Yet the frock-coat era produced in Lord Lister the most distinguished surgeon ever to practise in this country, and Dr. Thornlev must be one of the few doctors still alive to have watched Lister operate. At the time he was a student at Glasgow University. It was at the Western Infirmarv in that citv that Dr. Thornley, at a respectful distance, observed the great man at work.

Strapped down

Revolutionary in his technique, Lister was using carbolic spray as an antiseptic: Lister it was who introduced antiseptics, subsequently commonplace, but the essential commonplace of all surgery. Now, the antiseptic technique has itself been superseded bv the aseptic approach.

One of Dr Thornlev's treasured possessions, resting proudly on the sideboard, is an amputation set taking us back to the days when not only antiseptics but also anaesthetics had still to be developed.

 It is an amputation set to his father, himself a doctor, and it includes four or five knives, intrinsically things of beauty one might say, and a couple of saws, one for dealing with larger bones, the other for coping with smaller ones.

This particular amputation set, being a special gift, was never used. But when its contemporaries were wielded, the patient could not be anaesthetised; he was simply strapped to the operating table. His cries of anguish were smothered by the simple device of ringing a bell in the hospital tower — built specially for this purpose.

Ahead of time

Few doctors can have qualified at such an early age as did Dr. Thornley. Having gone up to Glasgow at 16 for what was then the usual four-year curriculum he emerged fully-fledged at 20 — though since the official minimum age stood at 21 he could not be registered.

 After taking a number of locums he set up in practice in Eskrick-st. For a number of years he stayed there, but he subsequently moved to Spennymoor in Ivy-rd., from where he retired about 15 years ago. Rather earlier, he had retired as consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Bolton Royal Infirmary, where he was still operating when he was well in his 70s and where for more than 40 years he had been in charge of the eye department.

Under his supervision the department underwent a complete transformation. But Dr. Thorney, a member of one of Bolton's best-known medical families, personifies an era fast fading, before the onrush of specialisation. He worked in general practice;  he  also took responsibility for a whole hospital department, an impossible combination for a GP today.

On top of that, his reputation as an obstetrician was widespread. No branch of midwifery found him faltering, because in his time (before Caesarean section had been heard of) he tackled every branch of it with a skill that won acknowledgement all over town and beyond it. All that came before we each began to specialize on less and less, in the days when a whole-man of a doctor weighed up his patient as a whole man instead of as a collection of specialist organs.