Dr James H Lawson, former Physician Superintendent of Ruchill Hospital, Glasgow; born November 25, 1912, died December 7, 1999
Glasgow's fever hospitals were famed internationally. These units, and the diseases they isolated, played a significant role in the social history of Glasgow. James Lawson was the city's last surviving Physician Superintendent. Predecessors included James Burn Russell, John Brownlee, and Tom Anderson - all pioneers of international renown. To this tradition, Jimmy Lawson brought his particular gifts of head and heart. At his career's outset, perhaps one in seven Glasgow children died of an infectious disease. By his retirement in 1978, spectacular progress had been made in their control. Yet his last publication concerned his unique experience of Legionnaires' Disease, the first of a whole swathe of new and dangerous diseases. So his career straddled periods of great change and contrast.
He was one of three sons of a Helensburgh merchant, all of whom became doctors. Graduating from Glasgow University in 1936, he worked in Ruchill's sanatorium in 1938. Tuberculosis became an abiding interest and he retained lifelong friendships with his old TB colleagues. This was difficult work. More than one-quarter of patients, young mothers included, would not survive. He moved to Ruchill fever unit, where he would remain, excepting war service, for 40 years. He gained the Diploma in Public Health in 1939 and his Doctorate in Medicine in 1944. For his remarkable work on the sulphonamide drug treatment of meningitis, which reduced mortality from 60% to 15%, he was awarded the coveted Bellahouston Gold Medal. Sulphonamides, the earliest antibiotics, could also cure the dreaded bronchopneumonia which might complicate infections, such as whooping cough (mortality 26%) or measles (mortality
10%). Among many such killer diseases then, tuberculous meningitis and pneumonia were especially notable. In his waggish way, Jimmy declared that he had practised Medicine BC - before chemotherapy, ie, antibiotics. He thus played his part in the health revolution instigated by the twin triumphs of antibiotics and immunisation. Together these made life safer for our children.
His other researches included the treatment of tuberculosis, pneumonia, diarrhoeal illnesses, and animal-related infections. Generations of medical students in Spain as well as the UK used his textbook A Synopsis of Fevers and their Treatment which was published between 1951 and 1977.
This acute speciality also required practical skills demonstrated one Christmas Day when he switched from cutting the turkey to incising the throat of a child imminently dying from croup - being thereby splattered with diphtheria organisms. He was adept at tracheotomy. Such skills were useful during the war, when he had charge of 60 beds in a hospital ship at D-Day and later in the Far East. His experience in tropical medicine there was valuable on his return to Ruchill.
In 1950, he became Physician Superintendent of Ruchill, which now included the University Department of Infectious Diseases under Professor Tom Anderson and later Norman Grist. Abolition of compulsory residence in 1964 meant he had lived there all of 25 years. Despite the hard work and confinement, this was a happy hospital. The communal spirit was channelled via various concerts, dances, and sport. A gregarious man, Jimmy made friends easily with people of all backgrounds and social status . . . and he loved a party!
Success changed the hospital as childhood diseases declined and wards closed. Increasing proportions of patients were adults. Some had exotic tropical or animal-related diseases, a particular interest of Jimmy's. A born raconteur, his stories would encapsulate - unforgettably -various diseases: ''the dog in a Maryhill cafe'' or ''leptospirosis and the Islay fish-wife''. This rat disease had caused several deaths in Islay but the very Hebridean Islay official whom he contacted blamed an American ship which sank in 1942: ''These are not Islay rats Jimmy, these are American rats!'' Irrespective of their nationality, they led to a brief marital crisis. Upon his wife Pat's inquiry about the nature of the package in her fridge, Jimmy shamefacedly revealed that it was an Islay rat freshly delivered from Glasgow Airport . . . and it was ''hoaching'' with leptospires.
What of the man himself? A good-natured and well-loved personality, I never knew anyone who disliked or denigrated him. He had a talent for drawing conversation from those he met. His legendary absent-mindedness evoked only affection, including his sometime habit of leaving his office, and with a long, pregnant pause at the door, the inevitable question to his secretary ''Where am I going, Irene?''
In 1973, I roomed with him (as unofficial minder) on a five-centre US tour when the society of which he was president visited America. I remember the fun of that trip with great nostalgia. He was an excellent speaker, often using minimal notes. His speech to a massive Washington audience created great hilarity, in stark relief to those preceding it.
A religious man, in his understated way, he had intended to study divinity. Nevertheless, his classical education was reflected in his conversation, unpretentiously speckled with Latin aphorisms. He was an office bearer in Hillead Conservative Association. A strong believer in the NHS, he was very much of the one-nation caring tradition. How could he be otherwise, having committed his working life to the care of the deprived, especially their children?
He met his wife Pat at a dance in Southampton in 1944 and they married a year later. She was a great support to him, not least in his declining years. Her sudden death nine weeks before his own was a devastating blow. He died - fittingly - in Huntershill hospice, where he had worked for five years on retirement in 1978 until the age of 71. Many staff recall him with affection.
He is survived by his daughter, Angie, son Frank, and six grandchildren.
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