Michael Vlasto died peacefully at his home on May 29th 1979 at the age of 91, and a few weeks before his diamond wedding [anniversary]. His wife and three daughters were with him to the end.

He was born in Paris of Greek parents, his father [Ernest Michel Vlasto] a distinguished engineer worked with De Lesseps. Educated at a French lycée, Winchester College and University College [London], he qualified from U.C.H. in 1910. He obtained his F.R.C.S. in 1913, holding jobs as Demonstrator of Anatomy, House Surgeon, Resident Obstetric Officer and Clinical Assistant with the E.N.T. department at U.C.H., and as Assistant Casualty Medical Officer at Great Ormond Street.

He served as a temporary naval surgeon from 1914-1919, seeing action at the Battle of Coronel and the Battle of the Falkland Islands in H.M.S. Canopus. For two years he was in charge of the E.N.T. departments at R.N.H. Portsmouth and R.N.H. Malta.

Continuing E.N.T. surgery [after the war], he served at the Queen's Hospital for Children, Charing Cross Hospital, St Luke's Hostel for The Clergy and the West Herts. Hospital.

In 1923 he was appointed to the west London Hospital where he served until his retirement in 1947 when his acute eyesight began to fail.

He wrote a standard text book on the nursing of diseases of E.N.T. and many articles in the medical press, including articles on the removal of tonsils by dissection, or by the reverse guillotine method, Functional Aphonia, the Chorda Tympani nerve in otology and fish bones in the throat, and presented many cases at the Royal Society of Medicine.

He was an accomplished athlete, enjoying a variety of games, latterly reduced to croquet and eventually chess.

Married in 1919 to Chrissy Michell Croil of Aberdeen, whom he met as a naval V.A.D. at R.N.H. Bighi in Malta, he was a prominent member of the Anglo-Greek community in London, where he practised in Wimpole Street.

He had one son [Michael Croil Vlasto] who died at the age of 47 and three daughters [Helen Croil Vlasto, Christian Croil Vlasto and Nancy Lorna Mary Vlasto]. He retired to Westerham in Kent where he enjoyed for many years the pleasures of his garden and of his children, his grandchildren and his great-grandchildren.

He will always be remembered by all who knew him as a man of small stature and tremendous vitality. A keen probing mind, interested in the widest range of subjects, his intellectual integrity was unimpaired by ephemeral things. But above all he will be remembered for his personal warmth, true interest in people, charm, and loving nature.

A.G.G.L. [1979]