In the history of medicine, Charles Alfred Ballance is one of the names that keeps returning.
The record lists Charles Alfred Ballance as British surgeon (1856–1936).
Charles Alfred Ballance was born at Taunton in 1856. His recorded nationality is United Kingdom.
Anaesthesia, antisepsis and germ theory arrived within fifty years and made modern surgery possible for the first time.
The test of medical work is whether practice changed, not whether the argument was elegant.
Recognition followed: Lister Medal (1933) and Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George.
That the work was done from United Kingdom matters: hospitals, training and research funding are unevenly distributed, and they decide which questions can be asked.
Charles Alfred Ballance died in 1936, aged 80. What survives is the change in practice, which is how a medical life is actually measured.
Achievements
- Lister Medal — 1933
- Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George
