Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Jones, Charles Handfield

1400399Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 30 — Jones, Charles Handfield1892Norman Moore

JONES, CHARLES HANDFIELD (1819–1890), physician, son of Captain Jones, R.N., was born at Liverpool, 1 Oct. 1819. He was one of Dr. Arnold's [q. v.] pupils at Rugby School, whence he went to Catharine Hall, Cambridge, in 1837, and there graduated B.A. in the poll of 1840. After study at St. George's Hospital, London, he took the degree of M.B. at Cambridge in 1843, but never proceeded to that of M.D. He became a member of the College of Physicians of London in 1845, and was elected a fellow in 1849. He published a paper of observations on the minute structure of the liver, which led to his election as F.R.S. in 1850. In 1851 he was elected physician to St. Mary's Hospital, Paddington, and continued on the staff of that institution till his death. He attained considerable reputation as an histologist and as a clinical observer. In the College of Physicians he was junior censor in 1863–4 and senior censor in 1886, and in 1888 a vice-president. In 1865 he delivered the Lumleian lectures on the pathology of the nervous system. Besides numerous papers in medical journals he published in the ‘Transactions of the Medico-Chirurgical Society of London’ ‘On the Liver and Cholgagues’ (xxxv. 249); ‘On Morbid Changes in the Mucous Membrane of the Stomach’ (xxxvii. 67); ‘On Degeneration of the Pancreas’ (xxxviii. 195); ‘On Hæmatemesis’ (xliii. 353); and ‘On a Case of Intussusception’ (lxi 301). He never joined the Pathological Society, but communicated observations on morbid histology from time to time through others (Transactions, xxxiv. 55, 60, xxxv. 134, xxxvi. 158, xxxvii. 203). He published with E. H. Sieveking, in 1854, a ‘Manual of Pathological Anatomy,’ and in 1864 ‘Clinical Observations on Functional Nervous Disorders.’ The histology in which he was an original worker is much of it obsolete, but the clinical observations are of permanent value; the relations of paralysis, spasm, anæsthesia, and neuralgia are ably discussed, and the close relation of neuralgia to debility pointed out more clearly than in most previous books on nervous diseases. He resided in Green Street, Park Lane, until his latter years, when he removed to Montagu Square, London. He died there of cancer of the stomach, 30 Sept. 1890. He married in 1851 Louisa Holt, and had two sons, who both followed the profession of physic.

[Handfield Jones's Work; London and Provincial Medical Directory; Graduati Cantabr. 1884; Memoir in British Medical Journal, vol. ii. 1890; personal recollection.]

N. M.