IT may Seem strange to some of our readers that a man who died less than twenty years ago should be included among 'The Great Teachers of Surgery in the Past '. His greatness as a teacher is undoubted, for there is a generation of St. Bartholomew's men who would be willing and eager to defend his right to this title. There were also many features in his career, his character, and his behaviour which resembled those of the surgeons of a former age rather than the pattern which was emerging during his lifetime. In spite, however, of his reverence for tradition, and especially for the traditions of Bart's, it would be wrong to suppose that he was conservative or old-fashioned in his attitude to progress, particularly in medical education. Indeed, his outlook was quite the reverse, and the changes which took place in his own school while he was associated with it, largely as the result of his own foresight, enterprise, and administrative ability, were spectacular.
It would almost be true to say that he lived his whole life in one small district of London, for his school and student days, his career as a surgeon and teacher, and his great achievement in providing for the preclinical departments of St. Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College the finest accommodation in London were all centred in the area of Smithfield and Charterhouse Square. He never travelled far, yet he managed to keep abreast of recent developments in surgery, and particularly in urology, a specialty in which he became interested at an early stage in his career through holding a post as clinical assistant at St. Peter's Hospital.
Girling Ball was born at New Barnet, ten miles from the centre of London, in 1881, and afterwards took some pride in having been a choirboy at the parish church. Later the family moved to Stoke Newington, and at the age of 13 he began to attend Merchant Taylors' School which was at that time in Charterhouse Square, the site having been acquired from Charterhouse School when the latter moved to Godalming.
I n 1900 Ball entered St. Bartholomew's Hospital as a student, qualified in 1905, and then became House Surgeon to Sir Anthony Bowlby. After that