James Samuel Risien Russell

James Samuel Risien Russell FRCP (17 September 1863 – 20 March 1939) was a Guyanese-British physician, neurologist, professor of medicine, and professor of medical jurisprudence.[3]

James Samuel Risien Russell
Born(1863-09-17)17 September 1863
Demerara, British Guiana
Died20 March 1939(1939-03-20) (aged 75)
Marylebone, London[1][2]
Burial placeHighgate Cemetery
OccupationPhysician, professor of medicine, and professor of medical jurisprudence
Known forDescription of subacute combined degeneration of the spinal cord

Education and career

After education from 1880 to 1882 at the Dollar Institute in Scotland, J. S. Risien Russell studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, graduating MB CM in 1886, and MD in 1893 with gold medal. He qualified MRCP in 1891. He went to London for postgraduate study at St Thomas's Hospital and won a British Medical Association (BMA) scholarship in 1895. After study in Paris and Berlin, he was appointed resident medical officer at the National Hospital, Queen Square.[1] He held appointments there for thirty years,[4] becoming assistant physician, then physician, and retiring as consultant physician and joining the National Hospital's board of management.[1]

Early in his career he also held junior appointments at the Royal Brompton Hospital and Nottingham General Hospital and was appointed assistant physician to the Metropolitan Hospital.[3] In the 1890s he collaborated with Victor Horsley on anatomical research.[4] Russell was appointed to the visiting medical staff of University College Hospital, becoming full physician and professor of clinical medicine.[1] There he was also appointed professor of medical jurisprudence in 1900. He also maintained a private practice at his house on Wimpole Street, Marylebone. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) in 1897.[3]

In 1900, he wrote the pioneer description of subacute combined degeneration of the spinal cord with his junior colleagues, Batten and Collier. He also gave a complete account of Tay-Sachs disease.[4]

He was the author or co-author of a number of research articles. He contributed articles on neurological disease to Quain's Dictionary of Medicine, Allbutt's A System of Medicine, the Encyclopaedia Medica, and Gibson's Textbook of Medicine.[1]

Russell served as vice-president of the Section of Psychological Medicine and Neurology at the annual meeting of the BMA in London in 1910. He was elected a corresponding member of the Société de Neurologie de Paris.[1] From 1908 to 1918 he served as a captain in the RAMC. During WWI he was a leading expert on "shell shock" and "neurasthenia".[5]

Personal life

Russell was of mixed race, born to William Russell, a Scottish water engineer [6]and sugar plantation owner and an unidentified mother. On 28 July 1892 in Kenwyn, Cornwall, he married Ada Gwenllian Michell (1869–1922). Their daughter Marjory Gwenllian Russell was born in 1893.[5] In 1924 in Marylebone, London, Risien Russell married the widow Ada Clement (1882–1971). Many of the patients in his private practice were from London's high society.

Selected publications

References
  1. "Obituary. J. S. Risien Russell, M.D., F.R.C.P.". British Medical Journal. 1 (4081): 645. 25 March 1939. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.4081.645-b.
  2. "Russell, James Samuel Risien, M.D. Edin. (gold medal); F.R.C.P. London". Who's Who. 1923. p. 2396.
  3. "James Samuel Risien Russell". Munk's Roll, Volume IV, Lives of the Fellows. Royal College of Physicians.
  4. Rose, Frank Clifford (2012). History of British Neurology. World Scientific. p. 138. ISBN 978-1848166684.
  5. James Samuel Risien Russell on Lives of the First World War
  6. Oxford Reference https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780199935796.001.0001/acref-9780199935796-e-1853?rskey=TJYz71&result=10
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