The lasting legacy of Sir Victor Horsley

Excerpt

Working at The National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery, Queen Square, is a daily reminder of the contribution Sir Victor Horsley made to the establishment and development of neurosurgery. He performed the first craniotomy for a brain lesion causing epilepsy and the first laminectomy for a spinal tumour, amongst other surgical firsts. He developed the transcranial approach to the pituitary and refined the technique of intradural division of the trigeminal nerve root for trigeminal neuralgia. He published widely on the topics of anatomy and physiology, where notably his experiments formed the foundation of current-day resuscitation techniques. He also invented the first stereotactic frame and Horsley’s wax, an antiseptic mix of beeswax, almond oil and salicylic acid used to stop bleeding from the cut surface of the cranial bones [3]. …