Volume 7 - History of Anaesthesia Society

PORE ABOUT JOSEW 'IHOMAS CUNER (1824-1882)
Dr Aileen K.Adams
Joseph Thomas Clover was one of the pioneers of anaesthesia in Great
Britain. His memory is recalled by the biennial Clover lecture
delivered on Anniversary Day of the College of Anaesthetists. Twenty
five lectures have been given, about half of which have been published,
and several have included material adding to our knowledge of Clover.
Early contacts with the Uover family
The inaugural lecture given in 1948 by Dr A.D.Marston, first Dean of the
Faculty of Anaesthetists, included the biograph'cal information known at
that time.' Macintosh in his lecture of 1952 ?! describes how he first
became acquainted with a member of the Clover family. He looked in the
Medical Directory and wrote to the only Clover recorded in it, to find
that tnis was Martin, a general practitioner in Borcestershire, and the
eldest son of J.T.Clover. Through Martin and his sister Mary, Macintosh
gleal~ed much information about their distinguished father, and also
received from them a Qreat deal of archival material, some pieces of
apparatus and some of his personal possessions. Most of the papers are
now housed in the [Joodward Biomedical Library of the University of
British Columbia in vancouver3 though some remain in this country in the
keeping of the Department of Anaesthetics at Addenbrookeqs Hospital,
cambridge4 and in the College of Anaesthetists, as well as in
Macintosh's own collection. More recently a few items were given to the
Monica Britton Memorial Hall of Medical History at Frenchay Hospital,
Bristol, by Miss Dorothea Clover, jranddaughter, who is alive and
active, living in Bristol. We are most grateful to the Eamily for these
generous gifts, and also to Mr Anthony Clover,* for sharing with us his
knowledge of his famous predecessor.
Biographical details
'Me main biographical facts of Clover's life are well-bown. He was
born on 28 February 1825 in Aylsham, Norfolk, the third child and second
son of John LJright Clover, a successful tradesinan. At the age of 16 he
was apprenticed to Charles Gibson, a surgeon of Norwich, for an
indentura fee of L240 which would roughly equate with nearly E600
today, a substantial sum for such a family to afford. Two years later
Clover went on to University College Hospital in London as a medical
student. His casebook describes some of he operations he witnessed as
a student both in Norwich and in London.' These include the tying of
the conmon iliac artery for a pulsating tumour in the groin, and the
excision of the head of the femur in a boy of 13. He makes no comnent
on the horror of these procedures, carried out as they were in the days
before anaesthesia, nor does he record what it was that attracted him
first to sur:ery, and later to anaesthesia as a career. Although
Marston and others have stated that Clover was present at Robert
Liston's famous first operation under ether, this seems not to be true.
He was certainly at UCH at the time, but was on a medical firm, and
:'c present at Epsom meeting with his son, James [~d]