Adair Stuart Mason

Short abstract

Endocrinologist who was the founding editor of the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians and a historian of Essex

Stuart Mason did much in the 1960s and 1970s to promote modern concepts of doctor-patient communication. A great communicator and a gifted writer, he founded the Journal of the Royal College of Physicians in 1966, which he edited for 21 years, and was a regular contributor to World Medicine during its agenda setting heyday in the 1970s. After his retirement, he turned his talent for research and writing to the world of local history, in particular of Essex and of maps, winning prizes for his writing.

Figure 1.

He was on duty as a casualty officer at the London Hospital on the night of the Bethnal Green disaster in March 1943 when 173 people died in a crush to get down to the safety of the shelters on the tube station platforms during an air raid. Following graduation, he served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in India for three years.

In 1950 he became consultant endocrinologist at Oldchurch Hospital, Romford. He went on to build up the endocrine unit at the London Hospital, returning to the medical college there first as a lecturer, then senior lecturer, achieving consultant status in 1959. His extensive academic writing included Introduction to Endocrinology (1957) and Endocrinology (1960), and he co-edited the 16th and 17th editions of Hutchinson's Clinical Methods. He also wanted the wider public to have a better understanding of endocrinology and wrote two popular Penguin paperbacks, Health and Hormones (1960) and Hormones and the Body (1976).

In addition to the RCP journal, he founded Clinical Endocrinology in 1972, and as honorary editor of the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine from 1976 to 1979 he completely revamped a tired publication.

His appetite for research and writing found a new outlet after retirement when he combined his love of maps with a devotion to the local history of Essex. In 1990 the Essex Records Office published his book Essex on the Map. In 1999 he won the inaugural Local History Award for an article on summer camps for soldiers in Essex 1778-82.

He leaves a wife, Rosemary; four children; and 11 grandchildren.

Adair Stuart Mason, former endocrinologist the London Hospital (b 1919;q Cambridge/London 1943; MRCP, MD), d 25 August 2003.