Other Information:George was educated at Westminster School; St Thomas’s Hospital, London; and the University of Durham, qualifying M.B., B.S. [Durh.] and L.S.A. in 1905. During his medical career he was house-surgeon to the Royal Ear Hospital; Registrar to the Metropolitan Ear, Nose and Throat departments of the Evelina Hospital for Children, the Dreadnought Hospital for Seamen, the Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women; aural surgeon to the Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Maida Vale, and (after his retirement from the Evelina Hospital) consulting surgeon. He also taught practical rhinology, laryngology and otology in the post-graduate school at the seaman’s hospital, Greenwich. As well as publishing articles and papers in medical journals, he wrote Diseases of the Ear, Nose and Throat, which became a seminal textbook. He was appointed Major for duty with the 4th London General Hospital (TF) on 26th February 1909. On 3rd August 1914, he was mobilized and served as registrar for the unit. On 11th April 1917, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel and was subsequently sent to France. He served with No 54 (2nd London) General Hospital and later as consulting aural surgeon to the Boulogne district. After contracting septicaemia following a cut sustained to his hand during surgery he was invalided back to England, and once he had recovered he was attached to the Medical Staff, R.A.F., and was president of the Central Appeal Board of the Air Ministry. He was awarded the Territorial Decoration - LG date 13/10/1922 issued by Royal Warrant dated 13/10/1920. George died after a ‘protracted and distressing illness following an operation for appendicitis’ (presumably septicaemia again). He was the son of Moses George Biggs, himself a doctor, and his wife Elizabeth. [Information sources:1918 Medical Directory, 1918 Army List and George's family (photograph courtesy of George's family)]
|