JCU - Abstracts of the BAUS 2018 Scientific Meeting - June 2018 - 6

Figure 3. Early glass optical fibres, Image provided by The
Museum of Urology, BAUS.

Journal of Clinical Urology 11(1S)
novel. The difference in Hopkins' article however was that
he had not only conceived the idea, but he had also studied
how to practically manufacture it. Sadly because of lack of
backing and thus funds, Hopkins could never make the
fibrescope and it was a South African, Basil Hirschowitz
(1925 - 2013), who made the first flexible fibreoptic gastroscope using Hopkins' principle (Figure 4).
The practical application of fibreoptic technology was
devised by Hopkins after a chance encounter with
Gainsborough at a dinner party which Hopkins only attended
because of a friendship with an old army friend. That friendship would never have occurred had it not been for an
administration error that put Hopkins, by mistake, into brief
military service.

The persistent Urologist

Figure 4. Hopkins examines an early fibre optic scope, image
provided by Mr Derek Fawcet.

upper GI tract, in the style of a sword swallower but it was
clear that something more flexible was needed; the difficulty of course being the transmission of light around corners and into the dark recesses of the stomach.
Hopkins applied the principle that light shone onto the
end of a glass fibre surrounded by any medium with a
refractive index lower than glass (including air) will
bounce down that fibre with only a small loss of light
through the sides. In 1954 Hopkins and his research student Narinder Singh Kapany (b.1926) published their idea
in a letter to Nature.6 It detailed how they made a bundle of
0.025mm glass fibres and produced the first legible image
with their new 'Fibrescope' (Figure 3). Interestingly, in the
same issue of Nature, there was a second letter by a Dutch
researcher who also transmitted light along bundles of
plastic fibres.7 Actually, the idea had already been patented
by Logie Baird in 1927, so neither study was entirely

In 1957 Harold Hopkins was approached by Jim Gow
(1917 - 2001), a urologist from Liverpool who, as we
have heard, was frustrated by his inability to photograph
bladder tumours via a cystoscope. Gow was a keen amateur photographer and appreciated the problem: insufficient light.
James (Jim) Gordon Gow was born in Liverpool in
1917. He studied medicine at Liverpool University and
after some time in the Royal Army Medical Corps in the
Second World War returned to his home city to become a
consultant surgeon at Sefton General Hospital and consultant urologist at Wrightington Hospital. He developed an
interest in conservative and reconstructive treatment for
genitourinary TB and later in bladder cancer.
Gow's hobby of photography led to his attempt to produce endoscopic images of bladder tumours. He was
using a German cystoscope with a Leitz lens (which he
apparently found abandoned after the battle of El Alamein
and acquired as 'spoils of war'8) but even with this good
quality optical system the images were poor. At this time
surgeons had a close relationship with instrument manufacturers and often worked with them to improve instruments to individual surgeon's specifications. It is
interesting that this was not the approach Gow took.9
Instead, realising this was an optical and illumination
problem, he contacted the physics department at the
University of Liverpool. They felt the problem was
beyond them and suggested he contacted Hopkins, then
working in London (Figure 5).
Hopkins was `not enthusiastic`1 about working on a
medical instrument project again. The disappointment of
not being able to take his fibrescope idea through to development due to lack of British industry interest and funding
had put him off. Gow however was not to be deterred. He
obtained a grant from the Medical Research Council and
returned to Hopkins with £3000; this worked. Hopkins
began taking apart cystoscopes and looking at the problem
of light transmission. He calculated that to take a colour

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