Carte-de-visite portraying William Snowball (1854-1902)
Maker
Stewart and Co
Date
Circa 1890
Description
The Founder of Australian Paediatrics
William Snowball passed his final examinations at Melbourne Medical School then continued his studies overseas on the diseases of children at the Great Ormond Street Hospital. In 1878 on his return to Melbourne he began his long association with the Children’s Hospital. While still a resident, he introduced strict standards of hygiene, and planned a scheme for training nurses. He remained a resident for nearly three years, and when he left to begin private practice in 1881, he was immediately asked to join the honorary staff.
Snowball established a successful private practice in Carlton, where his house ‘Frosterley’ . He treated patients from all social classes and from all over Victoria. Snowball practised as both surgeon and physician, although his greatest skills were as a consultant physician and a teacher at the bedside. He had remarkable skill as a teacher and he developed a method of apprenticeship training. This was also the basis for the hospital’s remarkable success as a clinical school in the early years of the 20th century. In 1900 University of Melbourne invited the Children's Hospital to appoint a staff member to join the Faculty of Medicine and the Hospital selects Dr William Snowball. Snowball died in 1902, aged only 47, a plaque to his memory says, Si monumentum requires circumspice – ‘If you seek his monument look around you.’
See full details
Object detail
verso: "NO 3/¼ p" ▫ 0 - Whole
verso: "S VII/12/W. Snowball M.B." ▫ 0 - Whole
Do you know something about this object?
Be the first to comment on this object record.