Sir Percy W G Sargent (1879 - 1933)
K.B., C.M.G., M.A., M.B., M. Ch. (Cantab.), F.R.C.S.

 In the death of Sir Percy Sargent. which occurred   in London after a short illness, is lost the foremost exponent of brain surgery in
                            England.

This branch of surgery began its existence on  November  25, 1874. when Rickman Godlee. then a young assistant surgeon at University College Hospital. removed a tumour from the brain of a man.  The operation, indeed. was unsuccessful, but it showed that the results of localization obtained by David Ferrier on animals were applicable to man. The  operation roused much enthusiasm in the medical profession, and was thought to be of such general interest that The Times devoted two  leading articles to the subject (December 10 and 27, 1874). The knowledge thus acquired was greatly extended by Victor Horsley, and was still further advanced in this country by Sir Charles Ballance and by Sir Percy Sargent, and in the United States by Professor Harvey Cushing at Boston, until what was at first marvellous became a commonplace of surgery. The results, too, were so satisfactory that individual cases ceased to be placed upon record. Brain surgery, however requires special qualifications in those who undertake it, a sound knowledge of the anatomy and physiology of the  organ  that  the  lesion  may  be  localized; skill in manipulating it: infinite delicacy of touch and much patience in carrying out the details. All these Percy Sargent had in abundance, and to them he owed his great success.
Born at Bristol in 1878, he was educated at Clifton and St. John's College, Cambridge. He worked his way on to the staff of St.Thomas's hospital by  way of a demonstratorship of anatomy in the medical school, Until he  finally became senior surgeon.  His appointment as surgeon to the National Hospital in Queen Square,
Bloomsbury, led him gradually to specialize in the surgery of the brain and nervous system until he became recognized throughout the world as the leading English surgeon in this branch of work
He served during the War as consulting surgeon to the British Expeditionary Force in France with the rank of Colonel, A.M.S., and was rewarded for his. services with a D.S.O. in 1911 and made C.M.G in 1919. In 1928 he was knighted. At the Royal College of Surgeons he was Erasmus Wilson Lecturer in 1905 and was elected a member of the council in l923. He lectured as Hunterian Professor of Surgery and Pathology in 1928. He married, in 1907, Mary Louise, daughter of Sir Herbert Ashman, Bt., of Bristol. She died in 1932, leaving two sons and a daughter Tall, good-looking, courteous in manners and easy of address, Sargent was a universal favourite with patients and students. Through out his life he was active in works of benevolence. He was for many years intimately associated with the Invalid Children's Aid Association and was at one time chairman of the Battersea branch. For the last year or two he had been the active secretary of the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund, which prospered greatly under his  skilful guidance. As a Freemason he held high rank in the craft and was an officer in the United Grand Lodge of England.