C. O. Hawthorne studied medicine at Glasgow and graduated as M.B, C.M, in 1884, gaining first-class honours and the Brunton memorial prize. He stayed in Glasgow to practise for several years, acting as assistant to the professor of the practice of medicine, lecturing at Queen Margaret College, and becoming assistant physician to the Western Infirmary, where he had previously held junior posts. In this period he published a book on Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, which reappeared in a third edition in 1912. Hawthorne moved to London in 1898, and in the next few years was appointed to the staffs of the Central London Ophthalmic Hospital, the Royal Waterloo Hospital, the Hampstead General Hospital and the Central London Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital. His appreciation of the wider problems of medicine was shown by his direction of the Medical Graduates College and Polyclinic from 1909 to 1914, his active part in B.M.A. affairs — he was chairman of the Representative Body from 1928 to 1931 and received the gold medal in 1939—his support, as a member of the management committee, for the Royal Medical Benevolent Fund, and by his chairmanship of the People’s League of Health. He examined for the Universities of Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, and for the Scottish Conjoint Board. Hawthorne’s mature judgment on his experiences was given in such works as his Studies in Clinical Medicine (1912) and his Short Essays on Medical Topics (1928). He was a man of many abilities — outstanding as a chairman, a public speaker, and in committee — high-principled, and witty. He survived the bombing of his house at Hove and remained mentally alert till his death in his ninety-second year.

G H Brown

[Lancet, 1949; B.M.J., 1949]