a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161086a0