OBITUARY
INT J TUBERC LUNG DIS 18(6):755–756 Q 2014 The Union http://dx.doi.org/10.5588/ijtld.14.0290
Jacques Prignot, 2 February 1924–2 January 2014 PROFESSOR JACQUES PRIGNOT left us at the dawn of this year, having devoted 65 years of his life to the fight against respiratory diseases. Among the motivations that pushed him into this long, intense struggle were Jacques’ humanism and social idealism from his earliest youth right up to the last months of his life. Jacques was born in Ixelles (Brussels, Belgium) in 1924 into a middleclass family: his father had been a long-term prisoner in the camps during the First World War, and had returned from the war a modest man with simple tastes; in his own terms, an ‘ecologist’ before his time. His mother, a strongly religious Catholic, had a generous and open mind. In such a family cocoon, their only son was directed from childhood towards a Christian and social ideal. Very early on, during his studies at college Sainte Marie in Schaerbeek, Brussels, he became a militant with the Catholic Student Youth (JEC), and became their national president while at university. All his militant companions in the ‘Action catholique’ remained friends throughout his lifetime, and provided an attentive audience and support for his social activism. Jacques chose a career in medicine, which appeared to best suit his social ideals. Beginning his medical studies at the Facult´e Notre Dame de la Paix in Namur, he went on to the Universit´e Catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Belgium, completing them in 1948. His internship in internal medicine at the hospital of Eindhoven, the Netherlands, under Professor Meeuwissen, was followed by a period at the Saint Pierre Hospital in Louvain, Belgium, in the department of Professor Paul Lambin, who became his mentor in his choice of pneumology as a specialty. He then went on to the service of Professors Dufourt and Galy in Lyon, France, and specialised in bronchial endoscopy with Doctor Lemoine in Paris. On his return to Belgium in 1952, Jacques put to use the experience he had gained by devoting himself to the treatment of tuberculosis in a social institution, becoming director of the pneumology ward of Genk public hospital, in the coalmine fields of Limburg. His work on silico-tuberculosis led to a PhD thesis entitled ‘The tuberculosis of the coalminer’, defended at UCL in 1959, and which received the Derscheid Prize, Belgium’s principal distinction of scientific merit in pneumology at the time. The rigour and perfectionism that his mentor, Professor Lambin, taught him in the patient modification and correction
of his scientific writing, remained with him throughout his career. Jacques’ thesis signalled his return to the university clinics in the famous Sint-Barbara Sanatorium in Pellenberg, under Professor A Gyselen (UCL). It is in this team that he took part in the metamorphosis of treatment for tuberculosis, passing from therapeutic pneumothorax to combined chemotherapy including rifampicin: for patients, this meant passing from certain death to nearly certain cure. From this time onward, he had an obstinate desire to eradicate this disease— which is now fatal only when it is poorly treated or not treated at all— and devoted all his energy to the training of young chest physicians from Belgium and other countries worldwide, and to aid in establishing national tuberculosis programmes in developing countries. On the division of the UCL in 1967, he left Pellenberg and founded the UCL Chest Clinics at Mont-Godinne (Yvoir, Belgium) and later the pneumology department at the Cliniques universitaires Saint Luc (Brussels): in both university hospitals, he established medical and scientific teams that have since contributed to the international reputation of this university. Having become a medical director, he devoted his time then to transforming a sanatorium into a modern general university hospital, thus somewhat deviating from clinical care. Surrounded by a large team of broadly autonomous colleagues, he nevertheless always kept his hand on the rudder of his department and continued teaching medical school and post-graduate students at UCL. Many lung specialists of our generation, both in Belgium and abroad, benefited from his teaching. He was a lucid, experienced teacher, skilled at separating the indispensable from the accessory, always sensitive to the main trends in health policy. Key amongst these was his crusade against tobacco use, the cause of the majority of lung cancers and chronic respiratory diseases. Jacques’ opinion was highly esteemed and sought after within the Belgian Society of Pneumology (SBPBVP), of which he was president from 1979 to 1981, and in national and international institutions such as the Fondation contre les affections respiratoires et pour l’education a` la sante (The Foundation Against Lung Disease and for Health Education, FARES) and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union).
756
The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
On moving away towards an extremely active retirement in 1989, he left behind him two university chest departments with many PhD doctors, scientists and clinicians who continue his ideal of high quality medicine with the rigour he instilled in them. Jacques did not remain inactive during the following 25 years, however. Continuing his fight against tuberculosis, for nearly ten years he organised annual training courses in phthisiology for doctors from low-income countries and helped them to establish local antituberculosis programmes with the support of ‘Solidarity Third World’. For several years he was chiefeditor of The Union Newsletter and a faithful member of The Union, translating abstracts and articles for this Journal until November 2013. His wife Francoise, a bacteriologist, supported him in all
of his work. Understanding that tobacco use was the main danger of the present and the future, he launched into the teaching of tabacology, both at the national level and in his scientific publications, setting up a Masters in Tabacology with the assistance of several universities. He was still teaching and correcting scientific works a few weeks before his death, despite the pain of his illness. The death of Jacques Prignot deprives us of an eminent doctor, but his work will continue after him. PROF. DR. LUC DELAUNOIS Cliniques Universitaires de Mont-Godinne Yvoir, Belgium e-mail: [email protected]
INT J TUBERC LUNG DIS 18(6):755–756 Q 2014 The Union http://dx.doi.org/10.5588/ijtld.14.0290
Jacques Prignot, 2 February 1924–2 January 2014 PROFESSOR JACQUES PRIGNOT left us at the dawn of this year, having devoted 65 years of his life to the fight against respiratory diseases. Among the motivations that pushed him into this long, intense struggle were Jacques’ humanism and social idealism from his earliest youth right up to the last months of his life. Jacques was born in Ixelles (Brussels, Belgium) in 1924 into a middleclass family: his father had been a long-term prisoner in the camps during the First World War, and had returned from the war a modest man with simple tastes; in his own terms, an ‘ecologist’ before his time. His mother, a strongly religious Catholic, had a generous and open mind. In such a family cocoon, their only son was directed from childhood towards a Christian and social ideal. Very early on, during his studies at college Sainte Marie in Schaerbeek, Brussels, he became a militant with the Catholic Student Youth (JEC), and became their national president while at university. All his militant companions in the ‘Action catholique’ remained friends throughout his lifetime, and provided an attentive audience and support for his social activism. Jacques chose a career in medicine, which appeared to best suit his social ideals. Beginning his medical studies at the Facult´e Notre Dame de la Paix in Namur, he went on to the Universit´e Catholique de Louvain (UCL) in Belgium, completing them in 1948. His internship in internal medicine at the hospital of Eindhoven, the Netherlands, under Professor Meeuwissen, was followed by a period at the Saint Pierre Hospital in Louvain, Belgium, in the department of Professor Paul Lambin, who became his mentor in his choice of pneumology as a specialty. He then went on to the service of Professors Dufourt and Galy in Lyon, France, and specialised in bronchial endoscopy with Doctor Lemoine in Paris. On his return to Belgium in 1952, Jacques put to use the experience he had gained by devoting himself to the treatment of tuberculosis in a social institution, becoming director of the pneumology ward of Genk public hospital, in the coalmine fields of Limburg. His work on silico-tuberculosis led to a PhD thesis entitled ‘The tuberculosis of the coalminer’, defended at UCL in 1959, and which received the Derscheid Prize, Belgium’s principal distinction of scientific merit in pneumology at the time. The rigour and perfectionism that his mentor, Professor Lambin, taught him in the patient modification and correction
of his scientific writing, remained with him throughout his career. Jacques’ thesis signalled his return to the university clinics in the famous Sint-Barbara Sanatorium in Pellenberg, under Professor A Gyselen (UCL). It is in this team that he took part in the metamorphosis of treatment for tuberculosis, passing from therapeutic pneumothorax to combined chemotherapy including rifampicin: for patients, this meant passing from certain death to nearly certain cure. From this time onward, he had an obstinate desire to eradicate this disease— which is now fatal only when it is poorly treated or not treated at all— and devoted all his energy to the training of young chest physicians from Belgium and other countries worldwide, and to aid in establishing national tuberculosis programmes in developing countries. On the division of the UCL in 1967, he left Pellenberg and founded the UCL Chest Clinics at Mont-Godinne (Yvoir, Belgium) and later the pneumology department at the Cliniques universitaires Saint Luc (Brussels): in both university hospitals, he established medical and scientific teams that have since contributed to the international reputation of this university. Having become a medical director, he devoted his time then to transforming a sanatorium into a modern general university hospital, thus somewhat deviating from clinical care. Surrounded by a large team of broadly autonomous colleagues, he nevertheless always kept his hand on the rudder of his department and continued teaching medical school and post-graduate students at UCL. Many lung specialists of our generation, both in Belgium and abroad, benefited from his teaching. He was a lucid, experienced teacher, skilled at separating the indispensable from the accessory, always sensitive to the main trends in health policy. Key amongst these was his crusade against tobacco use, the cause of the majority of lung cancers and chronic respiratory diseases. Jacques’ opinion was highly esteemed and sought after within the Belgian Society of Pneumology (SBPBVP), of which he was president from 1979 to 1981, and in national and international institutions such as the Fondation contre les affections respiratoires et pour l’education a` la sante (The Foundation Against Lung Disease and for Health Education, FARES) and the International Union Against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease (The Union).
756
The International Journal of Tuberculosis and Lung Disease
On moving away towards an extremely active retirement in 1989, he left behind him two university chest departments with many PhD doctors, scientists and clinicians who continue his ideal of high quality medicine with the rigour he instilled in them. Jacques did not remain inactive during the following 25 years, however. Continuing his fight against tuberculosis, for nearly ten years he organised annual training courses in phthisiology for doctors from low-income countries and helped them to establish local antituberculosis programmes with the support of ‘Solidarity Third World’. For several years he was chiefeditor of The Union Newsletter and a faithful member of The Union, translating abstracts and articles for this Journal until November 2013. His wife Francoise, a bacteriologist, supported him in all
of his work. Understanding that tobacco use was the main danger of the present and the future, he launched into the teaching of tabacology, both at the national level and in his scientific publications, setting up a Masters in Tabacology with the assistance of several universities. He was still teaching and correcting scientific works a few weeks before his death, despite the pain of his illness. The death of Jacques Prignot deprives us of an eminent doctor, but his work will continue after him. PROF. DR. LUC DELAUNOIS Cliniques Universitaires de Mont-Godinne Yvoir, Belgium e-mail: [email protected]
