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THE WELLCOME TRUST
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One important implication of the no-threshold hypothesis is that any exposure to radiation over and above . natural background, however small, must increase the risk of leukaemia ; and it must therefore be supposed that have been induced by diagnostic some leukaemias irradiation, which, it has been variously estimated, in countries where radiodiagnosis is widely used, can add to the population gonad dose from 10 to 70% of the dose due to background radiation. Similarly, fallout from nuclear explosions would be expected to add a smaller quota to the leukaemia figures. As Court-Brown and Doll emphasise, however, this is not the only hypothesis which is compatible with the data. Much more work must be done before the true dose-response relation’ ship is clear. Indeed, inquiries of this pattern may not I be capable of producing a firm answer,5 and investigations I on a gigantic scale may be needed.5 The formidable amount of time and effort that must probably be expended j to identify beyond doubt the effects of low doses of radiation are leading some people to wonder whether a 1 nearer targetshould be the immediate aim. It may be j better to decide, as far as the present incomplete evidence I permits, what is an acceptable risk to balance against the benefits of useful radiation, and then to do everything that can be done to reduce additional exposure from all sources to the " safe " level. To wait until the doseresponse relationship is fully explained may be to wait
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long. THE WELLCOME TRUST
THIS is an age of trusts, if not of trust ; but among the many and diverse bodies which support scientific research the Wellcome Trust is believed to be alone in drawing its income from a pharmaceutical business in which the trustees hold all the share capital. This unusual situation has been created by the will of an unusual man. Sir Henry Wellcome was the sole proprietor and autocratic director of the pharmaceutical manufacturing firm of Burroughs Wellcome & Co. He was also a man of wide and discerning scientific interests, and the success of his business enabled him to support research to an extent probably unequalled by any other private citizen. At first the laboratories, museums, and libraries which bore his name and drew on his purse were the private hobbies of the owner rather than part of a But in 1924, for large commercial undertaking. administrative convenience, Sir Henry gathered them and his commercial interests together to form the Wellcome Foundation Ltd. On his death all the shares in the Foundation passed to the Wellcome Trust. The first five trustees6 were nominated in his will, and they were charged to use the large and continuing residue j of his estate to advance research. The objects for which i they were empowered to use the funds, though wide, were carefully set out in the will. The emphasis was, naturally . enough, on the subjects which specially interested : Sir Henry, including pharmacy and pharmacology, tropical and veterinary medicine, and the history of medicine. The trustees have no mandate to assist undergraduate or postgraduate education or to provide facilities for treatment. The first report7 of the trustees nominally covers twenty years, but in fact ten anxious and strenuous years were spent in winding up a complicated estate, finding the funds to meet the heavy death-duties, and letting in order the affairs of the Foundation on whose dividends the income of the Trust depends. Even in these early years, which were further complicated by
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5. Court-Brown, W. M., Doll, R. Ibid, Jan. 12, 1957, p. 97. 6. The present trustees are : Sir Henry Dale, O.M., F.R.C.P., F.R.S. (chairman), L. C. Bullock, Martin Price, F.C.A., Lord Piercy, and Brigadier J. S. K. Boyd, F.R.C.P., P.R.S. 7. Wellcome Trust. First report 1937-56. 52, Queen Anne Street, London, W.1.
the difficulties attendant on a major war, the trustees found money and energy to support Dr. Henry Foy’s work on malaria and sickle-cell anaemia in Greece and in Africa and to provide funds for the plant which supplied plasma and serum for all the civilian and most of the Service needs in this country from 1943 to 1945. Hard on these tentative beginnings they record the endowment of research chairs of clinical tropical medicine and of pharmacology in the University of London, and chairs of anaesthetics in McGill University and in the University of Pennsylvania. Research fellowships to the value of E28,000 have been awarded through the Animal Health Trust and the Pharmaceutical Society, and the trustees themselves have spent some JE15,000 on what they candidly describe as unsystematic In 1955 they also awards mostly in biochemistry. introduced travel grants, including short-term grants for senior workers who wished to visit centres abroad for purposes connected with their researches. The total benefaction of the Trust in the period covered by this report amounted to 1,170,164 Though the trustees have rightly put people before things, they have also provided some very expensive tools on permanent loan. Electron microscopes have been bought for the Medical Research Council, for the University of Oxford, and for the University of Cambridge, which is also to receive a nuclear magnetic The libraries and museums resonance spectrometer. of the three Royal Colleges in London and the Royal Society of Medicine are all receiving, or have received, substantial help, and many scholars and publishers have been enabled to print contributions to medical history. One of the most important of these is the collected edition of Ehrlich’s work. So far most of the Trust’s benefactions have been made within this country, but the trustees are mindful that they are legally subject to no territorial limitations and that they draw their income from a world-wide trading organisation. They are glad that they have lately been able to endow research posts in Canada and in the United States, the country of Henry Wellcome’s birth. "
"
FOUL FOWL
APPARENTLY about two cases of psittacosis are recognised each week in England and Wales. (The name " used here iswithout psittacosis " prejudice to cover all human infections due to this group of viruses which are n?!t lymphogranuloma inguinale.) This number is almost surely an underestimate ; for the apparent geographical distribution of the disease seems to be related to the location of laboratories able to make the specific diagnosis. About half the patients with psittacosis give a history of contact with budgerigars or other parrots, but there are three reasons for doubting whether In the first this observation is of great importance. place these pets are far commoner than they used to be, and statistically their association with human infection may by now be negligible. (Observations on the number of houses with budgerigars would be useful.) Secondly, hens, ducks, turkeys, seafowl, various passerines, and pigeons have all been found to be infected and a few of these have been convicted of causing infection inman. Lastly, it is common experience that some patients with psittacosis have had no traceable contact with birds of any kind. It has been thought that man is usually infected by inhaling feather dust or dried excreta. Except for finches and canaries (which are susceptible to infection) only psittacine birds share man’s living-rooms in this country. Nevertheless the amount of dust inhaled by the most ardent fancier and his family must be a trifle compared with that in the respiratory tract of a man cleaning out a chicken-house. Infection in hens is prob-
i
One important implication of the no-threshold hypothesis is that any exposure to radiation over and above . natural background, however small, must increase the risk of leukaemia ; and it must therefore be supposed that have been induced by diagnostic some leukaemias irradiation, which, it has been variously estimated, in countries where radiodiagnosis is widely used, can add to the population gonad dose from 10 to 70% of the dose due to background radiation. Similarly, fallout from nuclear explosions would be expected to add a smaller quota to the leukaemia figures. As Court-Brown and Doll emphasise, however, this is not the only hypothesis which is compatible with the data. Much more work must be done before the true dose-response relation’ ship is clear. Indeed, inquiries of this pattern may not I be capable of producing a firm answer,5 and investigations I on a gigantic scale may be needed.5 The formidable amount of time and effort that must probably be expended j to identify beyond doubt the effects of low doses of radiation are leading some people to wonder whether a 1 nearer targetshould be the immediate aim. It may be j better to decide, as far as the present incomplete evidence I permits, what is an acceptable risk to balance against the benefits of useful radiation, and then to do everything that can be done to reduce additional exposure from all sources to the " safe " level. To wait until the doseresponse relationship is fully explained may be to wait
i
J i
too
long. THE WELLCOME TRUST
THIS is an age of trusts, if not of trust ; but among the many and diverse bodies which support scientific research the Wellcome Trust is believed to be alone in drawing its income from a pharmaceutical business in which the trustees hold all the share capital. This unusual situation has been created by the will of an unusual man. Sir Henry Wellcome was the sole proprietor and autocratic director of the pharmaceutical manufacturing firm of Burroughs Wellcome & Co. He was also a man of wide and discerning scientific interests, and the success of his business enabled him to support research to an extent probably unequalled by any other private citizen. At first the laboratories, museums, and libraries which bore his name and drew on his purse were the private hobbies of the owner rather than part of a But in 1924, for large commercial undertaking. administrative convenience, Sir Henry gathered them and his commercial interests together to form the Wellcome Foundation Ltd. On his death all the shares in the Foundation passed to the Wellcome Trust. The first five trustees6 were nominated in his will, and they were charged to use the large and continuing residue j of his estate to advance research. The objects for which i they were empowered to use the funds, though wide, were carefully set out in the will. The emphasis was, naturally . enough, on the subjects which specially interested : Sir Henry, including pharmacy and pharmacology, tropical and veterinary medicine, and the history of medicine. The trustees have no mandate to assist undergraduate or postgraduate education or to provide facilities for treatment. The first report7 of the trustees nominally covers twenty years, but in fact ten anxious and strenuous years were spent in winding up a complicated estate, finding the funds to meet the heavy death-duties, and letting in order the affairs of the Foundation on whose dividends the income of the Trust depends. Even in these early years, which were further complicated by
I l .
I
5. Court-Brown, W. M., Doll, R. Ibid, Jan. 12, 1957, p. 97. 6. The present trustees are : Sir Henry Dale, O.M., F.R.C.P., F.R.S. (chairman), L. C. Bullock, Martin Price, F.C.A., Lord Piercy, and Brigadier J. S. K. Boyd, F.R.C.P., P.R.S. 7. Wellcome Trust. First report 1937-56. 52, Queen Anne Street, London, W.1.
the difficulties attendant on a major war, the trustees found money and energy to support Dr. Henry Foy’s work on malaria and sickle-cell anaemia in Greece and in Africa and to provide funds for the plant which supplied plasma and serum for all the civilian and most of the Service needs in this country from 1943 to 1945. Hard on these tentative beginnings they record the endowment of research chairs of clinical tropical medicine and of pharmacology in the University of London, and chairs of anaesthetics in McGill University and in the University of Pennsylvania. Research fellowships to the value of E28,000 have been awarded through the Animal Health Trust and the Pharmaceutical Society, and the trustees themselves have spent some JE15,000 on what they candidly describe as unsystematic In 1955 they also awards mostly in biochemistry. introduced travel grants, including short-term grants for senior workers who wished to visit centres abroad for purposes connected with their researches. The total benefaction of the Trust in the period covered by this report amounted to 1,170,164 Though the trustees have rightly put people before things, they have also provided some very expensive tools on permanent loan. Electron microscopes have been bought for the Medical Research Council, for the University of Oxford, and for the University of Cambridge, which is also to receive a nuclear magnetic The libraries and museums resonance spectrometer. of the three Royal Colleges in London and the Royal Society of Medicine are all receiving, or have received, substantial help, and many scholars and publishers have been enabled to print contributions to medical history. One of the most important of these is the collected edition of Ehrlich’s work. So far most of the Trust’s benefactions have been made within this country, but the trustees are mindful that they are legally subject to no territorial limitations and that they draw their income from a world-wide trading organisation. They are glad that they have lately been able to endow research posts in Canada and in the United States, the country of Henry Wellcome’s birth. "
"
FOUL FOWL
APPARENTLY about two cases of psittacosis are recognised each week in England and Wales. (The name " used here iswithout psittacosis " prejudice to cover all human infections due to this group of viruses which are n?!t lymphogranuloma inguinale.) This number is almost surely an underestimate ; for the apparent geographical distribution of the disease seems to be related to the location of laboratories able to make the specific diagnosis. About half the patients with psittacosis give a history of contact with budgerigars or other parrots, but there are three reasons for doubting whether In the first this observation is of great importance. place these pets are far commoner than they used to be, and statistically their association with human infection may by now be negligible. (Observations on the number of houses with budgerigars would be useful.) Secondly, hens, ducks, turkeys, seafowl, various passerines, and pigeons have all been found to be infected and a few of these have been convicted of causing infection inman. Lastly, it is common experience that some patients with psittacosis have had no traceable contact with birds of any kind. It has been thought that man is usually infected by inhaling feather dust or dried excreta. Except for finches and canaries (which are susceptible to infection) only psittacine birds share man’s living-rooms in this country. Nevertheless the amount of dust inhaled by the most ardent fancier and his family must be a trifle compared with that in the respiratory tract of a man cleaning out a chicken-house. Infection in hens is prob-