OBITUARY

Press, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 25081, 13 January 1947, Page 8

OBITUARY

DR. S. M. LAMBERT (N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 11.10 p.m.) NEW YORK, January 11. Dr. Sylvester M. Lambert, who serveci for 20 years in the South Sea Islands as a member of the staff of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation, has died. He was responsible for great improvements in native health through lectures, treatment, and diagnosis. He established the central native medical school at Suva and helped almost to eliminate hookworm in some Pacific areas. Dr. Lambert, who was born in 1882. gained his M.D. at the Medical School of Syracuse University. He was in practice in Rochester, New York State, for four years before going to a medical post in Sinaloa, Mexico. After several years of distinguished work in South American countries his .eyesight began to fail and he returned to the United States, believing himself finished as a medical practitioner. Dr. Victor Heiser, then head of the Eastern Division of the Rockefeller Foundation offered him a job as the foundation’s representative in the South Pacific. He was to go to Papua. Soon after his arrival in the South Seas he fell gravely ill, but he refused to return home, recovered, and applied himself to the many medical problems he found himself confronted with in New Guinea. Later he visited almost every area in the South Pacific islands. His pioneer work in the mass treatment of intestinal parasites by carbon tetrachloride attracted much attention. He treated practically the entire population of Fiji after his first experiments with it in 1922. Dr. Lambert was the prime mover in the founding of the central medical school in Suva, which he caused to be opened to students from other islands as well as the Fiji Islands. He was exceptionally proud of his students, many of whom became expert and conscientious surgeons and doctors. He had a great respect and admiration for the natives, particularly the Fijians, and this was a factor in the tremendous esteem in which the natives held him and his work.

He retired in 1939 because his eyesight, which had been bad for years, was growing even worse. His work has been praised by many authorities, with special mention being made of .his fight against hookworm, of which he was reputed to have cured half a million natives.

Notable among Dr. Lambert’s publications was an autobiography “Yankee Doctor in Paradise,” in which he told the fascinating story of his life work in the South Seas, where he had fought against tropical and imported diseases for so many years. After his retirement Dr. Lambert, with his wife and two daughters, lived in California. MR W. H. BOOTH The death occurred on Thursday at “Middle Run,” Carterton, of Mr William Henry Booth, sheepfarmer and studmaster, widely-known for his Jersey stud, as well as for his Romney Marsh stud sheep. Born at Ohariu in 1870, 10 years after his parents arrived from Lancashire, Mr Booth was educated at Wellington College, and entered the Public Trust for four years. He then went to “Middle Run,” which he took over after his father’s death in 1920. His garden is one of the beauty spots of the Wairarapa. Mr Booth represented Wairarapa at cricket, football, and golf. He was chairman of the Parkvale School Committee. held office as Mayor of Carterton, was a past-president of the Wairarapa A. and P. Association, a member of the New Zealand- Romney Marsh Sheep Breeders’ Association, the New Zealand, Cattle Breeders’ Association, and president of the Carterton Horticultural Society.