Edgar Hartley Kettle, 1882-1936

The death of Dr. E. H. Kettle, Professor of Pathology at the London Post-graduate School of Medicine, came at the height of his powers and at a time when his influence and authority in scientific medicine gave promise of increasing value. Edgar Hartley Kettle was born in London on 20 April, 1882. He died 1 December, 1936, at the age of 54 after a long and finally painful illness. He was educated at Skipton Grammar School and while at school, as a result of an affection of the knee, suffered the first of his physical handicaps, a shortened and rigid leg. After leaving school he studied medicine in London in St. Mary ’s Hospital, graduating M.B ., B.S. in 1907 and M.D. 1910. He was appointed Pathologist to the Cancer Hospital, Fulham, in 1907, and during his tenure of this post conceived and carried out the plan of his first work, The Pathology of Tumours . This useful little handbook is important for his development, from the series of figures drawn by himself. The main advantage he himself claimed from the venture was the discipline of purposeful selection of representative fields, rigid exclusion of irrelevant detail, and unambiguous draughtsmanship. It is still, after twenty-five years, a useful and shrewd summary of the fundamental problems of tumour pathology. In 1912 he returned to the pathological department of St. Mary ’s Hospital as assistant to Spilsbury and succeeded him as Lecturer on Pathology in the Medical School in 1918. During the War, Kettle acted as Pathologist to the 3rd London General Hospital in addition to his duties as Pathologist to St. Mary’s Hospital. Unofficially nothing came amiss to him ; he acted as Superintendent of the Hospital when that overworked official finally required a holiday, and he edited, and largely wrote, the student’s Journal when it threatened to lapse.