LAUSR

Born in London, 24 August 1927; wife Bobbie, 3 children, 7 grandchildren. Qualifications: MB, BS (Physiology Gold Medal, Lond. 1951), PhD (Lond. 1956), MRCP (Lond. 1959), FRCP (Lond. 1968). Posts held: Internist London hospitals (1951–1953); physiologist (1953–1956) University College London; Internist/clinical researcher Royal Postgrad School of Medicine (1958–1959); Lecturer in Medicine Welsh National School of Medicine (1959– 1962) general medicine and endocrinology; Senior Lecturer Institute of Dermatology (1962–1964); Professor of Dermatology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne (1964–1992). Emeritus Professor of Dermatology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne 1992 – until death, date not yet confirmed. Past member chairman of boards and councils of many learned societies and government committees, including Board of Medical Research Council and Chairman of Grants Committee, Member Advisory Committee to Chief Scientist, Department of Health and Social Security, Member of Council of Royal College of Physicians; Founder member and past President of ESDR; founder member of BSID, hon member of many international societies. Recipient of Archibald Gray, ParkesWeber and other medals and distinctions. Writings and talking’s: Frequent lecturer with many named lectures; radio and television broadcasting; writing for the lay magazines and press on both clinical and general matters; several textbooks of dermatology and skin pharmacology and many book chapters; over 500 peer-refereed papers including Nature, Lancet, BMJ and dermatology journals, with top citations and reader interest; a similar number of publications on a variety of topics in various journals and newspapers, and a series of comic articles in World Medicine (and other journals) that many consider an improvement on my science publications. Research interests: Skin physiology and pharmacology, methods of biological measurement, disease definition and treatment, with a number of discoveries (some of sufficient quality to merit plagiarism by others), such as the coeliac syndrome of dermatitis herpetiformis, the endocrine control of the sebaceous glands (rat, gerbil, human), including the pheromonal role of MSH and sex hormones; cutaneous gene expression by hormones in early life (a forerunner of epigenetics); the fungal nature of dandruff and seborrhoeic dermatitis; introduction the new, and now widely used, measurement of itch as scratch; the first definition of the widespread systemic effects of skin disease (including the first quantitative measurement of its effect on self-image and the psyche); the accurate measurement of total skin collagen when expressed per surface area, and the effect of aging and hormones; quantification of patch test and wheal response; studies which exposed the UV-melanoma myth (alas, the exposure failed, and the myth is still rampant); and much etc and etc including the mechanism of fingerprint maintenance. I should stop there, before the list extends beyond credibility; but I have to admit, with a degree of shame, that I continue to publish (this year the discovery and definition of the behavioural defect which explains Meursault, the central character in Camus’s great novel, L’ etranger, and its surprising observational source and consequences), but with decreasing frequency and increasing triviality. 2 What brought you to dermatology? I was as an academic physician researching pituitary-adrenal function, when a chance observation on one of my patients led The Pioneers in Dermatology and Venereology interview was conceived and conducted by Johannes Ring.