Back from holiday

September 28th is about the time when summer is definitively over in London.  Even for universities.

Alexander, working in London in 1928, returned from vacation on September 28th.  He hadn't cleaned up his food before he went away from his laboratory and so was greeted with a none-too-pleasant sight.

Yet that sight changed the lives of us all, interpreted by his medical-scientific imagination.  The mould was overpowering the bacterial culture and, at last, bacterial infection might be defeated.  In the words of Alexander Fleming himself, "When I woke up just after dawn on September 28, 1928, I certainly didn't plan to revolutionise all medicine by discovering the world's first antibiotic. . . but I suppose that was exactly what I did.”

While we plan the enjoyment of holidays they are not necessarily the places where the truely wondrous things happen.  They can happen anywhere and any day.

Needled

For those of us not disposed to being punctured by the medical profession the headlines that this year's flu vaccination is largely useless comes as a great relief.  We can forever say, "Well I don't think getting that is really worthwhile.  For example, in 2014/15 . . . ."

This may not be wise of course.

One of our main hospitals in North London has a building, formerly a smallpox and vaccination hospital, called the Jenner Building.  I often enter the hospital I visit most by the Jenner entrance/exit.

As a passing point of observation it doesn't have a Phipps Building.

The Jenner Building is so called in honour of Edward Jenner whose observational medical brilliance uncovered the way mild cowpox protected milkmaids from the far more serious smallpox.

This all brings me to James Phipps. Most of us will never have heard of him but the possibility is that, humanly speaking, we owe him our life. At the turn of the nineteenth century James, from a small Gloucestershire town, allowed a Doctor Edward Jenner to give him a disease (cowpox [vaccinia]) followed six weeks later by the deadly disease smallpox. Jenner's place in history was assured when, as he'd suspected, vaccination ('cowpoxination' never caught on!) prevented young James getting smallpox. A medical breakthrough was confirmed that still shapes much medicine today.

How often in history have ordinary people been the true glory of greater people?  It seems somewhat unfair really.  Yet it lies very close to the heart of Christian faith as John the Baptist famously introduced his Lord: I am not the Christ but I have been sent before him.  He who has the bride is the bridegroom; but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice. This, my joy, therefore is made full.  He must increase, but I must decrease.

Even the absence of a Phipps Entrance tells me something I need to remember.

Medicine

On the verge of the World Cup Final between the Netherlands and Spain it seems only fitting to think Dutch.

Herman Boerhaave was a great physician nearly 500 years ago. 

When he died he left in his will a book to be auctioned.  It came with his highest commendation for he had written it himself and he was one of Europe's most respected physicians.

The auction proceeded to a substantial sum.

The book, however, was not what it seemed. Page after page was blank!  Right at the end Doctor Boerhaave had written:

Keep your head cool, keep your feet warm and you will leave doctors poor.

I sometimes wonder if there are not too many books (and blogs and twitters) and not enough wisdom.