Thomas Dormandy

Thomas Louis Dormandy (born October 30, 1926 in Budapest , † February 20, 2013 in London ) was a British medic of Hungarian origin. His specialty was pathology. He published several books on the history of medicine.

Life

Dormandy grew up on a family estate in Dormánd, east of Budapest. He had two younger siblings, a brother and a sister. When the Wehrmacht occupied Hungary in the Margarethe company in 1944 , the family hid in a Catholic monastery. She stayed there until the Red Army arrived .

The family then went on the run, which lasted several years and included various stations. During this time Dormandy put in Cluj its first test in medicine from, but had to repeat twice, first in later Geneva on French and later again to English in London, where the family finally settled and Dormandy at the Royal Free Hospital Medical School accepted has been.

Dormandy then fulfilled his conscription as a captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps . During this time he was responsible for a refugee camp for Hungary, which had been set up after the Hungarian uprising of 1956. In the late 1950s and early 1960s he wrote numerous articles for the medical journal The Lancet , which also showed his interest in literature , music and the visual arts .

He continued his medical training in London clinics, from 1961 at Central Middlesex Hospital and from 1963 at Guy's Hospital . From 1967 he was a specialist in clinical pathology at Whittington Hospital in the London Borough of Islington , where he worked until his retirement. He was also interested in surgery . He became a Fellow at the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh , where he held medical exams for many years. Many younger doctors found in him a reliable mentor.

Scientific achievement

The main focus of Dormandy's professional activity was medical research. Over the years he has published over 200 professional articles. At a time when this aspect had not yet been explored, he became an expert on radicals and their influence on biological processes in the late 1960s . Among other things, Dormandy examined the importance of radicals in rheumatoid arthritis and reperfusion damage . He developed new methods for the detection of radicals and studied the function of antioxidants as radical scavengers.

Dormandy played a key role in founding the Society for Free Radical Research , which he also served as President in 1982.

author

After the end of his professional life, Dormandy began a new career as an author of historical studies in which he combined approaches from medical, social and cultural history . He described the treatment of tuberculosis over the centuries ( The White Death , 1999), the influence of René Laënnec , Ignaz Semmelweis , Joseph Lister and Walter Reed as four important pioneers of modern medicine ( Moments of Truth , 2003), the pain, patients were exposed to surgical procedures prior to the introduction of anesthesia ( The Worst of Evils , 2006), and the importance of opium since the Stone Age ( Reality's Dark Dream , 2012). One focus of these books was the indictment of historical quackeries , particularly the use of treatments that had caused more harm than good, and the resistance of doctors to medical advances through the ages. When he was writing for the Lancet , he had already dealt with questions of medical ethics.

In another book, Dormandy made a connection between his interests as a scientist and as a lover of the fine arts and examined the influence of the infirmities of old age on the late work of great artists such as Michelangelo and Henri Matisse ( Old Masters , 2001).

Private and death

Dormandy was an avid hobby painter who also exhibited his works publicly, for example at the summer exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts .

He was married twice. In 1951 he married Katherine Baker , who later acquired a great professional reputation as a hematologist and with whom he had two daughters and a son. After the death of his first wife, Dormandy married Elizabeth Chapman in 1982. From this marriage a son and a daughter were born.

Thomas Dormandy died on February 20, 2013 at the age of 86 at his home in London. Despite his long decline in physical strength, he had worked on another book by the time he died, which was to be entitled A Short History of Medicine .

Books

• The White Death. A History of Tuberculosis . Hambledon, London 1999, ISBN 1852851694 .
• Old Masters. Great Artists in Old Age . Hambledon and London, London 2001, ISBN 1852852909 .
• Moments of Truth. Four Creators of Modern Medicine . Wiley, Chichester 2003, ISBN 0470863218 .
• The Worst of Evils. Man's fight against pain. A history . Yale University Press, London and New Haven 2006, ISBN 0300113226 .
• Opium. Reality's Dark Dream . Yale University Press, New Haven 2012, ISBN 9780300175325 .

editor

• Free radicals. Chemistry, Pathology and Medicine . Richelieu, London 1988, ISBN 0903840030 (with Catherine Rice-Evans).

Web links

• Telegraph obituary dated March 17, 2013.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Obituary in The Times from February 27, 2013.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.