Army Medical School Parkes Memorial Medal, by J.S. & A.B. Wyon, obverse: head facing right, ‘Edmund Alexander Parkes, B.1819 - D.1876’; reverse: laurel wreath, ‘Army Medical School, Hygiene; Parkes Memorial Medal’, (M. Louis Hughes, Winter Session, 1889-90), 51mm., bronze, slight edge bruising to reverse, nearly extremely fine £40-50

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, A Collection of Training Ship and Prize Medals.

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Ex Spencer Collection, D.N.W. 6 July 2004, lot 928.

The Army Medical School at Fort Pitt, Chatham, opened in 1860; in 1863 the School moved to Netley. The School at Netley was eventually superceded in 1907 by the Royal Army Medical College at Millbank, London.

The Parkes Memorial Medal for hygiene was named after Dr Edmund Alexander Parkes, the first Professor of Hygiene at the Army Medical School.

Matthew Louis Hughes, L.R.C.P., M.R.C.S., L.S.A., was born on 7 July 1867, the son of Colonel Emilius Hughes, C.B., A.S.C. of Guildford. Educated at King’s College, London, the University of Edinbugh and the Rotunda Hospital, Dublin, he entered the Royal Army Medical Corps as a Surgeon, afterwards a Surgeon Captain on 1 February 1890. The author of the official Manual of Chiropody and Mediterranean, Malta, or Undulant Fever, London 1897. Medical Officers of the British Army states of the latter: ‘His book on Mediterranean Fever is a classic, and embodies his bacteriological work which confirmed Bruce’s discovery of the Micrococcus as the cause of the disease.’ Serving in the Boer War Captain Hughes was killed in action at Colenso, 15 December 1899. He was mentioned in despatches in the London Gazette of 8 February 1901.