Charles Clay

Charles Clay (27 December 1801 – 18 September 1893) was an English surgeon, called the "Father of Ovariotomy". Life Clay was born in Bredbury, near Stockport, Cheshire, and died in Poulton-le-Fylde, near Blackpool, Lancashire. He began his medical education as a pupil of Kinder Wood in Manchester (where he used to attend John Dalton's lectures on chemistry), and in 1821 went to Edinburgh to continue his studies there. Qualifying in 1823, he began a general practice in Ashton-under-Lyne, where he also taught chemistry at the Mechanics Institute. At this point he was a pledged teetotaller and supporter of the temperance movement. In 1839 he removed to Manchester to practise as an operative and consulting surgeon. It was there that, in 1842, he first performed the operation of ovariotomy with which his name is associated. On this occasion it was perfectly successful, and when in 1865 he published an analysis of the cases he was able to show a mortality only slightly above 30%. Clay was an opponent of vivisection.