Etikettarkiv: The Lancet

ADD och ADHD, NPF, Samhälle - politik, Vetenskap

The history of British Pediatrics: Sir George Frederick Still

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Sir George Frederick Still (1868-1941) The father of British pediatrics.

Sir George Frederick Still (1868-1941) the father of British pediatrics. He was born in Highbury, England, and attended medical school at Cambridge University. His father died when he was 17 years of age, causing a dramatic change in the family economy. However, he had proved such gifts as a pupil of Merchant Taylors, that he received a scholarship enabling him to study at Caius College, Cambridge, where he received several awards and new scholarships.


At graduation, Cambridge

He was the first who described a form of juvenile idiopathic arthritis which bears his name Still’s disease. He was also the one of the absolutley first to initially describe the symptoms of ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). A Few other medical terms after Sir George Still’s names is: Still’s murmur and Still’s rash. During most of his adult life George’s hobby was to read the antique works in their original languages. He was fluent in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic. His choice of profession, however, was medicine. His first salary at GOSH was only £20 a year (1894), and he had no private income, so Still’s early days at the hospital were spent in considerable poverty.

Sir Still gave his life to paediatrics. He wrote prolifically on childhood diseases and was secretary to the Children’s Clinical Club. Professor Still´s life was dedicated to improve the life chances of sick children, and especially to the patients at Great Ormond Street. Maybe just a look at his poetry can get us a glimpse of his thoughts. He wrote this poem in commemoration of his bellowed mother, Emma Andrew:

Years have gone since that sweet presence
And her ”boy” is old and grey,
But I hear my mother calling,
I am yet a child at play,
And my Mother has my heart-love,
And it seems but yesterday.


The same year he died, 1941, he published a volume of poems titled “Childhood and other poems”. These verses from this collection prove the importance of children to him, sick or healthy:

For my garden is the garden of children
Cometh naught there but golden hours,
for the children are its joy and its sunshine,
and they are its heaven sent flowers.


George Frederick Still as a child

Links to Part 1 in the history of ADHD: Alexander Crichton

Links to part 2 in the history of ADHD Sir George Frederick Still

BBC: Great Ormond Street’s Victorian patients

The history of GOSH, Great Ormond Street.

1989 Diana, Princess of Wales, becomes President of the Hospital
1991 Diana, Princess of Wales, laid the foundation stone for the new hospital building
1994 The Variety Club Building opened, funded by the Wishing Well Appeal
1997 The Princess of Wales’ final official visit on the hospital’s 145th birthday to open the Renal Unit
2001 Gene therapy lab opens, and clinical trials of gene therapy begin at GOSH
2002 150th Anniversary

Svensk

ADHD historia Del 1 Alexander Crichton

ADHD historia Del 2 Alexander Crichton

ADHD historia Del 3 Sir George Frederick Still

ADHD historia Del 4 Charles Bradley 1937 – Benzedrine

Wikipedia Svenska: Sir Gerorge Frederick Still

Sir George Frederick Still, Sittin’ On The Dock of the Bay

Meander in time

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