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. 2002 Jun 8;324(7350):1399.

Nelson Fuller Coghill

James Stewart
PMCID: PMC1123345

graphic file with name coghill.f1.jpgFormer consultant physician/gastroenterologist West Middlesex University Hospital (b Liverpool 1912; q Cambridge/Westminster 1937; FRCP), died from fibrosing alveolitis on 21 April 2002.

After active service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, mainly in Egypt, he was appointed senior registrar at the Hammersmith. In 1947 he started at the West Middlesex, where he built one of the earliest gastroenterology units in the country. He was a pioneer in gastric biopsy, an invaluable tool for his principal research, atrophic gastritis. Nelson was a crusader for what he believed to be right and at his best he was inspirational and unstoppable. He brought these qualities to his presidency of the British Society of Gastroenterology, working to increase staffing and equipment. He developed an occupational health service for all resident hospital staff. Later, when his wife developed multi-infarct dementia, he cared for her at home. He leaves a wife, four children, and five grandchildren.

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