Abraham Colles (1773-1843) – Irish Surgeon

GLUE FOR FRACTURES

Abraham Colles first described this fracture in 1814, as an extra-articular fracture of the distal radius, which usually occurs in elderly people who fall on the outstretched hand. The lesion is usually dorsally displaced and angulated. The fracture is also caused by forceful dorsiflexion of the wrist, where the dorsal surface is in compression and the palmar surface is in tension.

Abraham Colles was born in 1773, the same year American colonialists disguised as Indians emptied 342 crates of tea into Boston Harbor to avoid paying taxes to the British crown. No doubt these levies were necessary to finance the activities of people like Captain James Cook, who meanwhile was busy trying to find new territory around the New Zealand islands. Colles grew up in a small town near Kilkenny and graduated with a BA from Trinity College Dublin. He received a diploma from the Royal College of Surgeon’s in Dublin in 1795, the same year the British took control of the Cape Province from the Dutch.

A few months later, he left Ireland to study in Edinburgh, where he obtained his medical degree in 1797. His main interest was in surgery, and on completing his degree, Colles was lucky enough to secure an internship with the eminent surgeon Sir Astley. Cooper at St. Thomas Hospital in London. Astley Cooper is said to have been the first man to ligate the abdominal aorta while treating an aortic aneurysm. For whatever reason, Colles walked from Edinburgh to London and apparently completed the 400 miles in just eight days.

In 1800 Ashley Cooper became a surgeon at Guy’s Hospital and Colles returned to start his private practice in Dublin. For a long time he found it difficult to make ends meet, but during the period he was elected resident surgeon at Dr. Steven Hospital. The hospital was founded by Dr. Richard Steven (1653-1710), who had been more successful in achieving wealth and who had left his fortune to his sister Grizel, on whose death it was to be used to build a hospital in the city of Dublin. . Dr. Stevens had twice been elected president of the College of Physicians. His father was a clergyman from Wiltshire and had come to Ireland in the time of Oliver Cromwell. The hospital that his sister opened in 1733 and was equipped to house 40 patients.

By 1804 Colles had already established a reputation and was elected professor of anatomy and surgery at the Royal College of Surgeon’s in Ireland. Interestingly, Sir Ashley Cooper was elected to the same position in England some seven years later. Colles remained in his post at the Royal College of Surgeons until 1836, during which time he wrote many papers, including the famous ‘On Fracture of the Carpal Extremity of the Radius’ in 1814.

During the same period Sir Astley Cooper remained busy, even removing a tumor from the head of King George 1V and being made a baronet. It must be said that Colles was recognized as an exemplary surgeon and teacher. He was the first to introduce mercury therapy for the treatment of syphilis, which was prevalent in Dublin at the time. He also pointed out that a child born with the disease tends to infect the healthiest nurse but never his mother.

Abraham Colles resigned from his position at Dr. Steven’s Hospital in 1842, the same year that Abraham Lincoln married social climber Mary Todd in Springfield. He died a year later, the same year Richard Wagner first performed his opera ‘The Flying Dutchman,’ and Ulysses S. Grant finally gave up his dreams of becoming a mathematician and graduated as a second lieutenant from West Point Academy. .