David Henry Goodsall

David Henry Goodsall (1843 to 1906) was an English surgeon remembered for describing Goodsall's rule, which concerns fistulas of the anus. He was born in Gravesend and educated at St. Ann's School. His father, who had himself decided to study medicine, died of a wound sustained during a post mortem examination while a student at St. Bartholomew's Hospital, and as a result the fees of the son were waived when he studied medicine there from 1865. He became house surgeon at St Mark's Hospital in 1870, a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1872 and full surgeon in 1888. He developed an interest in rectal surgery and wrote a chapter in the book Diseases of the Anus and Rectum in which Goodsall's rule is described. He died in London in 1906 and is thought to have died of a myocardial infarction.