In his early career he published research on the ankle, elbow, hip, knee and ankle joints and he taught anatomy at St Andrews University, where he demonstrated that the kneecap was not just to protect the knee but important for straightening the leg.
He gave three Arris and Gale Lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons of England, and was elected to a Hunterian Professorship in 1946.
In 1939 he become lecturer in anatomy back at St Andrews, where he taught James Black (the inventor of propanolol and cimetidine), who would one day become a Nobel Laureate.
[1] Prior to the 19th century most patella fractures were treated conservatively with splinting, leaving people with pain and disability in the longterm.
[3] In 1944, while at St Andrews,[4] Haxton's experiments proved that the kneecap was not just to protect the knee but important for straightening the leg.
In the same year, he gave two Arris and Gale Lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons of England; one on "The Function of the Patella", the other on "The Anatomy of Progression".
[1] His contributions towards surgical techniques of the time included better ways of closing wounds to the abdomen by developing a method of measuring pressure inside the abdomen, evaluating the timing of removing sutures and appraising the efficacy of catgut as suture material,[1] which he showed were more irritant than nylon stitches.