Oliver Wrong Self Experimenter Who Helped Establish the Specialty of Nephrology

OBITUARIES Oliver Wrong Self experimenter who helped establish the specialty of nephrology Oliver Murray Wrong, nephrologist Oliver Wrong was born at Magdalen College, (b 1925; q Oxford, 1947), died on 24 Oxford, where his Canadian father, Murray, February 2012 from pulmonary fibrosis. taught history and was a friend and patient of the eminent physician, William Osler. Oliver’s The nephrologist Oliver Wrong, who has died mother was the daughter of the master of Bal aged 87, followed in the long tradition of doc liol College, and his cousins included future tors who conduct experiments on themselves. winners of the Nobel prize, scientists Dorothy A founder of the specialty, Wrong designed and Hodgkin and Alan Hodgkin. Murray Wrong made in his laboratory 5000 bags of cellulose tub died age 38 when Oliver was 3. The family ing filled with a colloidal solution that he would was divided and Oliver was sent to relatives eat at breakfast. When they emerged they enabled in Canada, but he was educated at the Edin him to analyse the colon’s electrolyte content. burgh Academy and at Magdalen, completing “They were like ribbons . I met a former col his clinical studies at the Radcliffe Infirmary, league who said he ate a lot of them too, as did my Oxford. mother,” recalled his daughter, Michela, remem bering “weeks and weeks” of proteinfree diets Bureaucracy and publication and her father’s occasional trips to have stools He chose to do national service in Malaysia irradiated. “I always assumed everyone did this.” and Singapore with the Royal Army Medical All the experiments had a serious purpose: it was Corps. “He had an enormous contempt for a neglected area of basic research. Michela said, army discipline and pettifogging bureau “He found it puzzling that more was known about cracy,” said Michela, but he loved South East animals’ kidneys than human beings’.” Asia and retained close links with doctors there throughout his life. He was working on a Prolific and pioneering Wrong discovered that their condition paper about acidosis in the tropics at the time Wrong, emeritus professor of medicine at Univer was familial and associated with kidney of his death. sity College London, identified and defined the stones and renal failure. He selflessly After appointments in Toronto and Boston, rare genetic Dent’s disease; invented a test for the named the disease after Dent, though his academic career began in 1954 as univer kidney’s ability to excrete acid; and was a prolific his mentor had died in 1976 sity tutor in medicine at Manchester Royal Infir author of papers characterised by meticulous mary. Roles at University College Hospital and clinical observation. 1994;87:47393). Wrong discovered that their the Hammersmith Hospital followed, before he As a young physician in the 1950s, Wrong was condition was familial and associated with kid was awarded the chair of medicine at Dundee one of a group that helped establish the emerg ney stones and renal failure. He selflessly named University in 1969. Finding that the politics ing specialty of nephrology on a sound scientific the disease after Dent, though his mentor had of running a medical school there were not basis. He was particularly interested in the role of died in 1976. conducive to decent research or patient care, the gut in acidbase and electrolyte physiology, “Oliver’s contribution to the definition of the Wrong returned to University College Hospital and his early work on acid excretion enabled him phenotype was sufficiently substantial to war as director of medicine in 1972 and stayed until in 1959 to develop the first test for measuring aci rant calling it ‘DentWrong disease’,” thinks his retirement in 1990. Devoted to the NHS, he dosis. It is still in use today. His coauthored paper, Rajesh Thakker, professor of medicine at Oxford never did an hour of private practice. “The excretion of acid in renal disease,” published University. Retirement liberated him for good from the same year, has been cited more than 750 times Wrong published more than a dozen papers bureaucratic distractions, and he published 40 (Wrong O, Davies HE. Q J Med 1959;28:259313). on Dent’s disease and some 135 papers in total— papers during this time, often working from a Wrong’s work contributed substantially to the last of which he was amending in hospital computer in his bedroom, struggling with the the understanding of renal Fanconi syndrome, shortly before he died—as well as a textbook, printer when it jammed, and teaching himself inherited tubular disorders, metabolic bone The Large Intestine: its Role, published in how to use email. He played the piano well, diseases, and the excretion of nitrogenous sub 1981. He could be droll about his subject: his adored Bach, and devised a star rating system stances. In 1994 he reported observations that 1965 paper, “Electrolyte content of faeces” to classify the composer’s works. An accom he had made of people first treated 30 years (Wrong O, MetcalfeGibson A. Proc R Soc Med plished gardener, he grew 28 types of daffodil earlier by Charles Dent, his mentor at University 1965;58:10079), began, “Stool is the Cin at his house near Salisbury. College Hospital London, for rickets and renal derella of electrolyte studies.” In 1956 Wrong married Marilda Musacchio, tubular damage (Wrong OM, Norden AG, Feest The wit perhaps betrayed his exasperation an Italian primary school teacher he met on TG. Dent’s disease; a familial proximal renal at the profession’s reluctance to investigate this holiday in the Black Forest. He leaves her and tubular syndrome with lowmolecularweight less glamorous aspect of physiology; a reluc two daughters; another daughter died before proteinuria, hypercalciuria, nephrocalcinosis, tance that prompted Wrong to use himself and him. metabolic bone disease, progressive renal fail to persuade friends and family to take part in Peter Davies ure and a marked male predominance. QJM experiments of his own invention. Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e3509 36 BMJ | 26 MAY 2012 | VOLUME 344 OBITUARIES illnesses—spondylitis, coronary artery he switched to general practice and James Camac Clarke disease, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma moved back to Liverpool, where he of the tonsil—and a life threatening met his future wife, Nancy, whom episode of hyponatraemia the year he married in 1957. In 1958 they before he died. He lived in Hove with moved to Leeds where he joined his his wife, Sheila, who survives him, as do uncle’s family practice, working in their three daughters. the Burmantofts and Seacroft areas. John Mathews He retired in 1990, doing occasional Carolyn Latham locums until 1995. He is survived London (b 1932; q Guy’s Hospital, Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e3395 by Nancy, their daughter, and two London, 1957; MS, FRCS), died of Former consultant anaesthetist, grandchildren. carcinomatosis from an unknown Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, and Stephen McGowan Nancy Miller primary on 18 January 2012. Ulster Hospital, Dundonald (b 1927; Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e3399 Christopher Wastell (“Chris”) q Belfast), d 3 February 2012. Former consultant in general adult was appointed senior lecturer in James Camac Clarke (“Mac”) trained psychiatry at the South London and Ellen “Betty” Rhodes surgery and honorary consultant at as an anaesthetist in Londonderry and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust Westminster Hospital Medical School also, wanting to specialise in thoracic (b 1965; q Oxford, 1990), died after in 1968. A readership followed anaesthesia, worked for a time in the a fall in March 2011. and then a personal chair when, in Westminster Hospital. He then took the Stephen McGowan entered the 1982, he established the academic new fellowship exam for the Faculty of Oxford senior house officer scheme department at what was to become Anaesthetists of the Royal College of in psychiatry, followed by a Medical the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. Surgeons (FFARCS) in 1953 and was Research Council clinical training His initial interests were gastric and appointed consultant anaesthetist to fellowship in neuroimaging in upper intestinal surgery; later he the Royal Victoria Hospital in 1955 and schizophrenia at the cyclotron unit became interested in the surgical moved to the Ulster Hospital in 1958, at the Hammersmith Hospital. He Former consultant dermatologist manifestations of AIDS. After he where he worked until his retirement completed his training by joining the (b 1920, q Leeds 1944; DCH FRCP), retired he worked for the National in 1982. He had a strong interest in Bethlem and Maudsley senior registrar died from pneumonia on Counselling Service for Sick Doctors making and repairing mechanical rotation. In 2003 he was appointed as 7 November 2011. and the Overseas Research Students equipment, engines, and boats, and, a consultant psychiatrist in Lambeth, Ellen (“ Betty”) Rhodes (née Award Scheme. In 1958 he married in his spare time, yachting. He was where he held a combined inpatient Wreford) was born in Ceylon, but Margaret, who survives him, along married twice, surviving both wives. He and community post in the adult her mother died shortly after from with two daughters, a son, and five is survived by a son and a daughter. service. Stephen was much appreciated typhoid, and she was brought up grandchildren. Richard Clarke by his patients, students, and trainees; in York by her grandparents. She Ron Hoile Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e3396 his colleagues remember his great was registrar and senior registrar at Cite this as: BMJ 2012;344:e3401 sense of humour and enjoyment of life the Royal Free and King’s College Brian Alec Latham as well as his commitment to work and hospitals, and in 1966 she was Arthur John Whitworth willingness to give time to others.

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