Page 45 - HKU Surgery 110 Anniversary E-Book

Chapter II: Hong Kong’s First Academic Surgical Unit

Promoting Research

Pre-war Students Digby’s commitment to the highest standards of surgical education and practice,
particularly to infection control, was an important part of his legacy. But he

also kickstarted the Department’s research programme, encouraging teamwork
and research alliances among colleagues and scientists and the presentation and
In its first two decades, HKU attracted students from Southeast Asia and publication of results. Digby himself set the pace with more than 50 research
mainland China, as well as Hong Kong. The Faculty was a big draw as it was
one of the few institutions in the region providing an education in Western papers published during his career – a prolific feat at a time when surgical
medicine. The influx changed in the 1930s when political and financial research was still in its infancy.
turmoil affected home countries, meaning fewer new students came from
abroad. But some of those who did so stayed for good, including the future One of the highlights of his work was the description of the “Hong Kong disease” in his
Head of Surgery, Professor Ong Guan-Bee. most well-known paper,

published in 1930, on the
The Faculty also had its first female graduate at this time, Dr Eva Hotung, syndrome of recurrent
who was awarded an MBBS in 1927.
pyogenic cholangitis .
2
Digby observed that

gallstones in Chinese
patients commonly
generated within the
liver, not the gall bladder

as in European patients,
and that the gallstones
in Chinese patients often
grew to a very large size.

This led to distension
of the gall bladder with
bile-duct obstruction
and jaundice, which

could be fatal, and he
recommended immediate
surgical treatment. The
Professor Digby (seated, centre) with staff and students in 1926, including Dr Eva Hotung (seated, far right).
disease became the most
prevalent biliary disease
in Hong Kong in the
1960s.
Adapted from British Journal of Surgery, 1930.

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