Stanley Rowbotham. Twentieth century pioneer anaesthetist

Stanley Rowbotham was born in 1890 and spent the first years after qualification in 1915 with the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). His career in anaesthesia began after the Armistice, when he was posted with Ivan Magill to Harold Gillies's plastic surgery unit at Sidcup. Together, they laid the foundations of tracheal anaesthesia. A versatile and inventive anaesthetist, Stanley Rowbotham later pioneered in the fields of thyroid anaesthesia, basal narcosis, local and intravenous analgesia and in the use of muscle relaxants. He also introduced cyclopropane into this country.