Arch Dis Child: first published as 10.1136/adc.59.4.392 on 1 April 1984. Downloaded from Archives of Disease in Childhood, 1984, 59, 392-394 Book reviews Retired, Except on Demand. The Life of Dr reproduced 50 years later in 1983. (That tuted WHO at Geneva. It seems that she Cicely Williams. By Sally Craddock. Pp paper did not introduce the word kwashior- was never happy at a desk bound job and 198: £12-50 hardback. Oxford: Green kor, it first appeared in the title of her she soon escaped from it, so that from then College, 1983. Lancet article of 1935). Controversy fol- until she was 71 she was mainly working lowed as workers in east Africa had earlier under the auspices of WHO or UNWRA in Cicely Williams was born in 1893 in described the condition but regarded it as a host of different countries, especially Jamaica into a family which had lived there pellagra. with the million Palestinian refugees in the for several generations. At 13 she was sent Her work on kwashiorkor came to an Middle East, and in Ethiopia. To her 'home' to be schooled in Bath. At 19 she abrupt end when as a result of a petty disappointment her own Jamaica seemed was awarded a place at Somerville College, personal conflict she found herself trans- to be the one country that did not want her, Oxford but had to turn it down in order to ferred in disgrace to Malaya. Despite this despite her desire to throw in her lot with help her parents in Jamaica after a devas- major setback to her personal and pro- its new University of West Indies. tating series of hurricanes and earth- fessional life she was soon directing her It was during this time that she met quakes. It was not until 1916 when she was energies to the totally different set of James Spence-'certainly one of the 23 that she was able to take up her place at problems she found there, though still greatest prophets of his time', she judged. Oxford university with the proviso that she pursuing the key issue of maternal and (In 1965 the BPA awarded her the James must read medicine in view of the shortage child care. A lecture entitled 'Milk and Spence Medal). of doctors at that time in the war. She was murder' given in Singapore in 1939 pro- At 71 she officially retired-'Retired, bored by the preclinical sciences but gate vided the first shots in her campaign to except on demand' was her entry in Who's crashed Osler's ward rounds at the Rad- confront commercial interests, responsible who but her vitality and unsurpassed per- cliffe Infirmary. She was 31 when she for pushing infant foods onto an unde- sonal knowledge of conditions in all parts qualified from King's College Hospital. veloped country, with the dire effects of of the globe assured that her advice and Her house jobs took her to what is now such a policy. Like so many of Cicely help remained in constant demand. It has Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children, Williams's ideas this was years ahead of its continued in that way to the present-she Hackney where she eventually stayed for time. is now over 90. two years working under the redoubtable In 1941 the Japanese invaded Malaya. This review has largely consisted of a Helen Mackay, who ran child welfare After a nightmare trek through jungle she summary of Cicely Williams' long life. The centres in the East End as well as a reached Singapore but soon after Singa- common theme running throughout her continuously busy hospital practice. It was pore fell to the Japanese and she was multifarious activities and the ups and here that Cicely Williams discovered her interred in Changi with 6000 others in a downs in her fortunes has been the idea vocation, with the realisation that to pur- gaol built (ironically by her cousin) for 700. that in order to help children in the thirdhttp://adc.bmj.com/ sue child health work the doctor must have This was where she was to be for the next world effectively you have to get to know, first hand knowledge of the child's environ- three and a half years. She became one of to listen to, and to understand the mothers. ment; that is, an understanding of how the the leaders within the chaos of the prison- Trite as this statement may sound today it family actually works. Donald Winnicott a fact which ultimately led to her being was not so in the 1920s when a few pioneers was also on the staff of 'the Queens' and he kept for four months in a tiny cell along such as Cicely Williams demonstrated its became the second of the people who with four or five men who were daily taken truth. influenced her greatly, although shie did out to be tortured. These unspeakable Any biography written within the per- have reservations about some of his work. conditions make almost unbearable read- son's lifetime runs the danger of providing on October 1, 2021 by guest. Protected copyright. From 1928 she worked for a year in ing. After the war she wrote an objective an unremitting eulogy, undiluted and Salonika with the refugees who had fled report on the Nutritional conditions among hence cloying. The author claims that she there after the Turko-Greek war. A third women and children in internment in the failed to find any of the 'warts and all' that influential character she met there was Dr civilian camp in Singapore ending with the she dutifully looked for. Happily Cicely Andrija Stampar, a practical visionary in oft quoted '20 babies born, 20 babies Williams' many witty, pithy, and forthright the bringing of medicine to primitive breastfed, 20 babies survived. You can't do remarks which are quoted in this book do peoples. better than that'. go a long way to bring to life 'the hag in In 1929 after taking a course in tropical She was now 52 with only three more your hagiography' (her words)-this great medicine she joined the Colonial Medical years before retirement age in the Colonial woman. Service and was sent to the Gold Coast Medical Service. She set about organising a DOUGLAS GAIRDNER (now Ghana), where she worked for the rural health service in Malaya based on a next 7 years. She started her own clinic for nurses training school. There followed a Infectious Diseases of the Fetus and mothers and children and learned inti- brief interlude with Professor John Ryle Newborn Infant. 2nd ed. Edited by mately the way the family functioned with- and his Department of Social Medicine in J S Remington and J 0 Klein. Pp in that culture. Here she came to define Oxford ('a lot of fatuous investigations', 1148: £93-00 hardback. Philadelphia kwashiorkor-'sickness of the deposed she thought) before she found herself and London: W B Saunders, 1983. baby'. Her classic paper on the subject was raised to high office in charge of Maternal published in the Archives in 1933 and was and Child Welfare with the newly consti- The first edition of this book was glowingly 392.