Browse by family names
Browse family names using the A to Z index below.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ ALL NAMES
R.
RAKE, BEAVEN NEAVE (MD)
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W XYZ ALL NAMES
R.
RAKE, BEAVEN NEAVE (MD)
BIOGRAPHY
Rake was the son of the late Mr. Thomas Beaven Rake, Surgeon of Fordingbridge, Hampshire. He was born on April 28th, 1858, and in 1872 he went to Oliver's Mount School, Scarborough, and at once distinguished himself in his school career never returning home for his holidays without prizes. In 1876 In- matriculated at London University and after a year at home, as an apprentice to his father, he went to Guy's Hospital as a preliminary scientific student in October 1877. There he soon gave evidences of traits which were pre-eminently his characteristics throughout his career : an extraordinary capability for perseverance and thoroughness, and at the same time the power of attracting the good-will and respect of his tutors and fellow students. He gained a prize given by the Physical by for an essay on the Localisation of the Functions of the 1. and amongst other triumphs took the Joseph Horace Prize, 1877, and the Gurney Horace Prize, 1879. He passed the M.B. with honours, and the M.B. degree with first class honours in medicine, and honours in obstetric and forensic medicine. In 1879 he took the M.P.C.s., and the L.R.C.P., the following year. In 1882, he became MD London with marks qualifying for the gold medal. He was house surgeon al Guy's in 1882, and house physician in 1883, and was for some time resident obstetrical physician. When he finally left Guy's he spent twelve months on the Continent visiting the most celebrated hospitals, and passing through courses of clinics under the most talented medical men of Berlin, Vienna, and Paris. On his return to England he was appointed house physician to the Victoria Hospital for Children, Chelsea. So well had he upheld the honoured name of Rake at Guy's (where his father studied 30 years before) that his younger brothers who followed him needed no other introduction than that they bore his name. He was offered by the Colonial Office the post of superintendent of the Leper Asylum in this Island in 1883. Soon after his arrival he married — his wife coming out to Trinidad as soon as he had made a home for her. In June of the following year he experienced a severe attack of malarial fever from which, contrary to the expectations of the physicians who attended him, he escaped, but with impaired health, and he never recovered his former strength.
|
Dr. Rake had not been long in the Island before his talent and persevering industry gained for him the highest opinions of the Government and the medical fraternity. He set himself to work with his accustomed energy to become acquainted with the little understood and loathsome disease with which those entrusted to his care were infected, and ere long sent his first communication on the subject " Tuberculous Leprosy of the Tongue and Larynx " to the London Pathological Society. This was in 1885. During the following year he made seven communications to the Society, and subsequently forwarded many instructive specimens and valuable observations and experiments on bacilli and inoculation. In this way and by his Annual Reports on the work of the Asylum he quickly established a world-wide reputation as an authority on Leprosy, his researches into which occupied much of his leisure time. Not content with the ample material by which he was surrounded in Trinidad, his biennial vacations were spent in visiting the centres of leprosy in other countries in Norway, Spain and Tangier. The Leprosy Commission, appointed subsequent to the interest which was roused by the death of the saintly and heroic Father Damien, led to the late Sir Andrew Clarke, on behalf of the Royal College Physicians (which was requested to nominate one of the Commissioners) nominating Dr. Rake who accepted it with the permission of the Colonial Office. Still further honour awaited him, for when the five Commissioners met they elected Dr. Rake their president. The Commission visited India and travelled all over that vast country ; and the report of the Leprosy Commission has become a standard work on the disease. The Indian climate further impaired his already undermined constitution, and at one time it was doubtful whether he would ever see England again, He however recovered sufficiently to go home, but his stay was only a short one, for he wanted to get back again to his work amongst the lepers in Trinidad. It may not be out of place here to refer to the Annual Reports which Dr. Rake issued during his administration of the Leper Asylum. They are eight in number, and every one of them furnishes the strongest internal evidence of downright, hard, earnest, intelligently-directed work. Not only did Dr. Rake make experiments himself, but he gave a fair trial to the experiments of others in the treatment of his patients. All through his reports one can see that the sole object of all he did was to arrive at the truth, and in order to arrive at that goal a readiness to give up any and every theory or opinion he had previously formed directly he himself, or what is perhaps harder in such cases, any one else proved that it was untenable. As one reads these reports one cannot help being struck with his indomitable zeal in the search after knowledge, in the face of the greatest difficulties and with a total forgetful- ness of self, a singleness of purpose, a great, noble, ardent desire to arrive at some method, to devise some treatment by which the fearful disease of leprosy might be extirpated, and failing that, methods by which, if absolute cure was impossible, its ravages might be retarded, and the pain and anguish of the unfortunate sufferers alleviated. To the lay mind the reports are interesting but not pleasant reading, for they open a new vista of human suffering, of heroic well-directed efforts to aid and to succour, backed up by the life-long martyrdom of the saintly ladies who carry out so unhesitatingly the treatment prescribed.
Turning to the first report, (February 1885) we find that Dr. Rake, after describing the results of the use of Gurjun and Chaulmoogra Oils, says : " The general health and nutrition of " lepers improves so decidedly in most cases under careful diet " and nursing, that it is difficult to form an opinion as to the value of any medicine." He then describes the effects of arsenic in two cases, in one of which the results were a great improvement in health, while the other experienced benefit from the treatment. A number of amputations and operations are then described with a detail which show the earnestness with which the new Superintendent had commenced his life-work. His next report, which, with tabular statements, covers 35 pages, deals with the distribution of bacilli, and he draws attention to the fact that seventeen observations on material taken from vaccine vesicles or pustules in lepers failed to show any bacilli in any of them, and he adds : " A point of interest with reference to the alleged " communication of leprosy by vaccination, though, as will be shown " later, I am not yet prepared to accept the leprosy bacillus as " pathogenic." Then, after describing the method adopted to find the bacillus — a modification of Ehrlich's " magenta without a contrast stain” he says errors of experiments are so easily made that one series of observation is not enough to decide the point. He then goes on "If bacilli are as common in the "internal viscera as some writers seem to think, they are at any " rate, much harder to find by ordinary methods." Whereas they were frequently found in tubercles, lie then describes several experiments at inoculation of animals with leprous bacilli. A cat inoculated three times, showed, four months later, no al mal symptoms or bacillus in heart, muscle, or blood from the heart. A fowl similarly inoculated, and actually fed < material, surrounded the in with a false membrane beyond which no bacilli were found months I After narrating these experiments and others he quotes KJ four conditions which, if fulfilled, prove that a certain ; - due to a particular micro-organism, and then he says "It is thus "evident that we are still a long way from proving conclusively "that leprosy is a bacillary disease." Meanwhile, IV. Rake had formed an opinion that a good deal mighl he done in the way of local palliative treatment by of tubercles, and he modestly describes the results in two cases which led to im proved persona] appearance and al y to ulceration, and photographs before and after the o illustrate the result.
Source: Journal of the Field Naturalists Club, Volume II/No. 5, December 1894
Turning to the first report, (February 1885) we find that Dr. Rake, after describing the results of the use of Gurjun and Chaulmoogra Oils, says : " The general health and nutrition of " lepers improves so decidedly in most cases under careful diet " and nursing, that it is difficult to form an opinion as to the value of any medicine." He then describes the effects of arsenic in two cases, in one of which the results were a great improvement in health, while the other experienced benefit from the treatment. A number of amputations and operations are then described with a detail which show the earnestness with which the new Superintendent had commenced his life-work. His next report, which, with tabular statements, covers 35 pages, deals with the distribution of bacilli, and he draws attention to the fact that seventeen observations on material taken from vaccine vesicles or pustules in lepers failed to show any bacilli in any of them, and he adds : " A point of interest with reference to the alleged " communication of leprosy by vaccination, though, as will be shown " later, I am not yet prepared to accept the leprosy bacillus as " pathogenic." Then, after describing the method adopted to find the bacillus — a modification of Ehrlich's " magenta without a contrast stain” he says errors of experiments are so easily made that one series of observation is not enough to decide the point. He then goes on "If bacilli are as common in the "internal viscera as some writers seem to think, they are at any " rate, much harder to find by ordinary methods." Whereas they were frequently found in tubercles, lie then describes several experiments at inoculation of animals with leprous bacilli. A cat inoculated three times, showed, four months later, no al mal symptoms or bacillus in heart, muscle, or blood from the heart. A fowl similarly inoculated, and actually fed < material, surrounded the in with a false membrane beyond which no bacilli were found months I After narrating these experiments and others he quotes KJ four conditions which, if fulfilled, prove that a certain ; - due to a particular micro-organism, and then he says "It is thus "evident that we are still a long way from proving conclusively "that leprosy is a bacillary disease." Meanwhile, IV. Rake had formed an opinion that a good deal mighl he done in the way of local palliative treatment by of tubercles, and he modestly describes the results in two cases which led to im proved persona] appearance and al y to ulceration, and photographs before and after the o illustrate the result.
Source: Journal of the Field Naturalists Club, Volume II/No. 5, December 1894
ADDITIONAL SOURCES