Brodie, Benjamin Collins (1783-1862)

English surgeon. He is credited with the first surgical treatment of varicose veins in 1814. He reduced the number of amputations through conservative treatment, described inflammation of the head of the tibia (Brodie's abscess), and gave possibly the first description of intermittent claudication (pain in the legs due to poor blood supply). Brodie was the first surgeon to perform a subcutaneous operation: his best-known researches were concerned with the influence of the nervous system on body temperature, and paved the way for similar work by other physiologists. He wrote Diseases of Joints (1818) and numerous medical papers, which, with his autobiography, were republished in his Collected Works (1865).

Brodie was born in Winterslow Rectory in Wiltshire, England. He studied at St George's Hospital in London, England, becoming assistant surgeon (1808) then surgeon (1822) at the same institution. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1810 and awarded its Copley Medal in 1811; he was president of the society in 1858. He was President of the Royal College of Surgeons (1844) and the first President of the General Medical Council (1858). Brodie was sergeant-surgeon to the British monarchs, William IV and Victoria.