In the seventeenth century, Edinburgh physicians began to hold meetings in their own homes to discuss the regulation of medical practice and the ways in which standards in medicine could be improved.
Sir Robert Sibbald, an eminent physician and noted historian, was a member of this group. He had the opportunity to petition King Charles II, who granted the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh its Royal Charter in 1681.
Thus, Sir Robert is generally accepted to be the founder of the College. The founding Fellows of the College were concerned not only with the advancement of medicine as a reputable science, but also with alleviating the miseries of the City's poor and needy.
For more than 300 years, the College has remained independent of control by government, and its mission today lies close to the ideals of its founders 'to promote the highest standards in internal medicine' not only in Edinburgh where it was founded and has developed, but wherever its Fellows, Collegiate members and Members practise.
The College acts in an advisory capacity to government and other organisations on many aspects of health and welfare and medical education. It was instrumental in founding the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in 1729 and, over the years, has influenced the development of medical schools in North America, Australasia, Asia and Africa.
The Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh now has over 10,000 Fellows and Members and maintains strong links with many overseas countries, where more than half of them live and practise medicine. (Copied from http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/about/history.php)
After being a student of Owen's College, Manchester, the author obtained his MD at Cambridge in 1892, having studied also in Germany and in France. In the same year he was appointed to the Chair of Pathology and Bacteriology at McGill University, Montreal. He was A.D.M.S. to the Canadian Expeditionary Forces in 1914-1918, and had been elected FRS in 1905.
Robert Storrs was born on 23 June 1801, only child of John Storrs, a baker and provision dealer of Doncaster, and his wife Elizabeth (née Robertshaw). Robert was apprenticed for several years to a local surgeon, John Moore and an apothecary, Benjamin Popplewell, before leaving in August 1822 to spend two years walking the wards of Guy's Hospital, London. Whilst there he presented four papers to the Guy's Hospital Physical Society. In London he met his future wife, Martha Townsend, whom he eventually married in March 1827. They had thirteen children, of whom twelve survived their father.
Storrs returned to Doncaster in June 1824 to set up as a sole practitioner in the town. In July 1830 he was appointed honorary surgeon to Doncaster Dispensary. He was heavily involved in treating victims of cholera in 1832. In 1835 he was elected a municipal councillor on a Reform ticket, and in 1837 was one of the founder members of the Doncaster Lyceum. The extent to which his practice had prospered can be gauged from the census return for his household in 1841, when it comprised in addition to family members, a governess, two surgeon apprentices, and one male and four female servants. Storrs later took a close interest in puerperal or childbed fever as a result of the notorious outbreak which struck Doncaster in 1841, and he subsequently published the results of his investigations in the Provincial Medical Journal. He died of typhus on 14 September 1847.
The author obtained his MD at Edinburgh in 1869, and was elected FRCP in 1875, and was Professor of Clinical Medicine at Edinburgh University in 1885. He was knighted in 1911 [Cf. B.M.J. 1922, i, pp. 617, 618.]
Andouille is described as 'Maître-Chirurgien juré et Démonstrateur Royal de St. Cosme'. The author is called 'celeberriums Chirurgus' by Haller (cf. Bibliotheca Chirurgica, Vol. II, p. 384): he was a 'Premier Chirurgien du Roy' in 1742.
Robina Addis was one of the earliest professionally trained psychiatric social workers in Britain, qualifying in 1933. She went on to have a varied career, first in child guidance and then for the National Association for Mental Health, from which she retired in 1965.
Mourant was born on 11 April in 1904 in Jersey. He was educated at Victoria College, Jersey before winning a King Charles I Scholarship to Exeter College Oxford where he read Chemistry. He graduated with a first class degree in Chemistry (taking crystallography as his special subject) and in 1926 went on to do research under J.A. Douglas on the geology of the Channel Islands (D.Phil. 1931). In 1928 he was appointed Demonstrator in Geology at Leeds University and the following year was given a place on the Geological Survey of Great Britain mapping coal measures in Lancashire. He left in 1931. Mourant's interest in geology continued throughout his life and he continued to publish articles on geology alongside haematological and medical publications.
Mourant returned to Jersey and in 1933 established the Jersey Chemical Pathology Laboratory, which he ran for five years. He then returned to London, intending to pursue a career as a psychoanalyst. As part of the necessary preparation he underwent psychoanalysis himself and in 1939 began medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical College, London. On the outbreak of war Mourant continued his medical training but when Jersey was occupied by the Germans in 1940 he lost contact with his family who remained on the island. During the period 1940-1945 Mourant played an active role in Channel Island exile groups.
Mourant graduated B.M. and B.Ch. in 1943 and held a number of House posts before his appointment in 1944 as Medical Officer in the National Blood Transfusion Service. Mourant had developed an interest in haematology during his medical training and during this period pursued research into blood serum. He discovered the antibody anti-e, thus helping to establish the three-factor theory of the Rhesus system, and the Lewis factor and shared in the discovery of the Kell factor. With R.R. Race and R.R.A. Coombs he went on to develop the antiglobulin test.
In 1945 Mourant took up a post as Medical Officer with the Galton Laboratory Serum Unit before in 1946 being appointed Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC)'s newly established Blood Group Reference Laboratory, based at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, London. Mourant held this post to 1965. The Laboratory received international recognition in 1952 when the World Health Organisation named it as their International Blood Group Reference Laboratory. Mourant's interests were increasingly anthropological and his work on human blood group distribution world-wide saw publication of two major books: in 1953 the pioneering work The Distribution of Human Blood Groups and other Biochemical Polymorphisms and in 1958 The ABO Blood Groups and Maps of World Distribution. In 1952 Mourant was appointed Honorary Advisor (de facto Director) of the newly established Nuffield Blood Group Centre. It was administered by and housed in the Royal Anthropological Institute, reporting to its Blood Group Committee. From 1952 to 1962 the Centre was funded by the Nuffield Foundation but the MRC then took over responsibility for financing the Centre, which changed its name to the Anthropological Blood Group Centre.
In September 1965 Mourant retired from the Directorship of the Blood Group Reference Laboratory to become Head of the MRC's newly established Serological Population Genetics Laboratory (SPGL). This was established by the MRC as a unit that would combine the testing work undertaken in the Blood Group Reference Laboratory with the statistical and bibliographical work of the Anthropological Blood Group Centre, which was then amalgamated into the SPGL. The work of the SPGL was thus divided between two sections. The first was a testing laboratory, working principally for the Human Adaptability Section of the International Biological Programme (IBP). The second comprised the Anthropological Blood Group Centre that had been transferred to the SPGL, concentrating on preparing a second edition of The Distribution of the Human Blood Groups. The SPGL was based in premises rented by St Bartholomew's Hospital, London.
In 1971 the MRC announced that it was to close the SPGL. However, Mourant was anxious that the SPGL complete its work on The Distribution of the Human Blood Groups and other projects, including its work for the IBP. The MRC agreed to extend its support of the work on the distribution of human blood groups to 1973. Through assiduous fund-raising Mourant found support for the other projects and was able to see them through to completion. The SPGL finally closed in 1976. Mourant retired to the family home in Jersey where he continued to publish on haematology and physical anthropology as well as geology. Mourant was elected FRS in 1966. He died on 29 August 1994.
Cicely Delphine Williams was born December 1893. She first attracted the attention of the medical world when she identified the protein deficiency disease kwashiorkor whilst working with the British Colonial Service in the Gold Coast in 1928-1935, and she continued to be active in the debate over protein nutrition throughout her life. She was equally important as a pioneer of maternal and child care in developing countries with a system based on local traditions and resources rather than on the use of expensive drugs and western systems of child care. As first Head of the Maternal and Child Health Section of the World Health Organisation in 1949-1951 she expounded this philosophy, as she did in subsequent teaching appointments in Beirut, America and London. Her primary area of interest was maternal and child health, encompassing nutrition, breast feeding, birth control, the training of personnel and the development of health services. She was an active member of the Medical Association for the Prevention of War, speaking at their meetings. Williams died in 1992.
Sir (William) Richard Shaboe Doll qualified in medicine at St Thomas' Hospital Medical School, University of London, in 1937. After five years military service, he started research in the field of gastroenterology with Sir Francis Avery Jones at Central Middlesex Hospital in 1946. During the next twenty years, he contributed many papers on the aetiology and treatment of peptic ulcer.
In 1948, he joined the Medical Research Council's Statistical Unit at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine under Sir Austin Bradford Hill, with the primary objective of investigating the cause(s) of a dramatic increase in the mortality of lung cancer. On Bradford Hill's retirement in 1961, he took over the directorship of the Unit and continued in this post until his appointment, in 1969, as Regius Professor of Medicine in the University of Oxford. Ten years later, in 1979, he became the first Warden of Green College, Oxford, a new College established primarily to serve the special interests of clinical medicine at Oxford. Whilst at Oxford, he directed the Cancer Epidemiology Unit established by the Imperial Cancer Research Fund. He continued to work as an honorary member of Sir Richard Peto's research group at Oxford after his retirement in 1983.
Doll's principal research interests were the effects of smoking, ionising radiation, oral contraceptives, and the occupational hazards of cancer. In 1981, he published with Richard Peto a report on the Causes of Cancer at the request of the Office of Technology Assessment of the US Congress. His pre-eminence in the field of epidemiology led to a steady stream of honours and lecture opportunities across the world. He received 15 honorary degrees from the universities at home and abroad, and a number of awards including the Royal Society's Royal Medal, the BMA Gold Medal, General Motors Mott Prize and the UN Award for Cancer Research. Sir Richard Doll was a Foreign Associate of the American Association of Arts and Science and received his OBE in 1956, FRS in 1966, was knighted in 1971, and became a Companion of Honour in 1996. In 2002 Doll was elected a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States. Doll died on 24th July 2005, aged 92.
Professor Ernest Basil Verney (1894-1967), MD, FRCP, FRS, was a physiologist and pharmacologist. An outline of his life and career follows: Born 1894; Exhibition to Downing College, Cambridge, 1913; First class honours part 1 natural science tripos, 1916; Shuter scholar, St Bartholomew's Hospital, anatomy and physiology, 1916-1918; Served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, 1918-1919; MB, BChir (Cantab) MRCP (London), 1920; Assistant to E.H. Starling in the Institute of Physiology, University College London, 1921; Married Ruth Eden Conway, 1923; Assistant to Professor T R Elliott in University College Hospital Medical School, 1924; Chair of Pharmacology at University College London, 1926; Acquitted of charge of using stolen dog in research, 1926; Breakdown in health, 1930; Sheild Reader in Pharmacology in Cambridge, Fellow of Darwin College, 1934; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1936; First Sheild Professor of Pharmacology, Cambridge, 1946; Honorary DSc, University of Melbourne, 1956; Visiting Professor at the University of Melbourne Baly medal of the Royal College of Physicians Honorary member of the Physiological Society, 1957; Retired; Emeritus Professor of Pharmacology, Cambridge, 1961; Personal chair at University of Melbourne, work on adrenal secretions, 1961-1964; Died 1967.
Paul Ehrlich was a leading medical researcher of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He won the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1908. He is best remembered for 'Dr Ehrlich's Magic Bullet', Compound 606, the arsephanemine drug salvarsan which was a cure for syphilis, discovered in 1909.
Eileen Palmer, Olive Johnson, and Edith How-Martyn worked closely together in the British birth control movement during a period from the 1920s to the 1950s. How-Martyn had been active in this cause since before the First World War. They were all involved with the Birth Control International Information Centre and Birth Control Worldwide organisations during the 1930s, and Palmer accompanied How-Martyn on one of her several tours of India to promote birth control. How-Martyn undertook a number of other foreign tours, before emigrating to Australia with her husband around 1940. There is an entry for How-Martyn in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and some obituaries and other biographical material in A.8.
Michael Scott Montague Fordham: Born, 1905; Trinity College Cambridge, 1924; St Bartholomew's Hospital, 1927; Junior Medical Officer, Long Grove Mental Hospital Epsom, 1932; Fellowship in Child Psychiatry, London Child Guidance Clinic, 1934; Consultant post to help evacuee children in hostels in the Nottingham area, 1942; helped set up a proposed training centre for analytical psychology, 1942; Appointed consultant to the Child Guidance Clinic at the West End Hospital for Nervous Diseases, 1946; first editor of Journal of Analytical Psychology, 1955; Founder Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatry, 1971; died, 1995.
Frieda Fordham:
Born Winefride Rothwell on 23 Feb 1903. She first pursued a career as a dancer, but in 1920 married Percy Campbell Hoyle, by whom she had two sons. Following the end of this marriage, she studied at the London School of Economics and trained as a psychiatric social worker. Working in that capacity at the London Child Guidance Clinic, she met Michael Fordham, whom she married in 1940. She later trained as an analytical psychotherapist. Her publications included the much reprinted (and translated into several languages) An Introduction to Jung's Psychology (Penguin, 1953), widely regarded as a classic text on this subject. She was also responsible for the famous opening words of the BBC radio programme 'Listen with Mother' - 'Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin'. After a decade of increasing ill-health, she died on 7 Jan 1988.
Hans Grüneberg was born in Germany and studied medicine in Bonn and biology in Berlin. At the invitation of J B S Haldane, he moved to London in 1933, where R A Fisher and M J D White were also working on genetics. Grüneberg established the subject of development genetics, along with C H Waddington. He studied the pathological processes in mutant mice, and formulated a 'pedigree of causes' of genes, which was an important model for human disease. In 1943 he published Genetics of the Mouse (extensively revised in 1952), a work which influenced many experimental laboratories.
Professor Sir Alexander Haddow FRCP, FRS (1907-1976) was an experimental pathologist specialising in cancer research.
He was born at Leven, Fife, the son of a miner, and grew up in Broxburn, West Lothian. In 1924-1929 he studied at Edinburgh University, graduating MB ChB; following this, he served as house physician and Carnegie Research Student at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and worked in general practice in Hull, before becoming an assistant lecturer in bacteriology at Edinburgh University. He became a full lecturer and Davidson Reserch Fellow in 1932, his research leading to the qualifications of PhD and MD in 1937 and DSc in 1938.
By 1936 he joined Ernest Kennaway's team at the Royal Cancer Hospital (now the Marsden Hospital) in London, and in 1946 became Director of the Chester Beatty Research Institute, succeeding Kennaway. During these years his work built on Kennaway's achievement of extracting chemicals from coal tar that proved carcinogenic to animals. Haddow reasoned that if these carcinogens were compared to other closely related but non-carcinogenic chemicals the differences between them would prove significant in explaining the genesis of cancer. He also discovered what is known as the Haddow Effect, in which a carcinogenic chemical can be used to arrest a cancer caused by some other carcinogenic chemical (provided that the two chemicals are not closely related). Clinical trials at the Royal Cancer Hospital led to the adoption of the platinum compound cisplatin as a treatment for cancer of the ovary, and other compounds such as chlorambucil, melphalan and busulphan are used for treatment of breast and ovarian cancer, and malignant blood diseases.
Haddow was elected FRS in 1958 and knighted in 1966, receiving many other honours such as the Croix de Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur. He was president of the International Union Against Cancer 1962-1966. His other activities included work with the BBC, service on the Press Council, and work with the Pugwash Conferences of scientists opposed to nuclear weapons.
He was married twice, to Dr Lucia Lindsay Crosby Black (d.1968), with whom he had one son, William George Haddow (b.1934), and after her death to Feo Standing née Garner, scientific photographer, who survived him.
He died in Amersham, Buckinghamshire, in 1976, and was cremated there.
Born, 1900; Educated at Wychwood School Oxford; Madras College, St Andrews, 1916; Edinburgh University to read Zoology, 1918; B.Sc: works with Dr F A E Crew; goes to Cambridge as Scientific Assistant to Dr T S P Strangeways with MRC funding, 1923; Junior Beit Fellowship, Ph.D, 1924; Senior Beit Fellow; Director of the Strangeways Research Laboratory, 1929-1970; Messel Research Fellow of the Royal Society, 1931-1943; D.Sc Edinburgh, 1932; Foulerton Research Fellow of the Royal Society, 1943-1967; FRS, 1952; DBE, Royal Society Research Professor, 1963; retires as Director of the Strangeways Laboratory, 1970; Research Worker in Division of Immunology, Department of Pathology, University of Cambridge, 1970-1979; Research worker at Strangeways Laboratory, 1979-1986; died, 1986.
The Rev Dr Hubert Carey (Hugh) Trowell, OBE, MD, FRCP (1904-1989) Physician, paediatrician, and nutritionist. Born, 1904; Qualified at St Thomas's Medical School, 1928; House Physician, St Thomas's Hospital, 1928-1929; Colonial Medical Service, Kenya, 1929; Study of kwashiorkor, 1930-1958; Senior Physician and Senior Paediatrician, Mulago Hospital, Kampala, Uganda, 1935-1958; Return to England, 1959; Ordained into Anglican Church, 1960; Vicar at Stratford-sub-Castle, and chaplain to Salisbury Hospital, 1960-1970; First Chairman of London Medical Group for Study of Medical Ethics, 1960-1964; Study Secretary of the newly formed Institute of Religion and Medicine, 1960-1966; Chair of BMA working party on the ethical aspects of euthanasia, Retired, study of 'dietary fibre', 1970; President of Institute of Religion and Medicine, 1979; died, 1989.
Hans Georg Epstein was born in Berlin on the 25 April 1909. He was educated in Switzerland and Bavaria but returned to Berlin where he studied for a doctorate in physics from the Department of Physical Chemistry at Berlin University, gaining the 'very rare distinction' (Ref.: PP/HGE/A/B/6) of summa cum laude in 1934.
In the late 1930s, Dr Epstein, also known as 'Eppy' or 'Ep' to work colleagues and friends, moved to England and worked briefly in London before moving to Oxford to pursue his scientific research.
It was in Oxford that Epstein began specialising in research and development in the field of anaesthesia. He was employed at the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford at the suggestion of the first Nuffield Professor of Anaesthetics, Sir Robert Macintosh who was keen to develop new forms of ether inhaler, ether being the principle anaesthetic of the day.
With the outbreak of war, in 1939, Epstein was taken on by the Nuffield Department of Anaesthetics to help develop a portable yet reliable inhaler that could be used on the battlefield where access to oxygen cylinders and anaesthetic gases was not possible. It was also essential that individuals with no medical training could safely and effectively use the apparatus. The resulting product was the Oxford Vaporizer, which was manufactured by the Lord Nuffield-owned Morris Motors Ltd and used by allied troops across the world (Ref.: PP/HGE/C/A/5, copy of letter from Sgt Alex Hood, 1943).
During the war Epstein helped to develop other products, such as life jackets for airmen, but his principal interest and expertise lay in the research and development of anaesthetic inhalers. In 1956, the Epstein Macintosh Oxford (EMO) inhaler was released, superseding the Oxford vaporizer. The EMO was a more sophisticated yet simpler apparatus that used internal bellows to maintain a constant flow of gases. A later version, known as the EMOTRIL (which used Trichloroethylene), was specifically developed for analgesia in obstetrics.
Through the 1950s and 1960s Epstein continued his research and development of anaesthesia inhalers, building himself a global reputation as a leading expert in this field. His inhalers harnessed the latest anaesthesia agents, such as Halothane: an example was the Oxford Miniature Vaporizer (OMV), a version of which found use during the Falklands conflict in 1982 (Ref: PP/HGE/C/A/4 Times newspaper clipping).
Epstein's research was often accompanied by a personal interest in the historical development of the subject concerned. His papers include many items that show an interest in the historical developments in anaesthesia, as well as a wider interest in topics such as the history of scientific research into resuscitation (Ref: PP/HGE/H/1 and PP/HGE/H/2).
During his time at Oxford, Epstein developed a reputation as an informative and entertaining lecturer. He was given many invitations to speak on a range of anaesthesia topics; however, most memorable were his lectures and demonstrations on the subject of anaesthetic explosions.
Epstein also found time to research and co-write Physics for the Anaesthetist. It was hailed as a seminal resource in the field of anaesthesia and three editions were published between 1946 and 1963. However, delays in publishing a fourth, revised edition were blamed on Epstein and led to him being ejected from the project in 1982 (Ref: PP/HGE/E/A/2), much to his dissatisfaction. The fourth edition was eventually published in 1987, though Epstein remained bitter as to the amount of credit attributed to himself and Lord Nuffield within this edition (Ref: PP/HGE/E/A/3 draft letter to Per Saugman).
Epstein spent the latter years of his working life, and part of his retirement (until the mid 1980s) conducting anaesthesia research tests for the medical apparatus manufacturer Penlon. Retirement also allowed Epstein to pursue his interests outside of science, including cycling and food and wine connoisseurship. Dr Hans Epstein died in Oxford on 1 August 2002.
Dr Margaret Lowenfeld was a paediatrician who became a pioneer of child psychology and psychotherapy. Her outstanding contributions sprang from her recognition that play is an important activity in children's development. She invented non-verbal techniques that enabled children to express themselves, including The Lowenfeld World Technique and Lowenfeld Mosaics. The former involved the use of sand trays and miniature toys. The child guidance clinic Lowenfeld established in the late 1920s in London's Notting Hill developed into the Institute for Child Psychology.
Further biographical information can be found on the Dr Margaret Lowenfeld Trust website at http://www.lowenfeld.org/Lowenfeld/default.asp.
Born, 1884; Educated at Barnard Castle School, 1898-1902; Emmanuel College Cambridge, 1902; Research student, Emmanuel, working under Gowland Hopkins, 1906; Demonstrator in Department of Physiology, St Thomas's Hospital, 1909-1911; MA,MB(Cantab), 1910; Beit Memorial Fellowship, 1910-1912; Chair of Physiology of the University of London in the King's (subsequently Queen Elizabeth's) College for Women, 1913-1920; Married May Tweedy, 1914; MD (Cantab), 1915; Work on the absorption of alcohol, under the MRC for the Liquor Control Board, c 1918; Chair of Pharmacology at the University of Sheffield, 1920-1933; FRS, 1925, FRCP, 1928; Chairman, League of Nations Nutrition and Vitamins Standardisation Commission, 1931; Appointed Secretary to the Medical Research Council, 1933; Fullerian Professor of the Royal Institution, 1936-1937; KCB, 1937; Honorary Physician to King George VI , 1937-1941; Chairman of the Advisory Medical Panel of the British Council, 1942; Work on the role of agene in flour in the causation of canine hysteria, 1946; Visited South Africa to advise on medical research, 1948; Attended African Scientific Regional Congress, 1949; Retired as Secretary to the Medical Research Council, 1949; Visited India to advise on medical research policy, 1950-1951; Visit to Australia and New Zealand to advise on medical research, 1951; died, 1955.
May Tweedy was born in 1882, educated at Hampstead and Bromley High Schools, and then went to Girton College, Cambridge, where she pursued the Natural Science Tripos, Parts I and II, 1902-1905. She then held the post of Research Scholar and Lecturer at Bedford College London, 1906-1914. She married Edward Mellanby in 1914 and collaborated in his research throughout the rest of their lives together. Besides all the work she carried out with her husband on nutrition, she also conducted independently research into the physiology of dentition and the causes of dental disease, and was involved with a number of bodies making policy in this field. She died in 1978.
Ronald MacKeith was born on 23 February 1908 as one of a twin and 11 children of a Southampton general practitioner. He was admitted to Queen's College, Oxford in 1926 and then went to St Mary's Hospital Medical School for his clinical studies, qualifying in 1932. He obtained membership of the Royal College of Physicians (MRCP) in 1941 and was elected a fellow in 1952 (FRCP). During the war he served as a medical officer in the Royal Navy and in 1941 married Elizabeth Bartrum, with whom he would have four children.
After the war he joined the staff of Guy's hospital and was appointed Children's Physician in 1948. Shortly afterwards he began a cerebral palsy clinic, which developed into the Newcomen Centre for Handicapped children in 1964, of which he was the first director. He was also during this time paediatrician to the Cassel Hospital and the Tavistock Clinic, emphasising the stong link he saw between paediatrics and child psychiatry.
One of MacKeith's most significant influences on the practice of paediatrics was his more enlightened and humane treatment of handicapped children in and out of hospital. He advocated an inter-disciplinary approach and saw the whole child and family rather than the disability alone. His primary interest remained children rather than the intricacies of rare diseases. His views are set out in books such as The Child and his Symptoms with John Apley, A New Look at Child Health with Michael Joseph and Infant Feeding and Feeding Difficulties with Chris Wood and Roy Meadow, as well as many articles and editorials in Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology and other journals.
MacKeith became associated with The Spastics Society (now SCOPE) in the early 1950s and was appointed the Director of the Medical Education and Information Unit (MEIU) in 1958. He was instrumental in developing this unit, which was closely associated with MacKeith personally and accounts for some of its papers being interspersed with MacKeith's own. MacKeith's most significant contribution as director was the foundation of a journal and renowned study groups.
The meetings organised by MacKeith (and now called the MacKeith meetings) were of 2 kinds. There were bi-ennial International Study Groups on Child Neurology and Cerebral palsy, held in Oxford, where international experts were brought together in 'workshops' to discuss specific selected topics and child neurology in general. Secondly, there were large open meetings designed for health professionals, usually devoted to a broad, practical theme and held all over the country.
The Cerebral Palsy Bulletin was founded in 1958, (from 1962 Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology) when MacKeith convinced the Society that such a publication would help them further their objectives of spreading understanding of disabilities and the special needs of those who have them and stimulating research in the area. MacKeith was also instrumental in its recognition by the American Academy of Cerebral Palsy as their official journal and remained senior editor of this and its sister publication, Little Club Clinics (from 1963 Clinics in Developmental Medicine), up until the time of his death. Editorial policy lay with the Editorial Board, which reported to the Medical Advisory Committee of the Society. He was succeeded by Martin Bax, a friend and close colleague, who remained in post until his retirement in 2003. In 1967 the Press was named Spastics International Medical Publications (SIMP), becoming MacKeith Press in 1986 and a separate wholly-owned subsidiary in 2001.
MacKeith was involved with numerous other societies and had wide ranging medical interests. For instance, he was engaged with the topic of medical education and a founder member of the Association for Medical Education and secretary then chairman of the Medical Committee of the Scientific Film Association. Medical ethics and the role of doctors in the public field was another area of interest and he was chairman of the Medical Association for Prevention of War. MacKeith founded the British Paediatric Neurology Association and British Community Paediatric Group and a member of the British Paediatric Association and the Royal Society of Medicine. He was also a keen member of the Johnson Club.
Honours included the James Spence Medal (1972), Rosen von Rosenstein Medal of the Swedish Paediatric Association (1974), the Special Merit Award of the American Academy for Cerebral Palsy (1975) and the Albrecht von Haller Medal from the University of Gottingen (1977).
MacKeith died suddenly on 30 October 1977 after being taken ill several hours earlier at home.
Born, 1915; FRS,OM; Medical Scientist; Nobel Laureate; died, 1987.
Born, 1907; CBE,MD,FRCP, FRS; Haematologist and biographer; died, 1986.
CBE, MA, DSc, DM, BCh, FRS, FRCP, FRCPath, FRS.
Biochemist; Professor of Chemical Pathology, Guy's Hospital Medical School, University of London, 1947-1965; Secretary-General International Union of Biochemistry 1955-1964; Director, Courtauld Institute of Biochemistry, Middlesex Hospital Medical School, University of London, 1965-1976; Wellcome Trust Trustee, 1963-1982, and Deputy Chairman, 1978-1982; Chairman Chemical Defence Advisory Board, Ministry of Defence, 1968-1975.
KCSI,FRCP,FRCS,FRS; Specialist in tropical medicine; Indian Medical Service 1893-1920.
Thomas Latimer Cleave, known as Peter' to his friends and colleagues, was born in Exeter in 1906, and educated at Clifton College. Between 1922-27, he attended medical schools at the Royal Infirmary, Bristol, and St Mary's Hospital, London, achieving MRCS and LRCP. At Bristol, one of his teachers was Rendle Short, who had proposed that appendicitis is caused by a lack of cellulose in the diet (it is worth noting, perhaps, from a biographical perspective, that Cleave's sister had died at the age of eight years from a perforated appendicitis). Charles Darwin's writings provided the intellectual framework to Cleave's life-long engagement with the relationship between diet and health, built upon the premise that the human body is ill-adapted to the diet of modern (western) man. In this context, he considered refined carbohydrates (white flour and sugar) to be the most transformed food, and therefore the most dangerous. After completing his medical training, Cleave entered the Royal Navy in 1927 as Surgeon Lieutenant. Between 1938-1940, he served as Medical Specialist at RN Hospital, Hong Kong. It was during his war service, in 1941, whilst on the battleship King George V, that he acquired his naval nicknamethe bran man' when he had sacks of bran brought on board to combat the common occurrence of constipation amongst sailors. Following war service, he worked at Royal Naval Hospitals in Chatham (1945-1948), Malta (1949-1951) and Plymouth (1952-1953). He retired from the Royal Navy in 1962 as Surgeon Captain, having finished his naval career as Director of Medical Research at the RN Medical School.
Although Cleave had published a short booklet in 1932 (A Molecular Conception of Organisms and Neoplasms), the publication to receive attention first was a paper published in 1956, in the Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service, entitled: "The neglect of natural principles in current medical practice" (42:2, 55-63). This paper can be considered the foundation to a series of incremental publications aligning (Darwinian) `natural principles' in diet to sustained good health. The major publications include: Fat Consumption and Coronary Heart Disease (1957), On the Causation of Varicose Veins (1960), Peptic Ulcer (1962) and Diabetes, Coronary Thrombosis and the Saccharine Disease (1966). His final publications were The Saccharine Disease (1974), which largely synthesised his previous publications, and the paper published in 1977: "Over-consumption. Now the most dangerous cause of disease in Westernised countries," Public Health: The Journal of the Society of Community Medicine (91:3), 127-31.
Recognition came late to Cleave. In 1979, he was awarded both the Harben gold medal of the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene and the Gilbert Blane medal for naval medicine by the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons. During the 1970s, his ideas found favour in America, where the doctor and author Miles H Robinson was a particular champion. Robinson was instrumental in the American publication of The Saccharine Disease, for which he wrote an introduction. In 1973, Cleave gave evidence to the US Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, at the invitation of Senator George McGovern. Not without support (Sir Richard Doll provided a Foreword to successive editions of Diabetes, Coronary Thrombosis and the Saccharine Disease), nevertheless throughout his life Cleave was very much an outsider to the medical establishment. His publications, all made at his own expense, were often criticised for being too theoretical and insufficiently grounded in detailed primary research. As Kenneth Heaton has noted, he was "recording differences in disease patterns over time and space long before the epidemiology of chronic diseases was a recognised discipline...[and] he painted with broad strokes on the biggest possible canvas when others were focusing on ever more minute areas of investigation."
Born 1911, died 1989.
William Drummond Macdonald Paton was born in Hendon, London, 5 May, 1917, and died 17 October, 1993. Son of a clergyman, Paton was educated at Winchester House, Brackley, and at Repton. At New College, Oxford, he obtained first class honours in Animal Physiology (1938). He proceeded to study at University College Hospital (UCH) where he qualified as a physician (1942), marrying, in the same year, Phoebe Margaret Rooke.
His subsequent appointments were: Pathologist, Midhurst Sanatorium (1943); Member of Scientific Staff, National Institute for Medical Research (1944-52); Reader in Applied Pharmacology, UCH (1952-54); Vandervell Chair of Pharmacology, Royal College of Surgeons, London (1954-59); Professor of Pharmacology, University of Oxford, and Fellow of Balliol College (1959-84).
Other offices held include: Secretary of the Physiological Society (1951-57); Chairman, MRC Committee on Non-Explosive Anaesthetic Agents (1960-69); Member of the Medical Research Council (1963-67); Member of the Council of the Royal Society (1967-69); Delegate of the Clarendon Press, Oxford (1967-72); Chairman, MRC Working Party on Biochemical and Physiological Aspects of Drug Dependence (1968-75); Chairman, Editorial Board, British Pharmacological Society (1969-74); President, Institute of Animal Technicians (1969-74); Member, Central Advisory Council for Science and Technology (1970-71); Chairman, Committee on the Scheme for the Suppression of Doping in Horse-Racing (1970-71); Chairman, Research Defence Society (1972-77); Member, (Hunter) Independent Scientific Committee on Smoking and Health (1978-79). In addition, Paton served as a Rhodes Trustee from 1968, and as a Wellcome Trustee from 1978. From 1953, Paton was consultant and adviser to the Director of Naval Physical Research, and was appointed as Civil Consultant in Underwater Physiology to the Navy in 1978, retiring from the role in 1982 on attaining the age of 65 years.
Amongst his many honours and awards were: FRS (1956), JP (1956), CBE (1968), FRCP (1969), FFARCS (Hon) (1975), and Knight bachelor (1979). He shared the Cameron Prize (1956) and the Gairdner Foundation Award (1959) with Eleanor Zaimis for their work on methonium compounds, and received the Gold Medal of the Society of Apothecaries (1979).
Born 24 April 1907; Qualified in medicine, St Mary's Hospital, 1930; House Physician and House Surgeon to the Medical and Surgical Professorial Units, St Mary's Hospital, 1930-1931; House Physician to the Neurological Unit, St Mary's Hospital, 1931; Resident Medical Superintendent, St Mary's Hospital, 1932; Assistant to the Medical Professorial Unit, St Mary's Hospital, 1932-1934; Member of the Royal College of Physicians, 1933; Period of illness and resignation from St Mary's; locum at Hanwell Mental Hospital, Middlesex and periods in private and general practice, 1934; Medical Officer, Maudsley Hospital, 1935-1946; Clinical Assistant to the Psychiatric Department, St George's Hospital, 1937-1942; Rockefeller Fellowship and Research Fellow in Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, 1938-1939; Deputy Clinical Director, Sutton Emergency Hospital (Maudsley Hospital), 1939-1945; Acting Honorary Psychiatrist to West End Hospital for Nervous Disorders, c.1942-1945; published An Introduction to Physical Methods of Treatment in Psychiatry, 1944; Visiting Professor of Neuropsychiatry, Duke University Medical School, North Carolina, USA, 1947-1948; Consultant, St Thomas' Hospital, 1948; Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, 1949; Registrar, Royal Medico-Psychological Association, 1952-1971; President of the Section of Psychiatry of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1956-1957; published The Battle for the Mind, 1957; Associate Secretary, World Psychiatric Association, 1961-1966; published autobiography The Unquiet Mind, 1967; retired from St Thomas' Hospital, 1972; published The Mind Possessed, 1973; died 27 August 1988.
The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace.
The British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC) was founded in 1971 as a result of a general feeling that an interdisciplinary forum was needed in Britain for the discussion and development of antimicrobial chemotherapy, a field dealing with the treatment of parasitic infections using antibacterial drugs. The Society's Council meets several times a year, as do its Committees and working parties, the minutes of which can be found in this collection (Section A). The reports of these working parties have proved to be very influential in the field of chemotherapy, several having been published in major medical journals. This collection contains examples of some of these (Section D). The spring and autumn meetings of the BSAC, as well as the joint meetings and international symposia have also been important in publicising the field and forging links with other bodies (see Section B). The Society hosted the ninth International Congress of Chemotherapy (ICC) in 1975 and was successful in its bid to host the 21st ICC in Birmingham in 1999 (see item E.6).
The recent past has seen the Society's membership and influence grow. The inauguration of the L P Garrod annual lecture in 1982, named after Lawrence Paul Garrod (1895-1979), a renowned bacteriologist and world figure in the study of hospital infection and antibiotics, as well as the awarding of the international Umezawa Prize of the International Society of Chemotherapy to a BSAC Council member in 1990, demonstrate the Society's growing importance. The development of the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy and the newsletter (sections A.5 and C) have added to the Society's national and international prestige.
Founded by Vicky Clement-Jones, who in spite of her medical training, realised when she was diagnosed with cancer, that she had no idea of how it felt to be a patient and cope with the uncertainties that lay ahead. Through her own experiences, she became aware of the fact that most cancer sufferers were not offered by the medical community the kind of practical help and advice they needed to cope with life. She formed BACUP (now CancerBACUP), which continues today to provide an information service for people who have to live with cancer. Professional and practical advice, as well as emotional counselling, is given by nurses trained in cancer care.
A Scottish Association for Occupational Therapy was established in 1932, and the Association of Occupational Therapists in England in 1936. A Joint Council was formed in 1952, and final merger took place in 1974 under the title the British Association of Occupational Therapists.
The BAOT is the only professional, educational and trade union organisation for occupational therapists and support staff in the UK, and is a member of the Committee for Occupational Therapists in the European Communities (COTEC) and the World Federation of Occupational Therapists (WFOT). It acts to validate and monitor pre-registration courses, guide continuing professional development and to initiate and support research and development into professional practice. It also sets standards of ethical and professional conduct and acts to represent and promote the profession's views and needs to central government, other professional bodies and consumers. Its members have full membership of UNISON, which serves to promote employment rights and conditions.
Dr Hugh Baron was keen to establish a society for the promotion of arts in hospital, and he and other interested parties proposed to set up a centre for this. A Steering Committee was established. Originally, negotiations were with Manchester Polytechnic funded by the Carnegie Trust (but they pulled out when staff were being appointed, as it was counter to their remit). However, the Committee found itself unable to agree on a Director, and plans to set up the centre in Manchester were scrapped. This led to some of the Committee members (notably Peter Senior, who applied for the post of Director) breaking away. Eventually, Senior established a rival institution in Manchester (Arts for Health. See D.1) and the British Health Care Arts Centre based itself in Dundee at the Duncan of Jordanstane Art College, under the Directorship of Malcom Miles. It was financed through donations from charitable trusts and foundations.
In 1993, through financial instability, the Centre was wound up. However, the English venture merged with the arts project at the United Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (at Leeds General Infirmary), whilst the Scottish arm remained in Dundee. The two institutions were separate in terms of finance and management but still retained collaborative links.
The aims of the BHCAC were: (a) to improve the environment in all health care buildings, by encouraging the development of the arts in these buildings through the provision of an advice and consultancy service, both to the health authorities and to arts organisations and projects working with the Health Service, and (b) to initiate studies and arts in health care. Every year, the BHCAC awarded the Astra Award funded by Astra Pharmaceuticals.
Foundation of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association. 19 Jul 1832; the Eastern Medical Association is the first branch to open, Sep 1835; Monmouthshire (first Welsh branch) opens, 1852; name changes to the British Medical Association, 1856; the Medical Act is passed. Establishment of the General Medical Council and the Medical Register, 1858; first appointment of the Parliamentary Bills Committee, 1863; South of Ireland Branch opens, 1874; Association registered as a company limited by guarantee, 1974; Edinburgh (first Scottish branch) opens, 1875; first overseas branch in Jamica opens, 1877; the Medical Act is passed, 1886; National Health Insurance Bill, 1911; Medical Planning Commission set up to consider the future of British medical services, 1940; Commission publishes its report, Jun 1942; Beveridge report published, Dec 1942; Government publishes its White Paper 'A National Health Service', Feb 1944; Negotiating Committee set up under the chairmanship of Dr Guy Dain to negotiate with the coalition Government, 1945; 7 principles announced - these had to be adhered to if the proposed national health service was to gain professional support, 15 Dec 1945; publication of the National Health Services Bill, 20 Mar 1946; National Health Services Bill passed, 6 Nov 1946; NHS came into being, 5 Jul 1948; appointment of the Royal (Pilkington) Commission on Doctors' and Dentists' Remuneration, 1957; report of the Medical Services Review Committee published (Porritt Report), 1962; report of the committee set up to review the future of general practice (committee set up in 1961), 1963; publication of the Government’s Green Papers on the structure of the Health Service in England and Wales and Scotland, 1968; branches are abolished and replaced by Regional Councils, 1973-1974.
The British Society of Immunology (BSI) was founded in 1956 to promote the study of immunology. It does this primarily through scientific meetings and its journals, Immunology and Clinical and Experimental Immunology. It also supports regional immunology groups, and affinity groups which meet to discuss particular interests such as comparative and veterinary immunology. It arranges summer schools and supports the organisation of conferences for those in further education.
The BSI has representatives on the committees of related organisations and vice versa. It is affiliated to the Research Defence Society and the Institute of Biology. It is a member of the International Union of Immunological Societies and the European Federation of Immunological Societies.
The Society is registered as a charity and became a company limited by guarantee in 1995. It set up its own trading company, Triangle 3 Ltd in 1994. This enables it to create additional income without affecting its charitable status. The directors of the company are the BSI's Management Committee.
The Chartered Society of Physiotherapy began life in 1894, after a series of 'massage scandals' in the popular press prompted nine nurses and midwives to form a council of trained masseuses. In February 1895 this was officially launched as The Society of Trained Masseuses. The Society set examinations and educational standards, inspected training schools, and quickly embraced wider methods of treatment, including medical gymnastics, hydrotherapy and electro-therapy. It also acted to protect and improve the status of its members within the medical hierarchy. The Society became incorporated in 1900, and in 1920 amalgamated with the Institute of Massage and Remedial Exercises, changing its name to the Chartered Society of Massage and Medical Gymnastics. In 1943 the name was changed again to the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, and amalgamation with the Incorporation of Physiotherapists took place in 1945. Further amalgamations occurred in 1968 - with The Faculty of Physiotherapists, with The Physiotherapists Association Ltd in 1970 and with the Society of Remedial Gymnasts and Recreational Therapy in 1985. In 1976 the Society registered as an independent trade union. By 1994 the Society had over 26,000 members, working and teaching both within the NHS and privately.
The Association was established in Feb 1975, following a proposal made by a meeting of District Community Physicians (DCPs) at the Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene Annual Conference, Oct 1974. Its formation resulted from DCPs' overwhelming desire to have their interests and collective opinions properly represented under the reorganised National Health Service. The Regional and Area Medical Officers had already formed their own national associations and the Society of Community Medicine (formerly Society of Medical Officers of Health) had banned the formation of functional groups within its new organisation. The Association of District Community Physicians aimed to provide a forum for discussion of problems peculiar to DCPs; promote interests and views of DCPs and prepare evidence to be submitted on their behalf, to other bodies when necessary; arrange special educational courses and symposia; and promote research projects relevant to needs of DCPs. Initially members were split over whether they should support and maintain allegiance to the Society of Community Medicine, however, the Association did establish strong links with both the Society of Community Medicine and Royal Institute of Public Health and Hygiene, including cross-membership, joint meetings and a shared address (28 Portland Place).
From the start, DCPs were concerned about their new role, duties, terms, training and whom they were to be responsible to. The DCP was a new post and they had no relevant experience or code of practice to use for guidance. In the confusion resulting from NHS reorganisation they felt that their job was ill-defined and they were anxious to remain independent from the pressures and influences of Area Medical Officers [See files in Section D]. It was hoped that by getting together the DCPs would be more effective in arguing their case to the Department of Health and Social Services and British Medical Association. However, their voice was one amongst a number of organisations recently formed to represent community medicine. The Association of District Community Physicians functioned until the next health service reorganisation in 1982 and subsequently merged into the new Association of District Medical Officers.
1877 Malthusian League founded; 1921 Society for Constructive Birth Control and Racial Progress (CBC), founded by Marie Stopes and Mothers' Clinic opened; 1922 Walworth Women's Welfare Centre opened; 1924 Society for Provision of Birth Control Clinics (SPBCC) founded; North Kensington Women's Welfare Centre opened (Walworth also run by SPBCC); Workers' Birth Control Group founded; May 1924 Deputation to John Wheatley, Minister of Health; 1927 Birth Control Investigation Committee (BCIC) founded [Chairman, Sir Humphrey Rolleston, Hon Medical Secretary, Dr C.P. Blacker] and established International Medical Group to investigate birth control in other countries; 1929 Birth Control International Information Centre (BCIIC) founded [President, Margaret Sanger]; Jul 1930 Ministry of Health Memorandum 153 MCW 'Birth Control' issued permitting contraceptive advice to be given in local authority maternal and infant welfare clinics to women for whom another pregnancy would be dangerous; National Birth Control Council (NBCC) founded. Premises at 26 Eccleston Street; Workers' Birth Control Group joined NBCC; 1931 Birth Control Investigation Committee joined NBCC; Jul 1931 NBCC changed name to National Birth Control Association (NBCA); 1933 Resignation of Dr Marie Stopes from Governing Body; 1934 Ministry of Health circular 1408 extends grounds on which local authority clinics can give advice; Feb 1937 Deputation to Sir Kingsley Wood, Minister of Health; 1938 Society for Provision of Birth Control Clinics and Birth Control International Information Centre amalgamated with NBCA; Feb 1938 NBCA moved to 69 Eccleston Square [HQ of Eugenics Society]; Feb 1939 Dissolution of BCIC. Replaced by Scientific Advisory Committee; May 1939 NBCA changed name to Family Planning Association (FPA) and introduces new constitution; 1947 FPA branches grouped into regional federations; Oct 1949 FPA moved to 64 Sloane Street; 1954 Death of Lady Denman, chairman; succeeded by Mrs Margaret Pyke; 1955 FPA Silver Jubilee, Lady Denman Memorial Fund established to provide clinics in rural areas, First official visit by Minister of Health [Iain Macleod]; Jul 1957 Oliver Bird Trust founded and established Council for Investigation of Fertility Control (CIFC); Oct 1957 Publication of The Human Sum [for FPA Silver Jubilee]; 1959 FPA Holdings Ltd incorporated, BBC Appeal by Bishop of Southwark, Birthright film premiere; 1960 Organisation Working Party established [Chairman, Professor François Lafitte, Birmingham University]; 1962 Family Planning International Campaign [later `Countdown'] launched; Feb 1963 FPA moved to 231 Tottenham Court Road; Sep 1963 Family Planning in the Sixties Report of Organisation Working Party published; 1965 Re-organisation of FPA branches. 500 clinics grouped into 52 branches, Press and Information Department established, Theodore Fox appointed as director; Oct 1965 Interim National Council established; 1966 FPA incorporated as a company, Margaret Pyke Memorial Trust established, 1967 National Health Service (Family Planning) Act extends conditions under which birth control can be provided, FPA Holdings Ltd disbanded; Jun 1967 National Council formally established; 1968 Caspar Brook appointed as director; Oct 1968 FPA moved to 27-35 Mortimer Street; Apr 1970 Oliver Bird Trust/CIFC wound up. Remaining funds to Margaret Pyke Memorial Trust to continue annual lectures; Jun 1970 1000th clinic opened at Thamesmead, London; 1974 NHS Act fully incorporates birth control services into the National Health Service; 1975 Most FPA clinics handed over to NHS Area Health Authorities.
The General Optical Council (GOC) is the statutory body which regulates the Optical professions (Dispensing Opticians and Optometrists). The GOC's main aims are to protect the public and promote high standards of professional conduct and education amongst Opticians. It was created following the Opticians Act 1958 in order to implement the provisions of the Act.
The powers and duties of the GOC are outlined in the Opticians Act 1989. They are responsible for registering Opticians, enrolling Bodies Corporate and maintaining and publishing registers and lists. In addition they approve training institutions and qualifications enabling registration and supervise training institutions and examinations, promoting proper professional conduct. The Council also prosecutes criminal offences under the Act in order to enforce the Act's provision in the public interest.
The GOC holds registers of Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians as well as lists of Bodies Corporate who carry on business as Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians. It is made up of a number of Committees, including the Education Committee, the Disciplinary Committee and the Standards Committee. They consist of representatives from the College of Optometrists, the Royal College of Ophthalmologists, and the Association of British Dispensing Opticians, as well as Ophthalmic Training Institutions, Registered Ophthalmic Opticians and Registered Dispensing Opticians.
The Hospital Infection Society was founded in 1979 to provide a scientific forum for medical microbiologists interested in various aspects of infection in hospital. Initially the Society was proposed to be a sub-group of a larger society, to be founded as the Society for Clinical Microbiology. However, a subsequent meeting of the steering committee determined that the new association should stand alone from the start as the Hospital Infection Society. Its objective was to promote the study of and facilitate the dissemination of information about all aspects of hospital infection and the importance of holding meetings and of co-operation with other societies was emphasised from the outset. Membership was to consist of medically-qualified microbiologists, with physicians and surgeons or non-medical microbiologists with a PhD or MRCPath and an active interest in hospital infection admissible on the discretion of the Council.
The Society meets several times a year, often in conjunction with other related societies, such as the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (whose archive is also held at the Wellcome Library), the Surgical Infection Study Group and the Infection Control Nurses Association (see Section B). The annual Lowbury Lecture, sponsored from the first by ICI, was named after Professor Edward Lowbury, the Society's first President, an expert in the field. The Society has also organised large three International Conferences on hospital infection (see Section G).
The work of publicising the issue of hospital infection was aided by the establishment of the Journal of Hospital Infection in 1980, which was associated with the Society from the outset and soon became its official publication (see E.1-2). The Society also undertook to carry out research in the field, by means of ad hoc working parties (see F.1) and to use the professional expertise of the membership to advise, comment on and publicise the work of others (see F.2).
The Medical Journalists' Association (MJA) was launched by a group of medical journalists in 1967 "to improve the quality and practice of medical journalism and to improve relationships and understanding between medical journalists and the medical profession". Members participate in regular briefing meetings and the annual award scheme, and the MJA will act to defend points of principle, such as the availability of information from government press offices. Membership is open to journalists working in all branches of the media.
Thomas Newborn Robert Morson (1800-1874), pharmaceutical entrepreneur, was the founder of the firm of Thomas Morson and Son Ltd, of London, which became a leading manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer of pharmaceutical chemicals and proprietary medicines during the nineteenth century. After an apprenticeship to a surgeon-apothecary in London, Morson spent three years in Paris during 1818-1821, studying under the chemist Louis Antoine Planche. He was a man of wide scientific and cultural interests, with contacts and friendships throughout British and continental science. He was prominent in the foundation of the Pharmaceutical Society, and was elected President in 1848.
Thomas Morson and Son was particularly notable for the manufacture and sale of the new vegetable alkaloids which were identified in the early part of the nineteenth century in France, and was the first British producer, from 1821, of quinine sulphate and morphine. By the 1860s Morsons was producing over five hundred different chemical substances, mainly of medicinal application. By the end of the century the firm had a world-wide export business, especially to India. In 1915 the company was incorporated as Thomas Morson and Son Ltd. The peak of production was reached in about 1930, at which time the firm entered into cooperation with the German chemical company, E Merck of Darmstadt, for the manufacture of sodium glycerophosphate (a substance included in tonic formulations). This development presaged the eventual takeover of Morsons by the American pharmaceutical corporation, Merck Sharp and Dohme, in 1957.
The Multiple Sclerosis Society (MSS) was set up in 1953 by Sir Richard Cave (1912-1988), "to co-operate with the medical profession to encourage scientific research into the causes of and the cure for Multiple Sclerosis and to aid and ameliorate the conditions of those suffering from it ... to encourage sufferers to join a local group for self help and to join activities and entertainments".
The Association of Medical Women was founded in 1879. In 1917 local Associations of Registered Medical Women joined together to form The Medical Women's Federation (MWF) to represent the interests of women as doctors (especially those serving in the Armed Forces) and patients. The MWF was particularly concerned with the career opportunites and medical education of women. It conducted surveys and research into topics such as the menopause, abortion, and family planning. It also held lectures and conferences, and formed committees to investigate medical issues that specifically affect women. In the late 1960s the Inter-Professional Working Party was set up at the initiative of the MWF to agitate for the amelioration of various financial injustices affecting professional women.
The National Birthday Trust Fund (NBTF) was established in 1928 and campaigned in the 1930s for the wider provision of analgesia in childbirth and improvements in midwifery services. Through the Joint Council on Midwifery it conducted extensive surveys on the benefits of ante-natal care and nutrition and an important survey of abortion practice (the collection includes the completed questionnaire forms). After the war it contributed to several government reports on maternity provision, provided research grants for various projects connected with congenital defects and maternity services, and conducted a series of surveys, including a survey into premature births (for which there are completed questionnaires). These culminated in the Perinatal Mortality Survey in 1958, which formed the basis for the cohort studies of the development of the children at seven year intervals. The collection includes the administrative records for the Perinatal Mortality Survey and the similar study, the British Births Survey, 1970. In 1993 the NBTF was amalgamated with the charity Birthright which works in the same area of maternal and infant care.
Founded in 1959 as a discussion forum for paediatricians and physiologists interested in foetal and neonatal research. The Society annually holds two winter meetings in London and a summer meeting elsewhere in the country, at which research papers are presented and discussed, and at least one special meeting, usually held jointly with a related society. The Society confines itself to scientific discussion, such as advising the British Standards Institute on incubators, or representation on the Royal Commission on Civil Liability and Compensation, and declines involvement in political activity.