Book Review: Eponymists in Medicine: Felix Semon 1849–1921: A Victorian Laryngologist
Authors: Milo Keynes
Journal: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (2001)

The use of medical eponyms has faded during the past 50 years, but Felix Semon still has a law and a sign, both laryngological, to his name. The Editor of the JRSM, in asking for a review of this interesting and well organized biography, noted that ‘it bristles with RSM connections’. The author Sir Donald Harrison, Professor at the Institute of Laryngology and Otology, medical historian, and Honorary Secretary of the RSM before becoming its President in 1994, certainly has an upstanding relationship with the RSM. But it was a surprise to find that the Semon Lecture was originally held at the RSM only for convenience after the first one, in 1914, was such a shambles when given at University College: when Semon retired from clinical practice at the early age of 59 in 1909, a fund had been raised in his honour to found the University of London Semon Lecture Trust.

It is true that his portrait by Sir Hubert von Herkomer is prominently displayed in the entrance hall of the RSM, but Sir Felix Semon deplored the fusion with the British Laryngological, Rhinological and Otological Association to form the Laryngological and Otological Sections of the RSM in 1907, and he only lasted on the council of the Laryngological Section for its first year. During the First World War, with activities at the RSM greatly curtailed, attitudes became painfully discriminative against Semon because of his German birth, and, two years before he died, he resigned from the Society, with any bristles distinctly flat, in 1919. There has been a change since then, and now, as Sir Donald writes, ‘the Semon Lecture remains to this day the “blue ribbon” of world laryngology, and stands as a tangible memorial to a truly remarkable man’.

Felix Semon was born in 1849 in Berlin, the son of a moderately successful Jewish businessman, and while at the Gymnasium became friendly with the younger son of Bismarck, to whom he was later introduced. In 1868 he entered Heidelberg University to start his medical studies, but soon, after a riding accident, had to transfer to Berlin University, where he was lectured to by Rudolf Virchow and fought three duels (one leaving the mandatory scar). When his studies were interrupted by the Franco-Prussian war in 1870 he joined the Prussian Guards cavalry and took part in the siege of Paris, coming accidentally under fire on his 21st birthday. After 15 months he returned to the medical school, passing his final examination in 1874, though with little clinical experience. His father then encouraged him to spend a year as a postgraduate student in Vienna, Paris and London where an uncle lived in Clapham. In Vienna he became friendly with Brahms, visited Billroth and first became interested in laryngology. After eight months, and missing out France, he arrived in London, greatly ignorant of the language, never to return to Berlin.

In London, Semon visited the teaching hospitals, but particularly favoured St Thomas' where later, in 1882, he became first head of the Throat Department. He had an introduction to Morell Mackenzie at Golden Square Hospital to become an unpaid clinical assistant there, and, deciding to take up private practice, took English lessons, learnt the British Pharmacopoeia and passed the MRCP from St Thomas' in 1876. His practice flourished, and he moved to Chandos Street where he gave courses in laryngoscopy as a diagnostic procedure and worked to make laryngology a separate specialty. He published papers in The Lancet and the BMJ and founded the International Journal of Laryngology in 1884, which he gave up in 1914 as it was based in Berlin. His fame spread with his researches into vocal cord movement and his attack on Morell Mackenzie's management of the Crown Prince of Prussia's laryngeal cancer. He made royal connections through his consultation of Lillie Langtry, the companion of the Prince of Wales, and attended Queen Victoria in 1897, gaining his knighthood shortly afterwards. He achieved his ambition to be included in high society and to be given honours.

The English version of Felix Semon's autobiography, originally written in German but never published, and edited by his elder son Henry, came out in 1926, with a preface written by him in 1919. The autobiography shows ‘a strong flavour of egotism... with its continual name dropping, emphasis on success with little reference to failure or setback, minimal mention of family or professional associates and detailed descriptions of honours... his social activities... the plethora of influential patients he had seen and (one assumes) cured... [and] his apparent need to be liked by everybody of importance he came in contact with’. This may not be endearing, but Sir Donald clearly remains fascinated by him and tells of his great achievement with energy and perception.