George Howard Monks

George Howard Monks was an American surgeon and board game inventor who lived from 1853 to 1933. Born in Boston, he graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1880 and then spent four years of internship in European medical centers. During that period, in 1883, he invented the game Halma, whose name comes from the ancient Greek word for jump, together with the mathematician Thomas Hill; it derived from the British game Hoppity, became a great commercial success and is the ancestor of Chinese checkers. He also invented a game called Basilinda. Monks began practising surgery in Boston in 1884 as district physician of the Boston Dispensary and later became visiting surgeon at the Carney Hospital. He entered the Boston City Hospital in 1890 and rose through its grades to surgeon-in-chief in 1910. From 1886 to 1926 he was connected with the Harvard Medical School in surgical anatomy, and he was also appointed Professor of Oral Surgery at the Harvard Dental School.