Arthur MacNalty explained

Sir Arthur Salusbury MacNalty (20 October 1880 – 11 April 1969) was the 8th Chief Medical Officer of the United Kingdom. Arthur MacNalty was also a ground breaking medical scientist. In 1908, early in his career, he joined with the Welshman Thomas Lewis (cardiologist) to demonstrate that tracings from the nascent science of electrocardiography (ECG) could be used as a tool for diagnosing Heart block.[1] This use of electrocardiography to diagnose heart block was the earliest use of ECG technology in cardiology and clinical medicine. He was a pioneer in the modern discipline of public health and in the speciality of preventive medicine. In the 1930s, MacNalty became among the earliest public health authorities, if not the earliest, to warn against the serious medical dangers of fad dieting (slimming) and anti-obesity medications.[2] [3] He was particularly concerned with the neurological side effects of the popular practice of dosing with thyroid extract to lose weight. MacNalty was a prolific author of acclaimed medical and other histories, which have retained their value.[4] [5] [6] [7] He was the author of 96 books in the fields of medicine and history in 154 publications in three languages, which are held in at least 2,700 library collections.[8]

Life

Arthur MacNalty was born in Glenridding in Westmorland into a long line of Irish physicians living in the Britain. MacNalty was the son of Dr Francis Charles MacNalty MD and his wife, Hester Emma Frances Gardner.[9] MacNalty was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was Shute Exhibitioner and took second class in the Oxford Honor School of Physiology (researcher on central nervous system, Dept. of Physiology). From Oxford, he went to University College Hospital, London, where he was Filliter Exhibitioner and qualified MRCP and LRCP in 1907. MacNalty received his M.D. Oxon (1911) for his dissertation Lyphadenoma with relapsing Pyrexia. After a series of medical and surgical postings at hospitals, he abandoned his course toward specializing as a thoracic physician (the speciality of "chest service", tuberculosis being endemic), when called to government service as a public health officer in 1913 (even though solicited to assume this office, MacNalty worked in preparation for nearly a year as Assistant Medical Officer and Tuberculosis Officer to Essex County Council, under their progressive County Medical Officer, J. Thresh) and through which public office ranks he rose to his appointment as Britain's Chief Medical Officer (1935–1941). MacNalty became an authority on communicable diseases, public health and on endocrine system based neurological disorders. He was president of the Royal Society of Medicine's Epidemiology and its Medical History sections. During the Second World War MacNalty was Chairman of the Committees on Hospital and Nursing Provision of the Committee of Imperial Defence and organised the medical administration of the Emergency Medical Services and the Evacuation Scheme of the Ministry of Health.[10] [11] [12] The British Public Health Laboratory Service developed from a wartime emergency service on the basis of a survey initiated by MacNalty. In a 1939 paper solicited by Oxford University, MacNalty advocated the establishment of a pioneering preventive and social medicine department at the University, which lead to the establishment of the first Chair of Social medicine there by 1943.[13]

Family

In 1913 MacNalty was married to Dorothea Simpkinson de Wesselow (d.1968).[14] MacNalty had two daughters called Renee who married James Cumming and Pamela. Sir Arthur has two living grandchildren, five great grandchildren and eleven great great grandchildren.

Some medical papers

References

  1. "A note on the simultaneous occurrence of sinus and ventricular rhythm in man", Lewis T, Macnalty AS, J. Physiol. 1908 Dec 15;37(5-6):445-58
  2. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article52188122 "Dangers of Slimming"
  3. See, also, "Deaths reduced as sliiming passes", Sydney Morning Herald, Nov. 17, 1937, p 10.
  4. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/261947/Henry-VIII/3130/Additional-Reading "Henry VIII (king of England), ARTICLE, Additional Reading"
  5. http://www.britannica.com/shakespeare/article-3130 See, also, Encyclopædia Britannicas Guide to Shakespeare
  6. See also, Sir Arthur Salusbury MacNalty in Henry VIII. A Difficult Patient, "The Diagnosis of King Henry's 'Sore Legge'", points out that a syphilitic ulcer would have been recognised by Tudor surgeons and treated with mercury, but mercury was not prescribed for the King." http://shaksper.net/archive/2000/168-december/11964-re-henry-viii
  7. http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/marystuart.html "Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots (1542-1587), Annotated Bibliography"
  8. http://www.worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n84-804880 "MacNalty, Arthur Salusbury Sir 1880-1969"
  9. Book: Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002. July 2006. The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 0-902-198-84-X. 2017-07-31. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf. 2016-03-04. dead.
  10. [Weldon Dalrymple-Champneys|Sir Weldon Dalrymple-Champneys]
  11. Who's Who, 92nd edition 1940, London Adam & Charles Black, U.S.A. New York Macmillan Company, p. 2056
  12. British Biographical Index, D. Bank & A. Esposito ed., London K.G. Saur, 1990,, Vol. 3 J-O, p. 1209, corresponding microfiche 727-217, citing to The Medical Who's Who 1914
  13. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, HCG Matthew & Brian Harrison ed., 2004, Oxford, Oxford University Press, (set of 60 volumes), Vol. 35, pp. 934-935
  14. Book: Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002. July 2006. The Royal Society of Edinburgh. 0-902-198-84-X. 2017-07-31. https://web.archive.org/web/20160304074135/https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp2.pdf. 2016-03-04. dead.

External links

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