833
committee with the job of replying to the debate, successfully persuaded the conference to vote overwhelmingly against the proposition that Labour M.p.s should be mandated on this issue. "We cannot demand more individual freedom and then deny it to people who disagree with us". She strongly attacked the Benyon Bill, particularly that part of it which would have allowed the right of police access to women’s medical records. "I think this assault on individual liberty was one of the most serious aspects of this Bill. It would have destroyed confidentiality which we all ought to be able to expect between doctor and patient and brought down an iron curtain of mistrust and destroyed the doctor’s clinical responsibility. These are not matters for the police and the lawyers. They are matters for individual conscience". Finally Mrs Jeger appealed for a higher standard of debate on abortion. "There is no need for us to scream at each other in the streets. Some of the propaganda has not had the standard of dignity and taste the importance of this subject demands". The failure to find time for a general debate on the National Health Service annoyed several people at the conference. Twice Mr Albert Spanswick, leader of the Confederation of Health Service Employees, strode to the rostrum to complain about the lack of a debate on "this vast organisation created by this movement". But his plea went in vain, despite the extra time which was made to accommodate an emergency debate on Clay Cross. One man who was particularly disappointed not have a debate was the Labour M.p. for Eccles, Mr Lewis Carter-Jones, who for the past year has been fighting a campaign for Government action to deal with the unacceptable level of stillbirths and infant deaths in the United Kingdom. His undelivered speech would have renewed the attack. He is particularly critical of last month’s document from the Department of Health and Social Security, Reducing the Risk-Safer Pregnancy and Childbirth. "With its coy equivocation it is likely to impede rather than hasten progress", he says. "The booklet fails to come to grips with the main issues. Large tracts are devoted to syrupy awe at the wonder of childbirth, but only two bland paragraphs to helping parents to cope with a disabled child and not even a reference to the shock and grief of a stillbirth. Discussion of the highly successful French programme consists of two misleading sentences and that on induction is so vague as to be useless". But he believes that the major defect is the total absence of the financial estimates that are essential for the informed discussion sought by the D.H.S.S. "In short, despite a plethora of expert reports in past years Ministers at the D.H.S.S. have failed to produce any muscle. If what the Court report called a holocaust of infant deaths is to be quenched, the political will must now be generated from below". Not surprisingly Mr Carter-Jones plans to continue his campaign when the new session of Parliament opens next month. He is already preparing a series of written questions to Ministers after the appearance last week of Margaret and Arthur Wynn’s The Prevention of Pre-term Births.’ In it they call for an inquiry into antenatal care and more study of drugs which delay birth, both issues which Mr Carter-Jones intends to purto
sue. 1. See
Lancet, Oct. 8, 1977, p. 777.
Obituary WILLIAM MATHIESON MACLEOD M.B.E., M.B. Lond., F.R.C.P., Hon. D.M. So’ton Dr W. M. Macleod, who was consultant physician to
Southampton University Hospitals for nearly 25 years, on Sept. 21 barely a year after beginning his retire-
died
ment.
educated at the Inverness Royal Academy and MerTaylor’s School before reading medicine at St. Thomas’ Hospital, London, where he graduated in 1934. He was called up from the reserves in September, 1939, as a medical specialist. He was captured in France in 1940 and for the next five years he served continuously as a medical officer in P.o.w. camps in Poland. For his outstanding service during this period he was later appointed M.B.E., but he was very reticent about this period of his life, and few of his colleagues knew about it. After the war he returned to medical posts at St. Thomas’, the National Heart, and the Brompton Hospitals. In late 1946 he had leave of absence because of an illness likely to have been a sequela of his tireless efforts while a P.o.w. Subsequently he became tuberculosis officer at St. Thomas’ and medical assistant and registrar at the Brompton Hospital with J. G. Scadding, until in 1952 he was appointed consultant physician at the Southampton Chest (now Western) Hospital: Dr Macleod developed a thoracic service in Southampton which rapidly became the centre of excellence of thoracic medicine for the Wessex region. He had the very highest s’tandards of clinical care which, with his wide experience and sound judgment, made his opinion much sought after and his weekly clinical meetings a great attraction. The annual clinical meetings at the Chest Hospital which he initiated, and which are now a permanent feature of Wessex medical life, are attended by large numbers of physicians and surgeons of a wide range of special interests. He gave his generous support to the new Southampton Medical School and with his cooperation new academic interests and clinical services were smoothly integrated; he even took on responsibility for a general medical firm in addition to the thoracic service in order to facilitate this process. His contributions to the medical literature continued throughout his professional life. The best remembered will probably be his account of unilateral hypertransradiancy of the lungs-Macleod’s syndrome-but his recent papers on alimentary tuberculosis and pulmonary fibrosis are equally authoritative. He became president of the Thoracic Society in 1975. Bill Macleod was an extremely modest man of great vision and a firm and penetrating mind. He had a wonderful sense of humour; pomposity did not survive long in his presence. He was very much a family man, and in recent years derived enormous pleasure from playing the ’cello as part of a family group. He leaves a widow, Peggy, and a son and a daughter, all of whom are doctors. J.B.L.H.
He chant
was
Dr HENRY EDWARDS ARCHER, consulting chemical pathologist to St Bartholomew’s Hospital and the West London Hospital, died on Sept. 30 at the age of 87. Dr GERALD LoEWI, a member of the scientific staff of the Clinical Research Centre, Northwick Park Hospital, and honorary consultant pathologist to the North West Thames Regional Health Authority, died on Oct. 3. A memorial service for Mr Edgar Lawley, former chairman of the Board of Governors of St. Mary’s Hospital, London, will be held in the hospital chapel at noon on Thursday, Oct. 27.
committee with the job of replying to the debate, successfully persuaded the conference to vote overwhelmingly against the proposition that Labour M.p.s should be mandated on this issue. "We cannot demand more individual freedom and then deny it to people who disagree with us". She strongly attacked the Benyon Bill, particularly that part of it which would have allowed the right of police access to women’s medical records. "I think this assault on individual liberty was one of the most serious aspects of this Bill. It would have destroyed confidentiality which we all ought to be able to expect between doctor and patient and brought down an iron curtain of mistrust and destroyed the doctor’s clinical responsibility. These are not matters for the police and the lawyers. They are matters for individual conscience". Finally Mrs Jeger appealed for a higher standard of debate on abortion. "There is no need for us to scream at each other in the streets. Some of the propaganda has not had the standard of dignity and taste the importance of this subject demands". The failure to find time for a general debate on the National Health Service annoyed several people at the conference. Twice Mr Albert Spanswick, leader of the Confederation of Health Service Employees, strode to the rostrum to complain about the lack of a debate on "this vast organisation created by this movement". But his plea went in vain, despite the extra time which was made to accommodate an emergency debate on Clay Cross. One man who was particularly disappointed not have a debate was the Labour M.p. for Eccles, Mr Lewis Carter-Jones, who for the past year has been fighting a campaign for Government action to deal with the unacceptable level of stillbirths and infant deaths in the United Kingdom. His undelivered speech would have renewed the attack. He is particularly critical of last month’s document from the Department of Health and Social Security, Reducing the Risk-Safer Pregnancy and Childbirth. "With its coy equivocation it is likely to impede rather than hasten progress", he says. "The booklet fails to come to grips with the main issues. Large tracts are devoted to syrupy awe at the wonder of childbirth, but only two bland paragraphs to helping parents to cope with a disabled child and not even a reference to the shock and grief of a stillbirth. Discussion of the highly successful French programme consists of two misleading sentences and that on induction is so vague as to be useless". But he believes that the major defect is the total absence of the financial estimates that are essential for the informed discussion sought by the D.H.S.S. "In short, despite a plethora of expert reports in past years Ministers at the D.H.S.S. have failed to produce any muscle. If what the Court report called a holocaust of infant deaths is to be quenched, the political will must now be generated from below". Not surprisingly Mr Carter-Jones plans to continue his campaign when the new session of Parliament opens next month. He is already preparing a series of written questions to Ministers after the appearance last week of Margaret and Arthur Wynn’s The Prevention of Pre-term Births.’ In it they call for an inquiry into antenatal care and more study of drugs which delay birth, both issues which Mr Carter-Jones intends to purto
sue. 1. See
Lancet, Oct. 8, 1977, p. 777.
Obituary WILLIAM MATHIESON MACLEOD M.B.E., M.B. Lond., F.R.C.P., Hon. D.M. So’ton Dr W. M. Macleod, who was consultant physician to
Southampton University Hospitals for nearly 25 years, on Sept. 21 barely a year after beginning his retire-
died
ment.
educated at the Inverness Royal Academy and MerTaylor’s School before reading medicine at St. Thomas’ Hospital, London, where he graduated in 1934. He was called up from the reserves in September, 1939, as a medical specialist. He was captured in France in 1940 and for the next five years he served continuously as a medical officer in P.o.w. camps in Poland. For his outstanding service during this period he was later appointed M.B.E., but he was very reticent about this period of his life, and few of his colleagues knew about it. After the war he returned to medical posts at St. Thomas’, the National Heart, and the Brompton Hospitals. In late 1946 he had leave of absence because of an illness likely to have been a sequela of his tireless efforts while a P.o.w. Subsequently he became tuberculosis officer at St. Thomas’ and medical assistant and registrar at the Brompton Hospital with J. G. Scadding, until in 1952 he was appointed consultant physician at the Southampton Chest (now Western) Hospital: Dr Macleod developed a thoracic service in Southampton which rapidly became the centre of excellence of thoracic medicine for the Wessex region. He had the very highest s’tandards of clinical care which, with his wide experience and sound judgment, made his opinion much sought after and his weekly clinical meetings a great attraction. The annual clinical meetings at the Chest Hospital which he initiated, and which are now a permanent feature of Wessex medical life, are attended by large numbers of physicians and surgeons of a wide range of special interests. He gave his generous support to the new Southampton Medical School and with his cooperation new academic interests and clinical services were smoothly integrated; he even took on responsibility for a general medical firm in addition to the thoracic service in order to facilitate this process. His contributions to the medical literature continued throughout his professional life. The best remembered will probably be his account of unilateral hypertransradiancy of the lungs-Macleod’s syndrome-but his recent papers on alimentary tuberculosis and pulmonary fibrosis are equally authoritative. He became president of the Thoracic Society in 1975. Bill Macleod was an extremely modest man of great vision and a firm and penetrating mind. He had a wonderful sense of humour; pomposity did not survive long in his presence. He was very much a family man, and in recent years derived enormous pleasure from playing the ’cello as part of a family group. He leaves a widow, Peggy, and a son and a daughter, all of whom are doctors. J.B.L.H.
He chant
was
Dr HENRY EDWARDS ARCHER, consulting chemical pathologist to St Bartholomew’s Hospital and the West London Hospital, died on Sept. 30 at the age of 87. Dr GERALD LoEWI, a member of the scientific staff of the Clinical Research Centre, Northwick Park Hospital, and honorary consultant pathologist to the North West Thames Regional Health Authority, died on Oct. 3. A memorial service for Mr Edgar Lawley, former chairman of the Board of Governors of St. Mary’s Hospital, London, will be held in the hospital chapel at noon on Thursday, Oct. 27.
