XV111 



JOHN HUGHLINGS JACKSON, 1835—1911. 



John Hughlings Jackson, whose death occurred on October 7, 1911, at the 

 age of 76, had been a Fellow of the Society since 1878. By his death, 

 English medicine, and neuro-pathology in particular, has lost one of its most 

 original and illustrious exponents. 



Hughlings Jackson was born in 1835 of a Yorkshire father and a Welsh 

 mother, in the village of Green Hammerton, near Knaresborough, in the 

 county of York. His early education was entirely provincial. He acquired 

 a fair knowledge of French, but he never learnt German, and often lamented 

 his inability to read treatises in this language at first hand. 



As was the fashion in those days, he began his medical studies by becoming 

 apprenticed to a practitioner — Dr. Anderson, of York — and attended lectures 

 at the York Hospital Medical School, a small and unimportant institution. 

 At this institution Sir Jonathan Hutchinson, Jackson's lifelong friend, also 

 commenced his medical studies. 



In 1855 Jackson entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital, where he became a 

 pupil of Sir James Paget, then in the height of his fame as a clinical 

 teacher. After six months' study at St. Bartholomew's, he passed his 

 examinations for the qualifications of M.B.C.S. and L.S.A., and returned to 

 York, where he was appointed House Surgeon to the York Dispensary, a 

 post which he held for two years. It was during this time that he came 

 under the influence of Dr. Thomas Laycock, afterwards Professor of Medicine 

 in the University of Edinburgh. 



Laycock was a man of extraordinary suggestiveness and almost prophetic 

 insight. He and Jackson had many points in common, though in accuracy 

 of clinical observation Jackson far surpassed him. But, like many other of 

 his pupils, Jackson always freely acknowledged his great indebtedness to 

 Laycock's brilliant and stimulating speculations. 



In 1859 Jackson came to London with a recommendation to Sir Jonathan 

 Hutchinson, who introduced him to London hospital work, and helped him 

 much in his early career. Hutchinson has always properly taken credit for 

 having " discovered " Jackson, and for having dissuaded him from giving up 

 medicine, as he at one time seemed inclined to do (" The Late Dr. Hughlings 

 Jackson: Eecollections of a Lifelong Friendship," 'Brit. Med. Journ.,' 

 December 9, 1911, by Sir Jonathan Hutchinson). 



In 1860 he took his degree of M.D. at St. Andrews, and was admitted as a 

 member of the College of Physicians in the following year. In 1864 he was 

 appointed Assistant Physician at the London Hospital and Lecturer on 

 Physiology at its Medical School. He was appointed full physician in 1874, 

 and held the post till 1894, when he was placed on the Consulting Staff. 

 Concomitantly with his duties at the London Hospital, Jackson also acted as 

 Assistant Physician (1863), and ultimately (1867) as Physician, to the 



