William Stewart Alexander

William Stewart Alexander (born May 27, 1919 in Invercargill ; † February 10, 2013 in Auckland ) was a New Zealand pathologist and the first person to describe Alexander's disease, which was named after him .

Life

After completing his medical degree, Alexander initially worked as an assistant in anatomy and pathology at the University of Otago and Wellington Hospital . This was followed by a two-year research stay at the Banting Best Institute in Toronto . As a Rockefeller Foundation fellow , Alexander had the opportunity to work with neuropathologist Dorothy Stuart Russell at London Hospital . Here he examined the autopsy case of a 15-month-old child with hydrocephalus and intellectual disability and published the unusual pathological findings in the journal Brain in 1949 after his return to New Zealand .

From 1950 to 1954 Alexander worked as a pathologist at Grey's Hospital in Regina in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan , from 1955 to 1991 in his own practice in Lower Hutt , New Zealand. During this time he also served as a neuropathological consultant at Wellington Hospital and as a visiting professor at Wellington Medical School .

In 1992 he was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for his services in the field of pathology .

Works

• Progressive fibrinoid degeneration of fibrillary astrozytes associated with mental retardation in a hydrocephalic infant . In: Brain . Volume 72, Issue 3 , September 1949, pp. 373-381 , PMID 15409268 (English).

Web links

• William Stewart Alexander . Capital & Coast Health District Board,accessed June 10, 2017. 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Scolding: myelin Regenerating . Brain, 2004; 127: 2144-2147 PMID 11673315 full text
2. ↑ CBE . In: The Stationery Office (ed.): The London Gazette . No. 52953 . London June 12, 1992 (English, Online [PDF; 77  kB ; accessed on January 17, 2016]).