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BACTERIOLOGY OF WAR WOUNDS
59 ordeal McCloy After the war the entire equipment was given by the Order of St. John to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, and was shipped there by the courtesy of Lord Pirie. Such a man was McCloy. By his death I have lost a life-long friend and the profession in Northern Ireland one who was universally respected and admired.
hospital proper if necessary. This would specialist services. Let us remove such just causes of criticism right away, and so prove that we are qualified to shape the health
transferred to the
unify practitioner
was
services of the future. A. WILFRID ADAMS.
Clifton, Bristol.
BACTERIOLOGY
OF
WAR
removed
to Trouville ; in this
trying
showed great courage and organising ability.
and
WOUNDS
SIR,—May I say with what interest and delight I have read Major Pulvertaft’s article (July 3, p. 1). It is to be hoped that our prophets, professors and practitioners of surgery will mark well and inwardly digest his words which, to my mind, have the ring of wisdom. I may now safely disclose some words addressed personally to me at the end of the last worldwar, in 1918, by the late Sir Gilbert Barling, His opinion was that of the many materials used to combat sepsis in wounds during the years 1914 to 1918 none came out with higher reputation than " normal saline " solution. This remark, based on wide experience and made after long-considered judgment, may be worth recalling now.
.
AUSTIN PRIESTMAN.
Folkestone.
Obituary JOHN MOORCROFT McCLOY M
D,
D P H BELF
Dr. John McCloy, chief medical officer to the Ministry of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland, died at his home in Belfast on May 27. He had had a varied life. Born in Philadelphia in 1874 he taught for some time before taking up the study of medicine at Queen’s College, from which
he
graduated
in
1909.
ANDERSON GRAY McKENDRICK M B GLASG, D SC ABERD,
F R C P E, FRS E
(RETD) Colonel McKendrick, who died at Speyside on May 30, had spent twenty years of his professional life in the Indian Medical Service, from which he retired’to spend another twenty years as superintendent of the laboratories .of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He was younger son of John McKendrick and was born in the year his father became professor of physiology at Glasgow. Gairdner, Lister, Kelvin and John Caird were among the visitors in a home circle in which the physiologist was savant, physician and poet as well as naturalist in the sense of Gairdner’s definition " a humble, reverent, and exact follower and student of Nature." From this atmosphere Anderson derived his wide scientific culture and the basis of a humanity that made him so serviceable as friend and counsellor. After taking his MB in 1900 he entered the IMS and gained distinction in Somaliland operations before transference to the bacteriological department of the Government of India where he was assistant secretary to the DG (San.) and director (1914-20) of the Pasteur Institute at Kasauli. It was then that he developed the mathematical bent by which most of his medical friends will remember him. As civil surgeon at Nadia (Bengal) he had lived with the engineer engaged in building a Ganges bridge, and he arrived at Kasauli with a treasured copy of Perry’s Calculus for Engineers. From this he proceeded to Mellor’s Higher .Mathematics, which he applied to his medical studies, becoming the statistical authority on rabies for the League of Nations. Later in Edinburgh he collaborated with W. O. Kermack and P. L. McKinlay in an ingenious study of death-rates in Great Britain and Sweden (Lancet, 1934, i, 698), suggesting that early environmental factors up to the age of 15 are of overriding importance in determining the " expectation of life " of a given age-group in the national life tables. As with his father before him McKendrick’s whole life was coloured by an original and constructive outlook on religion. Only the threat of serious ill health led him to retire, during the war, from his beneficent rule over the research laboratories, and his influence was already widespread in the Inverness village to which he had withdrawn. He was in his 67th year. -
LIEUT.-COLONEL IMS
and was resident at a fever hospital. During the first worldwar he worked in the laboratory of the St. John Ambulance Brigade Hospital at Etaples, with the rank of captain RAMC. On his return he became medical inspector to the Home Department and later its CMO. At the same time he was chairman of the Joint Nursing and Midwives Council, and external exaininer in public health to Queen’s University. He is survived by his widow, nee Kathleen Kyle ; their only daughter has almost completed her medical studies. Sir Thomas Houston writes : As one who was closely associated with Dr. McCloy during his service with the RAMC in France I feel I can best add my personal WILLIAM ELMSLIE HENDERSON tribute to his memory by describing the part he played in MB ABERD, DPH MANO the last war (1914-18). When war broke out the Order Dr. Elmslie Henderson, who died on June 26 at Aberof St. John of Jerusalem decided to send a brigade hospital to France as a gift to the nation. A number of deen in his 72nd year, was for thirty years MOH of Westmorland. Retiring in 1940 under the age limit," he Belfast doctors were invited by Colonel Trimble (afterwards CO of the hospital) to staff the hospital, one of the. answered a call from Horncastle and for another three We were entrusted first to volunteer being McCloy. years took the place of the asst. MOH for the Parts of with the ordering and getting together of the entire Lindsey, who is a prisoner of war. Henderson qualified laboratory equipment ; we had to arrange for sterilisa- at Aberdeen in 1898 and was house-surgeon at the there was to be tion with electricity, primus lamps, &c., as Royal Infirmary before visiting Dublin and Manchester no gas in the hospital. McCloy’s knowledge of bacterio- and turning to public health as a career. To his first logy combined-with great business capacity and metho- appointment as school medical officer at Kendal ’he dical habit were invaluable in this arduous task, and we brought a scholarly mind and an interest in children, whether sick or well, that appealed to the teachers. obtained one of the best equipped laboratories in France. He faced resolutely and with quiet humour the health We arrived at Etaples in July, 1915, and found urgent need for blood transfusions. At this time the technique problems which arose in the last war, paying special was practically unknown in France, but McCloy was attention to child welfare, home nursing and the care of familiar with Landsteiner’s work on blood groups and we cripples. He was a natural leader of the scout movepersuaded other hospitals to adopt typing before trans- ment and a willing coadjutor of the St. John Ambulance fusion. McCloy had many friendly battles to fight in Brigade ; a colleague writes of his overflowing joy when a team from Kendal won the Dewar shield. Most of his this crusade, until the Americans came to France and week ends were spent in lecturing in some part of the insisted that it was criminal to transfuse without determining the suitability of the donor. At the suggestion widely scattered county, generally on some aspect of of the Director of Pathology we undertook a research on hygiene but now and then on Border troubles or other theme of historical interest. He never lost his temper, the classification of streptococci in which McCloy was indefatigable ; some at least of his conclusions have even under provocation, and his memory in the county is of a quiet kindly spirit, intolerant only of makestood the test of time. Our hospital at Etaples was believe. reduced to ruins by two German bombing raids and f
hospital proper if necessary. This would specialist services. Let us remove such just causes of criticism right away, and so prove that we are qualified to shape the health
transferred to the
unify practitioner
was
services of the future. A. WILFRID ADAMS.
Clifton, Bristol.
BACTERIOLOGY
OF
WAR
removed
to Trouville ; in this
trying
showed great courage and organising ability.
and
WOUNDS
SIR,—May I say with what interest and delight I have read Major Pulvertaft’s article (July 3, p. 1). It is to be hoped that our prophets, professors and practitioners of surgery will mark well and inwardly digest his words which, to my mind, have the ring of wisdom. I may now safely disclose some words addressed personally to me at the end of the last worldwar, in 1918, by the late Sir Gilbert Barling, His opinion was that of the many materials used to combat sepsis in wounds during the years 1914 to 1918 none came out with higher reputation than " normal saline " solution. This remark, based on wide experience and made after long-considered judgment, may be worth recalling now.
.
AUSTIN PRIESTMAN.
Folkestone.
Obituary JOHN MOORCROFT McCLOY M
D,
D P H BELF
Dr. John McCloy, chief medical officer to the Ministry of Home Affairs in Northern Ireland, died at his home in Belfast on May 27. He had had a varied life. Born in Philadelphia in 1874 he taught for some time before taking up the study of medicine at Queen’s College, from which
he
graduated
in
1909.
ANDERSON GRAY McKENDRICK M B GLASG, D SC ABERD,
F R C P E, FRS E
(RETD) Colonel McKendrick, who died at Speyside on May 30, had spent twenty years of his professional life in the Indian Medical Service, from which he retired’to spend another twenty years as superintendent of the laboratories .of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He was younger son of John McKendrick and was born in the year his father became professor of physiology at Glasgow. Gairdner, Lister, Kelvin and John Caird were among the visitors in a home circle in which the physiologist was savant, physician and poet as well as naturalist in the sense of Gairdner’s definition " a humble, reverent, and exact follower and student of Nature." From this atmosphere Anderson derived his wide scientific culture and the basis of a humanity that made him so serviceable as friend and counsellor. After taking his MB in 1900 he entered the IMS and gained distinction in Somaliland operations before transference to the bacteriological department of the Government of India where he was assistant secretary to the DG (San.) and director (1914-20) of the Pasteur Institute at Kasauli. It was then that he developed the mathematical bent by which most of his medical friends will remember him. As civil surgeon at Nadia (Bengal) he had lived with the engineer engaged in building a Ganges bridge, and he arrived at Kasauli with a treasured copy of Perry’s Calculus for Engineers. From this he proceeded to Mellor’s Higher .Mathematics, which he applied to his medical studies, becoming the statistical authority on rabies for the League of Nations. Later in Edinburgh he collaborated with W. O. Kermack and P. L. McKinlay in an ingenious study of death-rates in Great Britain and Sweden (Lancet, 1934, i, 698), suggesting that early environmental factors up to the age of 15 are of overriding importance in determining the " expectation of life " of a given age-group in the national life tables. As with his father before him McKendrick’s whole life was coloured by an original and constructive outlook on religion. Only the threat of serious ill health led him to retire, during the war, from his beneficent rule over the research laboratories, and his influence was already widespread in the Inverness village to which he had withdrawn. He was in his 67th year. -
LIEUT.-COLONEL IMS
and was resident at a fever hospital. During the first worldwar he worked in the laboratory of the St. John Ambulance Brigade Hospital at Etaples, with the rank of captain RAMC. On his return he became medical inspector to the Home Department and later its CMO. At the same time he was chairman of the Joint Nursing and Midwives Council, and external exaininer in public health to Queen’s University. He is survived by his widow, nee Kathleen Kyle ; their only daughter has almost completed her medical studies. Sir Thomas Houston writes : As one who was closely associated with Dr. McCloy during his service with the RAMC in France I feel I can best add my personal WILLIAM ELMSLIE HENDERSON tribute to his memory by describing the part he played in MB ABERD, DPH MANO the last war (1914-18). When war broke out the Order Dr. Elmslie Henderson, who died on June 26 at Aberof St. John of Jerusalem decided to send a brigade hospital to France as a gift to the nation. A number of deen in his 72nd year, was for thirty years MOH of Westmorland. Retiring in 1940 under the age limit," he Belfast doctors were invited by Colonel Trimble (afterwards CO of the hospital) to staff the hospital, one of the. answered a call from Horncastle and for another three We were entrusted first to volunteer being McCloy. years took the place of the asst. MOH for the Parts of with the ordering and getting together of the entire Lindsey, who is a prisoner of war. Henderson qualified laboratory equipment ; we had to arrange for sterilisa- at Aberdeen in 1898 and was house-surgeon at the there was to be tion with electricity, primus lamps, &c., as Royal Infirmary before visiting Dublin and Manchester no gas in the hospital. McCloy’s knowledge of bacterio- and turning to public health as a career. To his first logy combined-with great business capacity and metho- appointment as school medical officer at Kendal ’he dical habit were invaluable in this arduous task, and we brought a scholarly mind and an interest in children, whether sick or well, that appealed to the teachers. obtained one of the best equipped laboratories in France. He faced resolutely and with quiet humour the health We arrived at Etaples in July, 1915, and found urgent need for blood transfusions. At this time the technique problems which arose in the last war, paying special was practically unknown in France, but McCloy was attention to child welfare, home nursing and the care of familiar with Landsteiner’s work on blood groups and we cripples. He was a natural leader of the scout movepersuaded other hospitals to adopt typing before trans- ment and a willing coadjutor of the St. John Ambulance fusion. McCloy had many friendly battles to fight in Brigade ; a colleague writes of his overflowing joy when a team from Kendal won the Dewar shield. Most of his this crusade, until the Americans came to France and week ends were spent in lecturing in some part of the insisted that it was criminal to transfuse without determining the suitability of the donor. At the suggestion widely scattered county, generally on some aspect of of the Director of Pathology we undertook a research on hygiene but now and then on Border troubles or other theme of historical interest. He never lost his temper, the classification of streptococci in which McCloy was indefatigable ; some at least of his conclusions have even under provocation, and his memory in the county is of a quiet kindly spirit, intolerant only of makestood the test of time. Our hospital at Etaples was believe. reduced to ruins by two German bombing raids and f