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Sir Eric Riches

Described a popular new cystoscope and attachments

Eric William Riches (1897 - 1987) was born at Alford, Lincolnshire. He was educated at Christ's Hospital and trained at the Middlesex Hospital. During the First World War, he served with the 10th Lincoln and then with the 11th Suffolk Infantry regiments. He was awarded the Military Cross in 1917.


He was appointed to the surgical staff of the Middlesex Hospital in 1930, specialising in urology. He also worked at the Hospital of St John and St Elizabeth; St Andrew's Hospital Dollis Hill; and the Royal Masonic Hospital. He later became Consultant Urologist to the army and to the Ministry of Pensions Spinal Injuries Centre.

In 1955 he described a new cystoscope in an attempt to standardise equipment in the UK. The Riches cystoscope and its various attachments was a popular instrument until the development of the Hopkins lens system.

More about the Riches cystoscope on this site

Eric Riches was a Hunterian professor at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1938 and, in 1942, was both Hunterian professor and Jacksonian prizeman. He was knighted in 1958.

He died at the age of 90 on 8 November 1987.

Papers and obituaries

Benjamin Brodie on Strictures and Stones (1922)
A lecture to the RSM in 1958
Download the lecture
On Carcinoma of the Kidney      
A paper from 1963
Download the article
Lithotomy and Lithotrity      
A paper from 1967
Download the article
Samuel Pepys and His Stones      
A paper from 1977
Download the article
Obituary from the British Medical Journal (BMJ) Read the BMJ obituary
Obituary from the British Journal of Urology (BJU) Read the BJU obituary

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army    cystoscope    Riches    world war