Carter, Henry Vandyke (1831-1897), Deputy Surgeon-General, Indian Medical Service

Correspondence and papers of Henry Vandyke Carter and of members of his family. 1830-1916 and n.d.

Outline list of the collection:

5809. Correspondence and papers of Henry Barlow Carter (d. 1868) water-colourist, and his wife Eliza (née Barlow, d. 1857), including letters from their son H. V. Carter. 1830-61. 16 items.

5810. Letters to Eliza Sophia ('Lily') Carter, afterwards Mrs W. J. Moon, from her brother H. V. Carter, mainly while a medical student at St. George's Hospital, London, from 1848, as a student of anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons from 1853, and at the outset of his career in India from 1858. 1848-83 and n.d., 116 items.

5811. Letters to Eliza Sophia Carter from her mother Eliza Carter (d. 1857). 1848-56 and n.d., 21 items.

5812. Letters to Eliza Sophia Carter from her father Henry Barlow Carter (d. 1868). 1862-63. 18 items.

5813. Letters to Eliza Sophia Carter from her brother Joseph Newington Carter (d. 1871) water-colourist. 1855-63 and n.d. 29 items.

5814. Letters and verses sent to Eliza Sophia Carter by her cousin Henry Clark Barlow (1806-1876), physician and Dante scholar. 1854-77. 12 items.

5815. Miscellaneous Carter family correspondence and papers. 1848-90 and n.d., 25 items.

5816. Journal of H. V. Carter while a medical student at St. George's Hospital, London, 1848-52 (M.R.C.S., L.S.A., 1852), as an anatomical artist working for Henry Gray (1827-1861) from April 1852, and while studying in Paris from Oct. 1852. Nov. 1848 - Dec. 1852.

5817. Journal of H. V. Carter while studying in Paris, Nov - Dec. 1852.

5818. Journal of H. V. Carter while studying in Paris, Jan. - Feb. 1853, as a student in human and comparative anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons of England from June 1853, as a Demonstrator in Anatomy at St. George's Hospital until July 1857, as an anatomical artist drawing for Henry Gray's Anatomy from 1856 (ff. 79r, 82v), and as Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Grant Medical College, Bombay, from 1858. Jan. 1853 - March 1862.

5819. 'Reflections' by H. V. Carter on his personal and professional development, and on his religious life as a Dissenter. Dec. 1850 - Dec. 1854.

5820. Correspondence and papers of H. V. Carter, including papers relating to his allegedly invalid marriage at Bombay in 1859. 1853-67. 17 items.

5821. Correspondence and papers of H. V. Carter relating to his career in India, leprosy, and the affairs of Grant Medical College, Bombay. 1875-97 and n.d., 36 items.

5822. Copies of the wills of Henry Barlow Carter (d. 1868) April 1864, codicil May 1865; Joseph Newington Carter (d. 1871) Aug. 1871; H. V. Carter (d. 1897) Aug. 1894. 3 items.

5823. Papers of H. V. Carter and his executors and trustees concerning his grandson Ignazio Federico di Villalta (b. 1886), including documentation of the marriage and death of Carter's daughter Eliza Harriet (1860-1891), and photographs of her son. 1881-1907. 1 file.

5824. H. V. Carter deceased. Estate accounts, ledger. 1897-1916.

5825. H. V. Carter deceased. Estate accounts, cash book. 1897-1916.

5826. H. V. Carter and H. V. Carter deceased. Financial papers. 1884-1914. 3 files.

1830-1916

18 volumes Partly printed and typewritten.

The papers listed here derive from two sources. MSS. 5816-5826 were preserved by H. V. Carter's solicitor and executor Henry Turnbull (of Turnbull & Son, Scarborough). They were purchased at Phillips' London saleroom 19 October 1989, lot 97 (acc. 348218). MSS. 5809-5815 derive mainly from the papers of H. V. Carter's sister Eliza Sophia Carter, afterwards Mrs. W. J. Moon. They were generously presented to the Institute by her grand-daughter Miss V. Kemp and by Mrs. B. Turnbull, a grand-daughter of H. V. Carter, in February 1990 (acc. 348278). Thanks are also due to Dr. Ian Lodge Patch for arranging the gift of these papers.

Henry Vandyke Carter was born on 22 May 1831, the eldest son of the artist Henry Barlow Carter. After an education at Hull Grammar School he came to London in 1847 to study medicine at St. George's Hospital. He qualified M.R.C.S., L.S.A. in 1852.

In June 1853 he obtained a studentship in human and comparative anatomy at the Royal College of Surgeons, where he worked with Richard Owen and J. T. Quekett. He was also, until July 1857, Demonstrator in Anatomy at St. George's Hospital. The talents which he shared with his father and brother also opened up a career as an anatomical artist. He began work for Henry Gray (1827-1861) and others in 1852, and in 1856 he commenced the illustrations for Henry Gray's Anatomy (London, 1858).

In 1858 Carter joined the Bombay Medical Service, and in May 1858 was gazetted Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Grant Medical College. He also served as Assistant-Surgeon in the Jamsetjee Jheejeebhoy Hospital. From 1863 to 1872 he was Civil Surgeon at Satara. In 1872 he returned to Europe on furlough, studying leprosy in Norway and elsewhere. On his return to India in 1875 he was deputed to Kathiawar to investigate leprosy. In 1876 he was appointed to the charge of the Goculdas Tejpal Hospital, Bombay. During the famine of 1877-78 he investigated a fever amongst the starving people, recognising it as relapsing fever, and identifying, for the first time in India, the spirillum in the blood of its victims. In 1877 he was appointed acting Principal (and later Principal) of Grant Medical College and Physician of the Jamsetjee Jheejeebhoy Hospital.

H. V. Carter retired in 1888, and was subsequently appointed Honorary Deputy Surgeon-General and Honorary Surgeon to the Queen. He died at Scarborough on 4 May 1897.

H. V. Carter's contributions to tropical pathology included important studies of leprosy, of mycetoma (which he recognised in 1860 as a mycotic disease) and of relapsing fever. His publications included:

The microscopic structure and mode of formation of urinary calculi (London, 1873)

On mycetoma or the fungus disease of India (London, 1874)

Report on leprosy and leper asylums of Norway (London, 1874)

On leprosy and elephantiasis (London, 1874)

Modern Indian leprosy (Bombay, 1876)

Reports on leprosy, second series (London, 1876)

Spirillum fever: synonyms famine or relapsing fever as seen in Western India (London, 1882)

Bibliography

Obituaries in British Medical Journal 1897, i: 1256-1257; Lancet 1897, i: 1381.

Frederic Boase, Modern English biography, vol. 4 (London, 1908), p. 612.

D. G. Crawford, Roll of the Indian medical service (London, 1930), p. 468.

William St. Clair Symmons, "Henry Vandyke Carter on Mycetoma", in his Curiosa (London, 1974), pp. 128-143.

Database description taken from that in: Richard Palmer, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Wellcome Library for the History & Understanding of Medicine: Western Manuscripts 5120-6244 (London: The Wellcome Library for the History & Understanding of Medicine, 1999).