- Email: [email protected]
Biographical note
Interncrtional Journal for Parasirologv. Vol.9, pp.83-84. Pergamon Press Ltd. 1979. P;inted it: Great Britain.
CENTENARY
BIOGRAPHICAL
NOTE
CHARLES MORLEY WENYON,
CHARLES MORLEY WENYON,
1878 - 1948
donia. In Greece particularly, he became familiar with malaria; in Egypt, he worked extensively on the intestinal protozoa, including the races of Entamoeba histolytica and the two species of Isospora oocysts found in man. Soon after the end of the War, he returned to his appointment at the Wellcome Bureau, and began the preparation of the monumental two volumes of Protozoology-a Manual for Medical Men, Veterinarians and Zoologists. It seems impossible now to believe that one man could complete such a task with its intense absorption in practical detail combined with the most intimate knowledge of all the parasitic protozoa known at that time (1926). Although more than 50 years have passed, there can be few protozoologists today who do not refer continually to the pages of what have now become dilapidated volumes. The publication of this unique work was followed the next year by his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society. Wenyon and his sister Mildred were ardent supporters of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the former serving as honorary Secretary and the latter as executive Secretary for many years. Wenyon finally became President in 1945 and was awarded its Manson Medal 2 years later. This was only one of the many honours which he received; in view of his francophile feelings probably the award that he valued most was his appointment as Officer of the Legion d’Honneur in 1933. Wenyon will live in the minds of many of his students (sensu l&o) who have attempted to follow in his footsteps, who have sought his advice and have appealed to him as the ‘final authority’. As Hoare states in his Biographical Memoir (Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 6, 1949), Wenyon was modest and unaffected and “entirely lacking in intellectual snobbery”. He even refrained from converting his bachelor degrees in Science and Medicine into doctorates. He gave untiring help to those beginners who sent him slides from abroad, thinking that they had found some amazing new parasite but which he gently and without sarcasm stated were-for instance-merely stages in spermatogenesis (as was the sad experience of the writer). It is now 30 years since his death, but it seems like only yesterday that one walked along Gower Street from the London School to show him
perhaps the greatest protozoologist of the century, was born in Liverpool on 24 October 1878, the year after Manson had made the fundamental discovery of the transmission of disease by insects, while 2 years later, Laveran was to demonstrate the causative organism of malaria. Wenyon’s life was to be closely affected by these discoveries, and he played a large part in the unravelling of the nature and life cycles of protozoan parasites of man and animals in the course of the first half of the next century. His father was a medical missionary, and at the age of two, he was taken to Canton in China and for the next 12 years his sole education (including biology) was received from his father. This early experience in the tropics of south China not only initiated him in tropical disease, but gave him a knowledge of Cantonese and even left him with a slightly Chinese physiognomy, for instance, the inscrutable look! His formal education did not start until he was 14, but his gifts quickly became manifest and he was awarded scholarships, prizes, medals and honours at the University of Leeds, University College, London, and Guy’s Hospital in London. He graduated in zoology and physiology in 1901 and qualified as a doctor in 1904. Manson, who was on the lookout for a protozoologist for the newly opened London School of Tropical Medicine, recognised his great potentialities and appointed him to the School. Almost immediately, Wenyon started gaining experience in his special subject and he spent a year with Mesnil at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and with Hertwig at the Zoological Institute in Munich. Thence followed years of travel in the tropics (Sudan-in the Wellcome floating laboratory on the Nile) and in the Middle East (Iraq and Syria). Up to this time, his research lay chiefly in two directions -the elucidation of the intestinal flagellates of man and the life history of Leishmaniu. As the result of numerous observations, he became convinced that Phlebotomus was the vector of the latter parasite and this work enabled future investigators to obtain the final proof of the theory. In 1914, Wenyon left the London School of Tropical Medicine to become Research Director of the Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research, and during the First World War, he was seconded for advisory duties in India, Egypt, Iraq and Mace83
84
CENTENARY
slightly more significant specimens and to listen to his always interested and critical comments. P. C. C. GARNHAM, Imperial College Field Station, Silwood Park, Ascot, Berks, U.K.
I.J.P. VOL.
9. 1979
CENTENARY
BIOGRAPHICAL
NOTE
CHARLES MORLEY WENYON,
CHARLES MORLEY WENYON,
1878 - 1948
donia. In Greece particularly, he became familiar with malaria; in Egypt, he worked extensively on the intestinal protozoa, including the races of Entamoeba histolytica and the two species of Isospora oocysts found in man. Soon after the end of the War, he returned to his appointment at the Wellcome Bureau, and began the preparation of the monumental two volumes of Protozoology-a Manual for Medical Men, Veterinarians and Zoologists. It seems impossible now to believe that one man could complete such a task with its intense absorption in practical detail combined with the most intimate knowledge of all the parasitic protozoa known at that time (1926). Although more than 50 years have passed, there can be few protozoologists today who do not refer continually to the pages of what have now become dilapidated volumes. The publication of this unique work was followed the next year by his election as a Fellow of the Royal Society. Wenyon and his sister Mildred were ardent supporters of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the former serving as honorary Secretary and the latter as executive Secretary for many years. Wenyon finally became President in 1945 and was awarded its Manson Medal 2 years later. This was only one of the many honours which he received; in view of his francophile feelings probably the award that he valued most was his appointment as Officer of the Legion d’Honneur in 1933. Wenyon will live in the minds of many of his students (sensu l&o) who have attempted to follow in his footsteps, who have sought his advice and have appealed to him as the ‘final authority’. As Hoare states in his Biographical Memoir (Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society, Vol. 6, 1949), Wenyon was modest and unaffected and “entirely lacking in intellectual snobbery”. He even refrained from converting his bachelor degrees in Science and Medicine into doctorates. He gave untiring help to those beginners who sent him slides from abroad, thinking that they had found some amazing new parasite but which he gently and without sarcasm stated were-for instance-merely stages in spermatogenesis (as was the sad experience of the writer). It is now 30 years since his death, but it seems like only yesterday that one walked along Gower Street from the London School to show him
perhaps the greatest protozoologist of the century, was born in Liverpool on 24 October 1878, the year after Manson had made the fundamental discovery of the transmission of disease by insects, while 2 years later, Laveran was to demonstrate the causative organism of malaria. Wenyon’s life was to be closely affected by these discoveries, and he played a large part in the unravelling of the nature and life cycles of protozoan parasites of man and animals in the course of the first half of the next century. His father was a medical missionary, and at the age of two, he was taken to Canton in China and for the next 12 years his sole education (including biology) was received from his father. This early experience in the tropics of south China not only initiated him in tropical disease, but gave him a knowledge of Cantonese and even left him with a slightly Chinese physiognomy, for instance, the inscrutable look! His formal education did not start until he was 14, but his gifts quickly became manifest and he was awarded scholarships, prizes, medals and honours at the University of Leeds, University College, London, and Guy’s Hospital in London. He graduated in zoology and physiology in 1901 and qualified as a doctor in 1904. Manson, who was on the lookout for a protozoologist for the newly opened London School of Tropical Medicine, recognised his great potentialities and appointed him to the School. Almost immediately, Wenyon started gaining experience in his special subject and he spent a year with Mesnil at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and with Hertwig at the Zoological Institute in Munich. Thence followed years of travel in the tropics (Sudan-in the Wellcome floating laboratory on the Nile) and in the Middle East (Iraq and Syria). Up to this time, his research lay chiefly in two directions -the elucidation of the intestinal flagellates of man and the life history of Leishmaniu. As the result of numerous observations, he became convinced that Phlebotomus was the vector of the latter parasite and this work enabled future investigators to obtain the final proof of the theory. In 1914, Wenyon left the London School of Tropical Medicine to become Research Director of the Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research, and during the First World War, he was seconded for advisory duties in India, Egypt, Iraq and Mace83
84
CENTENARY
slightly more significant specimens and to listen to his always interested and critical comments. P. C. C. GARNHAM, Imperial College Field Station, Silwood Park, Ascot, Berks, U.K.
I.J.P. VOL.
9. 1979