He recommended, in the face of strenuous opposition, an extensive operation that should include removal of the axillary glands when most surgeons were contented with local amputation.

He drew attention to his method in 1878 and made it the topic of the Lettsomian Lectures at the Medical Society of London in 1900.

When the glands are a big as walnuts, any first year's student, can tell they are infected; but there is a stage -the earlier stage- when there are certainly affected, and yet to touch through layers of skin fat, nothing amiss, can be felt.

As a result of this, I came to the conclusion, about three years ago, that in every case where the breast is removed, the axilla should be cleared out as a necessary accomplainment; and this I beg to urge upon the meeting, The one operation is useless without the other.

"[8] He was the father of Conservative Member of Parliament and County Court judge Sir Reginald Mitchell Banks.