Talk:Victor Negus

Additional notes

Notes on possible directions for future work on this article:

• (1) Early period: King's College School entry age and whether this was before or after the move to Wimbledon; Sambrooke scholarship details could be expanded; there may have been a period (1903-1906) between school and pre-medical studies at King's College that involved the army; the mention in dispatches in World War I doesn't appear to have been gazetted; more details could be added on the Gold Medal awarded with his MS degree.
• (2) Professional work: more could be added on his work on the larynx, especially later work including that by Philip Lieberman and colleagues; there may be more details available on the surgical instruments he helped design; more could be said on his work on the clinical textbook; he also co-wrote the entry for 'Voice' in the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica (with Stephen Jones, who worked in phonetics at University College London, retired in 1937 and died in 1941), but the exact date for this is unclear (could have been in 1929 or could be later as the issue of the 14th edition was done in stages); more references to Negus and his collections may exist in the Wellcome Collection.
• (3) Pictures: More relevant pictures would include: contemporary photographs of King's institutions from his era rather than current ones; photographs of items from his collections of dissected animals; and obviously a picture of Negus himself, freely licensed if possible, but with a non-free rationale otherwise; other possibilities might be photographs of his books.

Will be submitting this article to various review processes, but leaving these notes here for now. Carcharoth (talk) 23:52, 25 March 2012 (UTC)

GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Victor Negus/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ealdgyth (talk · contribs) 23:22, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

Well, this looks interesting ... will be reviewing shortly. Ealdgyth - Talk 23:22, 1 April 2012 (UTC)

GA review (see here for what the criteria are, and here for what they are not)

1. It is reasonably well written.

   a (prose): b (MoS for lead, layout, word choice, fiction, and lists):

   A few spots where the prose could use some smoothing

   Could you point out a few examples of this? Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.

   a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):

3. It is broad in its coverage.

   a (major aspects): b (focused):

4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.

   Fair representation without bias:

5. It is stable.

   No edit wars, etc.:

6. It is illustrated by images, where possible and appropriate.

   a (images are tagged and non-free images have fair use rationales): b (appropriate use with suitable captions):

7. Overall:

   Pass/Fail:

Images -

• If you're thinking of FAC, you'll need a source for the information in File:Larynx external en.svg, but I don't think it'd be that hard to get a source on it.
• Same for File:Kehlkopf Pferd.jpg.

  The first one is a redrawn SVG of a PD Gray's Anatomy illustration (linked in the sources) - is that enough? The second one, you are looking for a source for the image labels? I'm hoping at some point to get images of actual larynges that he dissected (possibly from a museum display), so this may not be needed. The images are currently there more as decorative examples of animal larynges. I do have some notes on what images would be better for the article, on the talk page. Any additional suggestions there on what bits of the article would benefit from a picture would be appreciated. Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  Yes, for the labeling, you'd need a source, just as you would for a user-drawn map. Like I said, it's not really a big deal here at GA - I'm pretty sure the labels are correct, but FAC is (as we all know) pickier. This was just a heads up to you for the future ... since you've mainly been reviewing at FAC, not nominating, I wasn't sure if you'd be aware that you'd need to have sources for illustrations. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  Not strictly to do with what you pointed out, but I managed to get one of the labels without images and the other one tweaked. Will firm up the sources at some later point. Carcharoth (talk) 18:05, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

Lead:

• Not required, but do we have some sort of explanation/link for "junior surgeon"? It's not a rank/job/etc used in here in the states (at least I've never heard it). Same for "senior surgeon" later...and "consulting surgeon"

  Consulting surgeon just means 'consultant' (it is linked later on in the main body of the article, but I can link it in the lead as well). Junior and senior surgeon are formal ranks used in medicine at this time (not sure what the current terms are). It was a division that had apparently arisen as surgeons increasingly specialised - see the 'Production line operations vs. unstable objects' section at this source. What I will do here is probably try and find someone familiar with UK professional medicine both now and in the interwar period, or a source that makes things a bit clearer. Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  Update: I've added this to explain the surgical grades business. Carcharoth (talk) 18:05, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• Link for "Fellow of King's College, London"? "British Association of Otorhinolaryngologists"? "Royal College of Surgeons of both Edinburgh and Ireland"?

  King's College, London is linked earlier in the lead - are you looking for a link explaining what a fellow is? Medical associations (the smaller ones) can have a complicated history. As far as I can make out, the British Association of Otorhinolaryngologists (BAO) became the British Association of Otorhinolaryngologists – Head and Neck Surgeons (BAO-HNS) (at least that is what it was called in that book about the history of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, published in 2000) and is now ENT•UK, which formed in 2008 - see About ENT•UK - as a merger between BAO-HNS and the British Academic Conference in Otolaryngology (BACO). This also reminds me that I need to find a year for when the BAO was founded (1950, I think). Would a short stub on that be useful? We have articles on both the surgical colleges of Edinburgh and Ireland, but I'm not sure how to link them - I could pipe links behind Edinburgh and Ireland, but that sort of linking always annoys me when I see it used (some people assume you have linked the city and the country and don't bother to click). I suppose the only way to clearly link is to rephrase, so I will probably do that. Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  Yeah, I was more looking for information on "Fellow" there with that question. And the specific organizations also. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  I've added this to explain the King's College Fellowship. And I added this to make the role of the BAO clearer (or rather, lay the groundwork for more edits later, but hopefully that is clear enough for now). Carcharoth (talk) 18:05, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• I assume for "post-war period" you mean post-World War II?

  Yes. Though as I use the phrasing "First World War" elsewhere, I would have to say "post-Second World War period", which feels clunky. May just have to avoid the phrasing "post-war" altogether. Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Early life:

• "solicitor, Justice of the Peace, and Lieutenant for the County of Surrey" linkage ... most Americans won't know what these mean.

  Is solicitor not a common term in the USA? Having read solicitor, I'll link the term. Justice of the Peace I will also link. I wish we did have articles on those county posts. Do we have an article on that somewhere that I missed? I see Lieutenant for the county redirects to Lord Lieutenant and we have Lord Lieutenant of Surrey, but William Negus was a Deputy Lieutenant. The obituary in The Times (1974) for Victor Negus said he was "the son of William Negus who was Lieutenant for the County of Surrey". The announcement of the engagement of Victor Negus and his future wife (also in The Times, 1928) refers to him as "DL" (probably Deputy Lieutenant). There is also an obituary in The Times from 1926 for a William Negus who died aged 75 at a memorial service in "his capacity as Deputy Lieutenant of Surrey", which casts doubt on the ODNB's approximate date for William Negus's death. Also here (Surrey history website) there is reference to a photo of "William Negus in uniform, 1926". And in The Times in 1946 there is a death notice for a Martyn Ewings Negus (aged 64, full name was William Martyn Ewings Negus) the "eldest son of the late William Negus", who is the eldest of the three Negus brothers (Victor was the youngest). The other brother was Raymond Ewings Negus, and his death notice appeared in The Times in 1950 (the marriage notices for all three Negus brothers can also be found in The Times). I left these details out, as being too involved, especially as the sources on Victor Negus don't go into that level of detail, but will probably note all this on the talk page at some point. The fact all three brothers had "Ewings" as a middle name does help, though. The other thing the ODNB entry appears to get wrong is the year of death of Victor's wife (Lady Negus). Her death notice, published in The Times, explicitly gives her date of death in October 1980, but the ODNB entry for Victor Negus states her year of death as 1979. I presume at some point her year of death and age at death (79) got mixed up - I can't see any other way to explain that. Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  ODNB isn't always perfect either - you could always point it out and they will probably correct it.. that is the great thing about the online ODNB, they do corrections! Solicitor isn't common at all in the US, at least not in the sense of lawyer. Solicitor means someone who solicits stuff - they are the annoying people who call you on the phone while you're eating and try to get you to donate money to various causes. Ealdgyth - Talk 12:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• Linkage/explanation for "MRCS and LRCP"? Abbreviations should be explained on first use.

  Yeah, I missed those ones, thanks. Member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England and Licientate of the Royal College of Physicians, I think. Will check and add that. Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

• "In the final year of these studies, Negus was an usher at the funeral service for Lord Lister at Westminster Abbey." This seems like just a random bit of trivia - what use is it in telling us about Negus? I see the next sentence begins "Another connection with Lister's generation..." but why do we care about connections to Lister's generation?

  I should explain that in more detail, you are right. Several sources on Negus (the ODNB entry and the obituary in the BMJ, I think) mention this explicitly. They likely get it from his recollections in his Lister Oration of 1955, where he refers to having been brought up in the Listerian tradition. Lister (in England) and Pasteur (in France) were virtually deified by their peers and later generations for the advances they made in asepsis (sterility) in surgery, which completely revolutionised medicine. It seems that to have had any connection with Lister was akin to being in the presence of greatness, or something. I'll see if I can find something more explicitly putting Negus (and his generation of physicians and surgeons) in context as falling between Lister's era and the modern era. Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  Update: I've gone into more detail here. Hope that is now OK. Carcharoth (talk) 18:05, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• "He was also mentioned in dispatches..." again... this means what?

  I may remove this. Mentioned in despatches is the formal term. This should have been gazetted (like other military awards), but I'm not 100% sure of that. When I looked for the original citation in the London Gazette, I was unable to find this, but only references to a different Negus being mentioned in dispatches. I will probably remove this for now and ask somewhere like the Military History WikiProject for advice on this. Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Surgical career:

• "...Negus took a different approach to that which was common at the time..." different approach to what?

  The following sentence explains that. The one starting "rather". Maybe I should use a semi-colon or something. I think starting a new sentence but carrying on from what was started in the previous sentence is OK. Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Societies:

• "Council level" - link or explanation for us dumb yanks?

  This refers to the 'Council of the Royal College of Surgeons' that was mentioned in the previous sentence. Is more detail needed there on what the Council does, or is it not clear what Council is being referred to here? Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  More detail probably would be good, I obviously missed the connection ... Ealdgyth - Talk 12:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

  I clarified it a bit in this edit. Carcharoth (talk) 18:05, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

• "...taken for the FRCS diploma." Explanation for the abbreviation needed.

  This is one abbreviation I did expand earlier. Do you think I should explain it again down here? Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Excellent work - it was interesting even to me, who generally finds anything past 1300 a bore.

Thanks. I'm glad you enjoyed it. Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I've put the article on hold for seven days to allow folks to address the issues I've brought up. Feel free to contact me on my talk page, or here with any concerns, and let me know one of those places when the issues have been addressed. If I may suggest that you strike out, check mark, or otherwise mark the items I've detailed, that will make it possible for me to see what's been addressed, and you can keep track of what's been done and what still needs to be worked on. Ealdgyth - Talk 00:09, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the review. I'll do some work on the article in the week (after doing some minor bits now), but putting some thoughts/responses here for now. I've replied above inline with your comments, as that seemed easiest. Carcharoth (talk) 05:18, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Just a brief note that I'm returning to this article today, and hope to finish off making changes where possible today. Carcharoth (talk) 13:08, 6 April 2012 (UTC) Final changes done. Will drop a note on your (Ealdgyth's) talk page. Carcharoth (talk) 18:05, 6 April 2012 (UTC)

All these changes look good. Passing the GAN now. Ealdgyth - Talk 19:31, 7 April 2012 (UTC)