John Ramsay

Sir John Ramsay CBE FRACS (26 December 1872 – 6 February 1944) was an Australian surgeon, known for his association with the Launceston General Hospital. Early life and education Born in Glasgow, Scotland, on 26 December 1872, John Ramsay was the fourth son of the businessman John Ramsay and his wife, Margaret Thomson. The family migrated to Melbourne in 1878, where John Jr Ramsay attended State School No. 2855 at Prahran and Wesley College. He graduated as a Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery (M.B.,B.S.) from the University of Melbourne with the Beaney Prize in pathology, in 1893. Career After a year's residency at the Royal Melbourne Hospital (1894), Ramsay spent the next year abroad in Auckland as a resident (1895), before being appointed house surgeon at the Launceston General Hospital. In 1896, Ramsay and Dr. Francis John Drake participated in the first demonstration of X-rays by Frank Styant Browne at Launceston General Hospital. In 1898, he became the surgeon-superintendent of the hospital. Graduating with a Master of Surgery degree from the University of Melbourne in 1902, Ramsay published 24 papers, including a discussion of his treatment of hydatid disease, as well as lecturing in Australia and overseas. In 1906, Ramsay performed a successful resuscitation of the heart by massage, opening the thorax of a patient who had clinically died during operation; becoming the first surgeon in Australasia to perform a successful resuscitation. Designing and building St. Margaret's Hospital in Launceston, Ramsay entered private practice in 1912 upon the hospital's foundation. However, he retained his connection with the Launceston General Hospital, serving as an honorary consulting surgeon for the hospital. Interested in the works of Wilhelm Röntgen in regards to the potential of deep x-ray therapy, Ramsay had permanent scarring on his hands and face as a result of experiments with x-ray. In 1919, he visited (Germany) to purchase x-ray equipment from Siemens.