Dr. Thomas B. Boulton

Dr. Boulton was born in 1925 in County Durham, England. He graduated from Cambridge University and from St. Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College before embarking on a career that has made him one of the most eminent anaesthetists in the United Kingdom. He is past president of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland and a former editor of Anaesthesia. He also led other anesthesia-related organizations and is a prolific author and a much sought-after lecturer.

Dr. Boulton’s historical contributions are legion. He has been the editor of the “Classical Files,” a prominent feature of the Survey of Anesthesiology, since 1983. He advocated and helped found the History of Anaesthesia Society in the United Kingdom and subsequently became its president in 1988. For many years, he was the Hon. Archivist of the Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland. Known for his historical scholarship, Dr. Boulton chaired the Second International Symposium for the History of Anaesthesia in London in 1987 and was co-editor of its proceedings, The History of Anaesthesia, published in 1988 by the Royal Society of Medicine. He delivered the Lewis H. Wright Memorial Lecture of the Wood Library-Museum of Anesthesiology in 1990. Dr. Boulton considers his 1999 book, The Association of Anaesthetists of Great Britain and Ireland, 1932-1992, and the Development of the Specialty of Anaesthesia, the most important singular contribution to the history of anesthesia he has ever made.