Robert Minnitt was an anaesthetist and general practitioner
whose fame is largely derived from his lifelong dedication to the alleviation
of pain in childbirth and the invention of the Minnitt Apparatus for that
purpose.
Robert James Minnitt was born on 25th October
1889 at Fulwood, Preston. Both his father and grandfather were clergymen. (He
was of Irish descent, his great-grandfather being named Molloy, changing his
name to Molloy-Minnitt when he married a woman of that name.) Initially he
intended to follow his forebears into the church, but after a year at Trinity
College, Cambridge he decided that he could do more good as a doctor and duly
entered Liverpool Medical School, qualifying in 1915. By this time his father
had become the Vicar of St Luke’s in Formby.
Minnitt worked as an anaesthetist in a number of Liverpool
hospitals as well as being a G.P., a norm for that time. His practice was
located in his home at 73 Kremlin Drive L13 which he occupied for over 60
years. He also had consulting rooms at 24 Rodney Street L1.
His aim was to promote the use of a ‘gas and air’ mixture
(the gas being nitrous oxide). When he began his work all such anaesthetics had
to be administered under the supervision of a doctor. However, the majority of
births then were at home, usually with a midwife present. It was with this in
mind that he approached his friend, the instrument maker Charles King, to
produce an apparatus to his specification. This led to the first use of a ‘gas
and air’ anaesthetic at the Liverpool Maternity Hospital on 16th
October 1936. The Minnitt Apparatus was
in effect a self-administered anaesthetic, the ‘patient’ holding the mask so
that is she became unconscious the mask fell away. Until the use of nitrous
oxide was ended in 1970 it had been for many years the only form of analgesia
available to women in labour.
Whilst not having followed his father to become a clergyman,
Robert Minnitt was active in the church throughout his life, acting as a lay
preacher. The Liverpool Echo of 9th February 1939 carried a
letter from Minnitt in which he attacked what he considered the barbaric
practice of hare coursing.
An eminent colleague, another Liverpool-born anaesthetist
Professor Cecil Gray, said of him “If a man’s stature in our profession is
to be measured by the amount of suffering he has relieved then Minnitt’s
stature is great indeed”. He died in Liverpool on 21st February
1974.
