Temple Theodore “Tim” Stamm
Former orthopaedic surgeon (b 1905; q Guy's 1928), d 18 October 2001. Guy's was the first hospital in the country to appoint a consultant orthopaedic surgeon and Tim Stamm was only the third person to hold the post. His association with Guy's began as a medical student and ended only when he retired in 1965.
He also worked at the Royal National Orthopaedic Hospital and hospitals associated with Guy's such as Pembury, Bromley, and Orpington. He served briefly during the second world war in the Royal Army Medical Corps.
One of his registrars, Derek Richards, recalls that Stamm's last operating list included three triple fusions, which Stamm completed in 20, 15, and 12 minutes. “He was the most dextrous surgeon I have ever worked with—never a wasted move.”
Stamm believed that the natural way was usually the best, and in 1947 he bought a 180 acre farm in East Sussex. Using organic principles, he raised Guernsey cattle and pigs and cultivated woodland. It was his habit to complete his list at Guy's and be back on the farm in time for milking.
His passion for designing, inventing, and making things took in swimming pools —he designed and built four—intricate woodcarvings, silk pyjamas, tools, and games.
Stamm's stepson, Jeremy Hamilton-Miller, introduced him to Saturday afternoon wrestling, which they watched together. Stamm was horrified when “Gorgeous” George Gordienko appeared in the ring on one such afternoon, less than a month after Stamm had operated on a pre-patella bursa. “Don't worry,” Gorgeous George told him later, “We are well rehearsed.” Aneurin Bevan was another well known patient. Stamm operated on his neck.
Then, as now, Guy's had strong links with Johns Hopkins Hospital in the United States and Stamm was a visiting professor there in the 1950s. He consolidated an international reputation through writing. Publications included contributions to Blackburn and Lawrie's Textbook of Surgery, and he was the author of Foot Troubles (1957) and Guide to Orthopaedics (1958).
Unusually for an orthopaedic surgeon, he was not sociable but was quiet and reserved. It was no small step, given his nature, for him to marry Pam in 1945. Having been widowed in wartime, she had three children, aged 6 to 12, to whom he was a loving stepfather.
After his retirement, he sold his farm and bought an estate in Cornwall. Pam died in 1998.
Chalmers Davidson
Former physician Edinburgh (b 1915; q Edinburgh 1938; FRCP Ed), d 5 August 2001. Chalmers came from a modest background in Falkirk, although he was named after his famous forebear Thomas Chalmers, the theologian who had led the “Disruption” of the Church of Scotland in 1843. He joined the Royal Army Medical Corps in 1940 and served in the Middle East and India. After junior Edinburgh posts in the postwar “bulge” years he became physician to the Leith and Chalmers Hospitals. With M Oliver and RF Robertson, he described the postmyocardial infarction syndrome of pericarditis in the BMJ in 1961. Chalmers tended the great historical book collection of the Edinburgh College of Physicians for many years as honorary librarian, and ranged out of medicine into the Edinburgh artistic and literary scene, advising authors like Compton Mackenzie and Antonia Fraser on medical issues in their books. Married to the versatile artist Ursula Constable Maxwell, he was free to indulge in his natural sociability. But incipient visual failure increasingly crippled his bibliophilia, his printing, his gardening, and his golf. His last years living at Ursula's ancestral home at Beauly near Inverness were borne stoically despite blindness and parkinsonism, with an intact and engaging intellect to the end. Ursula died six weeks before him; they had no children.
by Ernest Jellinek
Trevor Davies
Former general practitioner Upavon, Wiltshire (b Pontypridd 1919; q Cardiff 1943), died suddenly from myocardial infarction on 13 September 2001. On qualifying, he spent a year at the Royal Infirmary, Stafford, followed by service in the Royal Navy, first on the aircraft carrier The Glory and then at Scapa Flow, Orkney. After the war he went into general practice in Swansea. In 1958 he moved to South Africa, working first in the King Edward Hospital, Durban. Later, he worked as a singlehanded practitioner in the Eastern Cape among the people of the Transkei, where, as well as being a GP, he acted as surgeon, dentist, and occasionally even forensic pathologist. Trevor returned to Britain in 1964 and took on a singlehanded practice in Wiltshire, where he worked until his retirement in 1984. He and his wife then lived for several years in Spain before finally settling in England. He enjoyed reading and golf, playing for the British Medical Golf Society against the United States. He leaves a wife, Jane; two daughters; and two grandchildren.
by Bill Gutteridge
John Wanless Dickson
Former consultant orthopaedic surgeon Ipswich and East Suffolk Hospital (b 1920; q Middlesex Medical School 1945; FRCS), died from pneumococcal septicaemia on 16 June 2001. He fell into a career in orthopaedics based on what he described as “a good grounding in physiology, exact and detailed knowledge of anatomy and neurology, misunderstanding and mistrust of psychiatry, bewilderment in biochemistry, and just enough competence in medicine.” His professional interests were in metastatic paraplegia and paediatric orthopaedics. On giving up private medicine after a few months' trial he bought a toy tin calf at Woolworth's, which he painted gold and set on the mantelpiece as the golden calf that should not be worshipped. It sat there for 20 years. On his retirement in 1980 he took up his interests in local history—especially plague and land usage in medieval Suffolk, and decorative interior plasterwork. He leaves a wife; three children; and five grandchildren.
by Andrew Dickson
Richard Leigh
Former consultant radiologist Hemel Hempstead and Watford (b Bromley 1916; q Guy's Hospital 1941; MRCP, DMRD), died from heart failure on 4 October 2001. During the second world war he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps in Europe and North Africa. He then worked at West Heath Hospital, Birmingham, and transferred back to London in 1957 to work at the Middlesex Hospital, by which time he had qualified as a radiologist. His first consultancy covered West Herts Hospital, Hemel Hempstead, and the Peace Memorial and Shrodells Hospitals, Watford. In his final years before retirement he founded the ultrasound departments at these hospitals. In his youth he became an accomplished piano player and continued to enjoy this hobby until the first of several strokes mildly impaired his physical capacity. In recent years he became increasingly debilitated by heart failure. Predeceased by his wife, Margaret, he leaves four children and three grandchildren.
by Joanne Leigh
Joyce McQuillin
Former top grade clinical scientist Newcastle upon Tyne 1957-86 (b 1926; BSc (bact) King's College Durham 1949), d 24 July 2001. Joyce helped Phillip Gardner develop the virological service at Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, but her real work came with their joint work on establishing the use of immunofluorescence in direct detection of viruses in, particularly, respiratory specimens. This technique, which had promised much but delivered rather less in other hands, flourished in theirs. This was very much because of Joyce's gold standard laboratory work in preparing antisera from which all unwanted cross reactions had been removed by absorption. The results were scrupulously validated by culture and, overall, her work laid the basis for assessing the commercially prepared conjugated monoclonal antibodies that are now widely used to provide rapid and reliable virus diagnosis. Many were tested on the huge bank of prepared specimen slides Joyce had assembled in the deep freezes in Newcastle. She had great practical knowledge of infection patterns by viruses, but modesty prevented her from being recognised as the undoubted authority on these common illnesses. She never married.
by Dick Madeley
B K Naik
Cardiologist India (b India 1921; q Bombay 1947; FRCP), d 30 September 2001. Born in rural India, he fulfilled the promise held out by a newly independent state and became one of the pre-eminent cardiologists of the nation. He was elected president of the Cardiological Society of India in 1973 and earned the Best Physician of India Award from the Association of Physicians of India in 1979. In 1976 the Indian government awarded him the Padma Sri, the equivalent of a knighthood. In 1947, having graduated from Grant Medical College in Bombay, he worked at St Bartholomew's Hospital and the London School of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Returning to India, he moved to Hyderabad, where his main work was in preventive cardiology, with a primary focus on the study of hypertension and coronary artery disease. He established the department of cardiology at Osmania Medical College in 1960, rising to become the college's principal. He was also a profound Sanksrit scholar and an accomplished orator. He leaves three daughters and a son.
by Sandeep Savla
Shirley Storrier (née Clarke)
Former general practitioner Cockenzie and Port Seton (b Lancaster 1935; q Edinburgh 1967), died from breast cancer on 10 June 2001. A Lancashire lass, Shirley came to Edinburgh to study nursing at the Royal Infirmary. She began studying medicine at the age of 26, supporting herself by nursing in her spare time. After house jobs in Edinburgh, she held a research post in the department of gastroenterology at the Western General in Edinburgh before transferring to general practice in Cockenzie and Port Seton. After retirement, she developed her love of gardening. Despite advanced metastatic disease she was still planning new developments for her garden in her final weeks. Her last year of life was marred not only by her illness but also by her husband's serious illnesses. Typically, Shirley concentrated on nursing her husband and ignoring her own problem. She leaves a husband; a daughter; and a grandchild.
by Rosemary Smart
Cecil Henry Wilkinson
General practitioner Portsmouth 1951-85 (b Bradford 1920; q Guy's 1950), died from prostate cancer on 25 July 2001. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps from 1940 to 1946. In general practice Henry pursued his interest in dermatology and had particular skills in the care of the elderly. He was appointed factory doctor to the city of Portsmouth. He had wide ranging interests in travel, history, and gardening. He was twice elected president of his Rotary club. For many years he worked for the St John Ambulance and the Salvation Army advisory board. In 1992 he was made an honorary life member of the Salvation Army. He was courteous and generous, with a wicked sense of humour. Predeceased by his daughter, he leaves a wife, Dorothy; and a son.
by David Morgan
Jonathan Alun Williams
Medical senior house officer Wales (b Merthyr Tydfil 1971; q University College London 1995; MRCP), d 26 July 2001. After senior house officer posts in emergency medicine, oncology, and medicine, he was appointed to the Royal Marsden Hospital. However, he decided that his heart lay in Wales and planned to enter general practice. He was due to start as a trainee at the Brecon Medical Centre in August 2001. Many of Jonathan's friends had the pleasure of his company on trips all around the world. Enjoyable activities ranged from trekking and Egyptology, to listening to Sade, drinking fine wines, and indulging in deep conversations over long and delicious dinners. He will be remembered with a memorial garden at Bronllys Hospital. He leaves his parents and a younger brother and sister.
by Annabel Walmsley