Henry Hill Hickman

He was the third son[2] and fifth child of thirteen children of John Hickman and his wife Sarah, daughter of Benjamin Hill of nearby Stanton Lacy.

While living and practising in Shifnal, on 21 February 1824, Hickman wrote up his work and sent it to Thomas Andrew Knight of Downton Castle, near Ludlow, one of the Presidents of the Royal Society, perhaps intending that the information would reach Sir Humphry Davy.

[2][1] Hickman, disillusioned by the lack of response and wounded by an 1826 article in The Lancet titled 'Surgical Humbug' that ruthlessly criticized his work, went to Paris and submitted his writing to King Charles X of France in April 1828.

This was forwarded to the Section of Medicine at the French Academy of Sciences, but despite the support of Napoleon's field surgeon, Baron Dominique-Jean Larrey, who spoke that he had noticed that wounded soldiers felt no pain when, numbed by cold, he performed amputations, Hickman met a similar response in France to that he had received in England.

In 1931, England's Royal Society of Medicine founded the Hickman Medal, which is awarded to individuals for original work of outstanding merit in anesthesia.