BRITISH AUG. 27, 1960 CORRESPONDENCE MEDICAL JOURNAL 671 and hats for themselves and for members of their fami- lies. I have bought five. One last point. As yet few cars have safety belts and Obituary you cannot take your own when travelling in a strange car. You can take your hat.-I am, etc., LORD HADEN-GUEST, M.C., M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. The Institute of Orthopaedics, H. J. SEDDON, London, W.1. President, British Orthopaedic Lord Haden-Guest, who was a medical officer to one Association. of the earliest child-welfare clinics in London and then REFERENCE became a well-known Labour politician, died on Gissane, W., Brit. med. J., 1959, 1, 235. August 20. He was 83 years of age. Leslie Haden Guest was born at Oldham, Lancashire, on Cat Phobia March 10, 1877, the son of Dr. Alexander Haden Guest, SIR,-In your issue of August 13 (p. 497), writing of a who practised in Manchester and had many friends among case of cat phobia treated by them, Dr. H. L. Freeman the Fabians and radical thinkers of his day. Educated at and Mr. D. C. Kendrick are guilty of an inaccuracy William Hulme's Grammar School and at Owens College, sufficiently gross to merit correction on my part. In Manchester, Leslie Haden Guest continued his medical training at the London Hos- their brief and pejorative survey of the results of pital, qualifying M.R.C.S., psychotherapy of mental disorders, they say, inter alia: L.R.C.P. in 1900. After " Glover (1955) has disavowed any claims for the thera- serving as a civil surgeon in peutic usefulness of psycho-analytic methods." I the South African war he gather from their list of references that the disavowal remained in South Africa was made in my textbook The Technique of Psycho- for a time and then returned analysis. This is, I need hardly say, news to me, the to London, obtaining an more startling in that the book in question was devoted appointment as assistant to instructing analytical students and practitioners how school medical officer under the London County Council. to carry out psycho-analytic treatment successfully. Working in Southwark, he I have, it is true, time and again emphasized that founded, and became before embarking on treatment of mental disorders one medical officer of, the should establish the suitability of the case; and I have St. George's Dispensary and constantly insisted on the necessity for a carefully con- School Clinic. Later he trolled statistical appraisal of results based on reliable became chairman of the after-histories. But of course these recommendations executive committee of the do not apply to psycho-analysis alone; they are even dispensary as well as con- [Elliott and Fry more pertinent to other psychiatric or eclectic tech- sulting physician. Observa- niques, not excluding that form of " behaviour therapy " tions made at the dispensary gave impetus to the setting. up of the school dental service of the L.C.C. His interest which disguises its psychological origins under neuro- in the health and welfare of children was life-long, and he physiological captions such as " reciprocal inhibition," was for a time joint honorary secretary of the Save the or " conditioning " or " learning response modifica- Children Fund with the founder, the late Eglantyne Jebb. tions" or what not. I have also maintained that any On the outbreak of war in 1914 Haden Guest was. form of therapy will secure its quota of satisfactory appointed medical director of the hospital set up in the results; and in a critical analysis of Wolpe's Psycho- Hotel Majestic, Paris, under the French Red Cross. He therapy by Reciprocal Inhibition (to which our present was also a founder and organizer of the Anglo-French authors refer) I have pointed out that the rationale of Committee of the British Red Cross Society and Order of Wolpe's technique depends on the exploration (witting St. John. Afterwards he joined the R.A.M.C., and was. and D.A.D.M.S., with the rank of major, with the 14th and 58th or unwitting) of both molecular molar suggestion.' London Divisions, winning the Military Cross at But whatever the form of non-analytical treatment Passchendaele in 1917 for rescuing wounded men under and whatever its symptomatic success, it has always fire. In the following year he served in Egypt and seemed regrettable to me that the patient should be Palestine. left with his or her mental conflicts intact, a state of After the war Haden Guest helped to organize relief affairs that is well illustrated by the case of cat phobia work among the children of Vienna and Budapest, and set that Dr. Freeman and Mr. Kendrick now report.-I up hospitality committees for children from the famine- am, etc., stricken areas. He acted as secretary and medical adviser London, W.I. EDWARD GLOVER. to the Labour Party delegation to Russia in 1920, and three REFERENCE years later he contributed to this journal a lengthy article Glover, E., Brit. J. med. Psychol., 1959, 32, 68. on public health in Soviet Russia. As a young man his enthusiasm for social reform was kindled by the people he met in h;s father's home, and while practising as a physician POINTS FROM LETTERS in Westminster and in the City he took an active interest in political and social affairs. He represented East Woolwich Diastolic Reading on the London County Council from 1919 to 1922. He Dr. R. P. W. KuP (Gobowen, Salop) writes: During then stood for Parliament at the General Election in estimations of blood-pressures, using the ordinary sphygmo- November, 1922, as the Labour candidate for North South- manometric method, I have frequently noticed positive signs wark, but failed to secure the seat. In December of the of apprehension exhibited by the patient, and often even a following year, however, he successfully contested the same physical " jump," transient but coincidental with the constituency, again on behalf of the Labour Party, although diastolic reading. When it occurs I now take this point as his majority was only 362 in a total poll of 14,968. He the diastolic reading with little regard to the fading sound was appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to the in the stethoscope. I have never heard any description of Minister of Health in the first Labour Government in 1924, this phenomenon, and it is interesting to speculate on the and in 1925 be was a member of the Empire Parliamentary cause of it. Surely I am not the first to have noticed it ? delegation to Canada and Newfoundland. In March, 1927, OBITUARY BRrs AUG. 1960 EDCLJUNl 672 67 U.2,190OIU27, R MEDICAL JOURNL Haden Guest gave up his seat in the House of Commons secretary of the Leverhulme Research Fellowship on his retirement from the Labour Party, and he unsuccess- Committee; when he retired, he was not well off. The fully stood for Parliament at the General Election in May, job he enjoyed most was his chairmanship of the Medical 1929, as the Conservative candidate for North Salford. Soon Personnel Priority Committee during the war; this, he felt, returning to the Labour Party, he stood as the Labour was really useful work. In 1951 he was a Government candidate for the Wycombe division of Buckinghamshire whip in the Lords. His later years were marred by in October, 1931, and in November, 1935, as the Labour increasing ill-health. candidate for Brecon and Radnor, but was defeated at both Haden-Guest gave up his life to a political career, and elections. After a lapse of ten years he was again returned sacrificed much in doing so. He lived to see the achieve- to Parliament in 1937 as Labour Member for North ment of much of what he stood for. He was not of the Islington. He successfully contested the same constituency stuff that first-rank politicians are made of; but his quiet at the 1945 General Election, relinquishing the seat in Janu- contributions to the world of medicine and politics were ary, 1950, on his elevation to the peerage as Baron Haden- of greater value than those of many who flash more brightly. Cuest, of Saling in the county of Essex. Haden-Guest was a member of the commission which left WILLIAM BLACkWOOD, D.S.O., M.B.E. London in October, 1938, for Lagos to report on the inter- M.B. Ch.B. relationship between Government officials, traders, and Dr. William Blackwood, who practised for many years -natives in the West African colonies and on the general at Camborne, Cornwall, died on July 31 at the age of 82. development of resources. In the second world war he William Blackwood was born on April 12, 1878, the son again joined the R.A.M.C. as a lieutenant in 1940, but of Mr. A. Blackwood, of Moffat. Educated at Lincoln relinquished his commission in September, 1941, having School and the University of Edinburgh, he graduated M.B., again attained the rank of major. In 1945 he was appointed Ch.B. in 1902. Shortly after qualification he went to Cam- chairman of the Medical Priority Committee of the Ministry borne, where he practised uninterruptedly until 1958, with -of Health and in 1952 chairman of the National Medical the exception of four years' Army service during the first Manpower Committee. He resigned from the chair in 1955, world war. when he was succeeded by Sir Zachary Cope. In 1946 'he was a delegate to the Food and Agriculture Conference E. T. writes: The death of William Blackwood has taken in Washington.