Neurologist who fought the South African medical establishment over the death in custody of black activist Steve Biko
Three days before she died, Frances Ames, emeritus professor of neurology at the University of Cape Town, had spent an hour and a half with her colleague Dr Trefor Jenkins discussing the price of coffins and funerals. The money, she thought, would be better spent on a donation to a hospice. This last exchange reflected a life of strongly held views about equity and social justice.
Dr Jenkins, former dean of the medical school at the University of Witwatersrand, was one of six doctors, including Ames, who challenged the medical establishment and the former South African government over the death in custody of black activist Steve Biko in September 1977.
The six had become outraged not only at the death of Biko but at the behaviour of the statutory registration body, the Medical and Dental Council, which had exonerated two doctors who had seen the battered and bruised Biko after police had assaulted him.
The doctors, Benjamin Tucker and Ivor Lang, had allowed Biko, despite being shackled and having slurred speech, to be transported naked in the back of a police van on a 700 mile journey from Port Elizabeth to Pretoria, where he died.
Tucker and Lang were far from alone in their behaviour towards political detainees. In those days many district surgeons found themselves able to overlook regular police torture in prisons, to comply with police orders that conflicted with medically appropriate treatment, and at best to remain silent in the face of the obvious ethical challenges posed by the political climate. Few voiced their opposition to the systematic breaches of medical ethics occasioned by apartheid. Ames was one of the few.
It was hearing Ames on the radio expressing her disapproval over the exoneration of the district surgeons who attended to Biko that propelled Trefor Jenkins into action. “She was undoubtedly the driving force behind the case . . . and kept up the momentum,” he said.
Of the 400 or so doctors who gathered at the University of the Witwatersrand to plan action, only six stayed the course, fighting until the courts forced the South African Medical and Dental Council to hold a full hearing into the behaviour of Tucker and Lang. Ames, who led the group, risked her job as head of neurology at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town. 
Tucker was eventually struck off the register. Ames was unforgiving of his action to the end. She believed it “scandalous” when he was reinstated on to the register in 1994.
Ames could be cynical, Jenkins recalled with affection. She had often said: “No day would be complete without a little malice.” He recalled: “She berated me for being too nice to the other side.”
She was never made a full professor, and believed that this was because she was a woman. However, her influence in South Africa has been substantial, as her passion for human rights was equalled by her passion for teaching. Generations of medical graduates from the University of Cape Town have passed through her hands.
Giving the Steve Biko memorial lecture at the University of Cape Town as the first democratic government in South Africa was installed, Sir Raymond Hoffenberg, former president of the Royal College of Physicians and a fellow South African, referred to Ames's stance on human rights and the inspiration that she had provided.
Ames was not a prolific writer of research, but became known in later years for backing the legalisation of cannabis for medical use. She published her views on this in a paper in the South African Medical Journal.
She had qualified as both a neurologist and psychiatrist and in 1964 became the first woman to be awarded an MD at the University of Cape Town. In 1999 Nelson Mandela awarded her the Star of South Africa in recognition of her human rights activities.
Ames had a tough childhood. Her father walked out, leaving her mother with three daughters to care for. Ames was placed for a time in a Catholic home, where she contracted typhoid. She was later reunited with her mother when she was again able to care for her daughters.
In deference to her strong views and independence, Ames was cremated and her ashes were scattered with a few cannabis seeds.
Predeceased by her husband, journalist David Castle, she leaves four children.
Frances Rix Ames, emeritus professor of neurology University of Cape Town (b Pretoria 1920; q Cape Town 1942), died from leukaemia on 11 November 2002.