CHARLES

See also:

• CLAY (from O. Eng. claeg, a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. Klei)
• CLAY, CASSIUS MARCELLUS (1810-1903)
• CHARLES CLAY (1801–1893)
• CLAY, FREDERIC (1838–1889)
• CLAY, HENRY (1777–1852)

CLAY (1801–1893)  , English surgeon, was born at Bredbury, near Stockport, on the 27th of December 18o1 . He began his medical education as a pupil of Kinder Wood in Manchester (where he used to attend John Dalton's lectures on chemistry), and in 1821 went to Edinburgh to continue his studies there . Qualifying in 1823, he began. a general practice in Ashton-under-Lyne, but in 1839 removed to Manchester to practise as an operative and consulting surgeon . It was there that, in 1842, he first performed the operation of ovariotomy with which his name is associated . On this occasion it wasperfectly successful, and when in 1865 he published an analysis of 111 cases he was able to show a mortality only slightly above 30% . Although his merits in this matter have sometimes been denied, his claim to the title " Father of Ovariotomy " is now generally conceded, and it is admittted that he deserves the credit not only of having shown how that operation could be made a success, but also of having played an important part in the advance of abdominal surgery for which the 19th century was conspicuous . In spite of the claims of a heavy practice, Clay found time for the pursuit of geology and archaeology . Among the books of which he was the author were a volume of Geological Sketches of Manchester (1839) and a History of the Currency of the Isle of Man (1849), and his collections included over a thousand editions of the Old and New Testaments and a remarkably complete series of the silver and copper coins of the United States . He died at Poulton-le-Fylde, near Preston, on the 19th of September 1893 .