Earle, Herbert Gastineau 安爾 (1915-1928)

Herbert Gastineau Earle by Ernest Walter Histed, 1900s. Credit: National Portrait Gallery, UK. [1]

updated on August 8, 2014

"Disease Is A General Biological Problem And That All Medical Research Should Have A Fundamental Philosophical Background If It Is To Be Intelligently Pursued."

b. August 10, 1882, London - d. June 5, 1946. BA 1905, MA, MB September 4, 1913 (Cantab.); MB (Lond.) [questionable]; FRSM; FRSTMH. Demonstrator in Physiology 1904-15; Lecturer in Biology 1909-1915, Middlesex Hospital Medical School, London. Temporary Assistant Physician, Royal Waterloo Hospital, London 1914-15. Medical Missionary [questionable]. Hong Kong 1915-28. Shanghai 1928. General Adviser, Lester Trust 1926-46. Director, Henry Lester Institute of Medical Research and Preventive Medicine 1928-[n.d.], 1941-43. Director, Chinese Association for Physiological Sciences 中國生理學會 1926-34. Co-founded the Chinese Journal of Physiology 中國生理學雜誌 [2] January 1927. England [n.d.]. Shanghai 1941 (spring). Second Sino-Japanese War, interned, Shanghai tbc.1943-45, Lunghua (Lunghwa) Civil Assembly Center [3]. Continued to work at Henry Lester Institute [position unknown] 1945-46. Died while returning to the UK 1946. Honor: Hon. LLD (HKU) 1936.

HONG KONG 1915-28. HKU, Professor of Physiology and Biology (second chair) 1915-18 (vice Greer Edmund Malcolmson); founding chair Professor of Physiology (founding chair) 1918; Dean, Faculty of Medicine 1916-20, 1923, 1925. Acting Honorary Visiting Physician to the Government Civil Hospital January 31, 1916 (vice George Ernest Aubrey, absence on leave). Registered to practice Hong Kong June 20, 1917. Acting Member of the Medical Board December 19, 1918 (vice Kenelm Hutchson Digby, absence on leave), May 11, 1923. Left Hong Kong 1928.

m. Audrey Mary Harrison. Had issues: 1. Barbara Mary Earle (b.January 1913); 2. John Esmond Gastineau Earle (b. August 1914. Epsom College; MB (Cantab.) 1939; MRCS; LRCP. RAMC, Lieutenant January 16, 1941; Captain; retired January 5, 1949, final rank Lieutenant Colonel. SBStJ 1959. m. Mary York Moore 1949.); 3. Monica Audrey Beck (b. May 1917; m. Ezra Paul Beck); 4. Catherine Rosemary Earle (b. 1924, Hong Kong - d.1997, Surrey. m.[s.n.] Pepper).

Publications: Basal Metabolism with Special Reference to Chinese Students (presented at the 1923 China Medical Missionary Association (CMMA) Conference. An Imperial Policy in Education, with Special Reference to the University of Hong Kong (1926). Report on the Lester Trust, Shanghai (1927). Basal Metabolism of Chinese and Westerners (Chinese Journal of Physiology, 1928, Vol. 1, Issue 59, p.92).

[Earle suggested a new medical education curriculum for HKU in 1918 modeled after the British system. The reform he proposed had included a stronger association between the medical school and the hospital that would provide necessary beds for offering students placement opportunities.]

cv of Earle, 1930. Credit: europeana, think culture.

[This was a handwritten cv made by Earle for submission to the Gurlt und Hirsch's Biographisches Lexikon der Aerzte (The Biographical Dictionary of Physicians) for the period from 1880-1930. The title of the cv form said "Biographical Dictionary of the Excellent Doctors. The original cv was kept at the Uppsala University in Sweden.]

[1] The photo was donated to the National Portrait Gallery by Catherine Rosemary Earle.
[2] Other co-founders were Robert Kho-seng Lim 林可勝, Wu Xianhe 吳憲和, and Bernard Emms Read 伊博思, all professors of the Peking Union Medical College 北平協和醫學院.
[3] The Lunghua Civil Assembly Center was where the author of The Empire of the Sun, James Graham. Ballard, was interned (1943-45). He was 13 years old when he was sent with his family to the CAC in Shanghai.

Selected bibliography: 85 Years of Caduceus: 1922-2007, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University. Biograghic Dictionary of Physicians by Hirsch-Gurlt for the period from 1880 to 1930. The British Medical Journal, June 24, 1939, p.1308; June 29, 1946, p.1001, Obituary, H.G. Earle, LL.D., M.B. Chinese Association for Physiological Sciences [internet]. The China Medical Journal, February 1923, Vol. #37, No. #2. Evans, Dafydd Emrys (Ed.) Constancy of Purpose, Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1987. Epsom College Register 1923, p.336. GenealogyBuff.com › Town of Goffstown, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire › Index of Death (2004) [internet]. The Hong Kong Government Gazette, January 28, 1916, #33; June 29, 1917, #297; February 14, 1919, #70. Mundia [internet]. obit.phaneuf.net [internet]. Nature, June 15, 1946, Vol. #157, p.796. Ronca, Anna (pers. comm., January 10 and 11, 2014)[Anna is the daughter of Barbara Mary Earle]. Supplement to the London Gazette, February 18, 1941, p.964; September 9, 1949, p.4335. Tsang, Chiu-long, Carol, Out of the Dark: Women's Medicine and Women's Diseases in Colonial Hong Kong, Hong Kong: The HKU Scholars Hub [internet]. jgballard.com [internet].