Douglas Gairdner: Difference between revisions

 

 

'''Douglas Montagu Temple Gairdner''', FRCP (19 November 1910 – 10 May 1992) was a Scottish paediatrician, research scientist, academic and author. Gairdner was principally known for a number of research studies in neonatology at a time when that subject was being developed as perhaps the most rewarding application of basic physiology to patient care, and later his most important contributions as editor, firstly editing ''Recent Advances in Paediatrics'' and then of ''Archives of Disease in Childhood'' for 15 years, turning the latter into an international journal of repute with its exemplary standards of content and presentation.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Douglas Montagu Temple Gairdner|journal=Munks Roll – Lives of the Fellows|date=21 August 2013|volume= IX |url=http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/1685 |page=186|accessdate=16 February 2018|publisher=Royal College of Physicians|location=Royal College of Physicians}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Dr Douglas Gairdner|url=https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/paediatrician/dr-douglas-gairdner|website=The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health|publisher=The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health|accessdate=10 April 2018|date=2 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171228053952/https://www.rcpch.ac.uk/paediatrician/dr-douglas-gairdner|archive-date=28 December 2017|dead-url=yes}}</ref>

Gairdner, the son of William Henry Temple Gairdner, an Anglican missionary, and grandson of Sir William Tennant Gairdner, [[Order of the Bath|KCB]], a medical doctor and professor, was born in Scotland on 19 November 1910.<ref name="obit">{{cite journal | title=Obituary, D M T Gairdner | journal= BMJ : British Medical Journal|year= 1992 | volume= 304 | issue= 6839 | pages= 1438–1439 | doi= 10.1136/bmj.304.6839.1438| pmc= 1882198 }}</ref><ref name="spence">{{cite journal | title= The James Spence Medal | journal= Archives of Disease in Childhood|year= 1977 | volume= 52 | issue= 2| pages= 85–86  | doi= 10.1136/adc.52.2.85 | pmc= 1546185 }}</ref> His mother was Mary Mitchell. He was the great-nephew of historian James Gairdner.  Gairdner was named for his father's late friend, Douglas M. Thornton who had died three years before Gairdner's birth. Gairdner had four siblings. His very early life was spent in Egypt where his father was a missionary.<ref name="read">{{cite journal |

author= Gairdner D | title= History opened my eyes | journal= British Medical Journal (Clinical research ed.)|year= 1982 | volume= 284 | issue= 6322| pages= 1105–6 | doi=10.1136/bmj.284.6322.1105 | pmid= 20741753| pmc=1497911}}</ref> Gairdner's father died in 1928, when Gairdner was 17 years of age.

Gairdner attended Kelvinside Academy, Glasgow Dragon School, Oxford; and Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk|Holt.<ref name="obit" /> He went to school with W. H. Auden and Benjamin Britten and sang madrigals with classmate Peter Pears.<ref name="obit" />

He read chemistry at the University of Oxford but switched to medicine, did clinical training at Middlesex Hospital and was awarded his Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery Degree in 1936.<ref name="obit" /> He did his residency (house physician) in paediatrics at The Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street in Bloomsbury, London in 1937-8.<ref name="obit" /><ref name="spence" /> Gairdner described his experience there in a memoir written a half-century later. He wrote, "I recall the sheer enjoyment of working there, but also the periods of overwhelming exhaustion."<ref>{{cite journal |

author= Gairdner D | title= Great St. Ormond Street 50 years ago | journal= Archives of Disease in Childhood|year= 1988 | volume= 63 | issue= 10 | pages= 1272–5 | doi=10.1136/adc.63.10.1272 | pmid= 3058049| pmc= 1779036}}</ref>

Gairdner worked as a fellow in paediatrics at Bellevue Hospital in 1939.<ref name="obit" /> During the Second World War, served in the Royal Army Medical Corps for five years, retiring with the rank of Major.<ref name="obit" /><ref name="spence" />

He became first assistant in the paediatric department at Newcastle upon Tyne where he began to work under Professor Sir James Calvert Spence in 1945.<ref name="spence" /> In 1948, he became a consultant paediatrician at Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge, and associate lecturer in paediatrics at the University of Cambridge, where he remained until his retirement in 1975.<ref name="spence" />

His obituary in the ''British Medical Journal'' described Gairdner as "an outstanding figure in the development of British Paediatrics after the second world war". His statistics from the special care baby unit were "invaluable in monitoring trends in perinatal mortality and morbidity since 1950." He constantly produced important research over a range of topics and he improved the management of respiratory problems in the newborn. He was appointed editor of the ''Archives of Disease in Childhood''  in 1964, a position he held for 15 years, until his retirement in 1979. During that time the journal "steadily increased in size, scientific content, and international reputation."<ref name="obit" /><ref name="spence" /><ref name="editorial">{{cite journal |

author= Robinson RJ | title= Douglas Gairdner, editor of the ''Archives'' 1964–79 | journal=  Archives of Disease in Childhood|year= 1979 | volume= 54 | issue= 11| pages= 817–9| doi= 10.1136/adc.54.11.813 | pmid= 393179 | pmc= 1545590 }}</ref>

Gairdner's 1949 article, ''The Fate of the Foreskin: A Study of Circumcision'',<ref name="fate">{{cite journal |

author=Gairdner DM | title= The fate of the foreskin: a study of circumcision | journal= British Medical Journal|year= 1949 | volume= 2 | issue= 4642| pages= 1433–7 | doi= 10.1136/bmj.2.4642.1433| pmid= 15408299 | pmc= 2051968 }}</ref> was described as "a model of perceptive and pungent writing."<ref name="spence" /> It concluded that if circumcision became uncommon it would result in "the saving of about 16 children's lives lost from circumcision each year in this country..."<ref name="fate"/> According to Wallerstein, the article "began to affect the practice of circumcision by the British".<ref>{{cite journal |

author= Wallerstein E | title= Circumcision: the uniquely American medical enigma | journal= The Urologic clinics of North America|year= 1985 | volume= 12 | issue= 1 | pages= 123–32 | url= http://www.cirp.org/library/general/wallerstein/ | pmid=3883617 }}</ref> Gairdner was pleased with the success of the article.<ref name="obit" /> Gairdner also opposed unnecessary tonsillectomy, drawing attention to the risks of the operation at the time (1951)<ref>{{cite journal |

author=Gairdner D | title= Tonsillectomy | journal=  British Medical Journal|year= 1951 | volume= 1 | issue= 4700 | pages= 245 | doi= 10.1136/bmj.1.4700.245-a | pmc= 2068241 }}</ref> and suggested more conservative ways of treating repeated respiratory infections.<ref>{{cite journal |

author=Gairdner D | title= Tonsillectomy | journal= British Medical Journal|year= 1951 | volume= 1 | issue= 4706 | pages= 588 | doi=10.1136/bmj.1.4706.588-b | pmc= 2068602 }}</ref>

Gairdner's research interests included Schōnlein-Henoch purpura,<ref>{{cite journal |

author= Gairdner D | title= The Schönlein-Henoch syndrome (anaphylactoid purpura) | journal= The Quarterly Journal of Medicine|year= 1948 | volume= 17 | issue= 66 | pages= 95–122 | pmid= 18870385 }}</ref> nephrotic syndrome, [[Circumcision|circumcision]], and the formation of red blood cells in infancy.<ref>{{cite journal |

author= Gairdner D|display-authors=etal| title= Blood formation in infancy. Part I. The normal bone marrow | journal= Archives of Disease in Childhood|year= 1952 | volume= 27 | issue= 132 | pages= 128–32 | doi= 10.1136/adc.27.132.128 | pmid= 14924678 | pmc= 1988747  }}</ref> He made contributions to the field of neonatology with studies on improving the management of respiratory problems of the newborn. PubMed lists sixty-one published papers by Dr Gairdner.

The James Spence Medal of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health was awarded to Gairdner in 1976.<ref name="obit" /><ref name="spence" /> He received the Dawson Williams Prize<ref>{{cite journal | title= Dawson Williams Memorial Prize | journal= The Lancet|year= 1934 | volume= 223 | issue= 5774 | pages= 907 | doi= 10.1016/S0140-6736(00)93009-5 }}

</ref> of the British Medical Association in 1978 for his creative editing of the ''Archives of Disease in Childhood''.<ref name="editorial" /> Gairdner vacationed several times in Portugal as guest of the Portuguese Academy of Paediatrics where he won the respect of the local paediatricians who called him "the best paediatric ambassador who ever came to Portugal."<ref>{{cite journal |

author= Ramos de Almeida JM | title= A tribute to Douglas Gairdner | journal= Archives of Disease in Childhood|year= 1980 | volume= 55 | issue= 6| pages= 494 | doi= 10.1136/adc.55.6.494 | pmc= 1626943 }}</ref>

Gairdner died on 10 May 1992 at the age of 81. He was survived by his wife, Nancy, three daughters, and five grandchildren.<ref name="obit" />

*[http://find.galegroup.com/ttda/infomark.do?&source=gale&prodId=TTDA&tabID=T003&docPage=article&searchType=BasicSearchForm&docId=IF503311633&type=multipage&contentSet=LTO&version=1.0 Douglas Gairdner] (obituary), ''The Times'', London, 13 May 1992, page 15

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