Doctor To Write Thriller

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31163, 13 September 1966, Page 1

Doctor To Write Thriller

A British doctor with a Sherlock Holmes reputation for tracking down and isolating diseasespreading bacteria plans to write a book about his investigations which included his ancilliary role in th*- discovery of penicillin.

He is Dr. Douglas Allison who collaborated with Sir Andrew Fleming in producing penicillin in quantities large enough to save thousands of Allied troops from death in the last war. Dr. Allison is in Christchurch with his wife on a world tour. Mrs Allison, former!' - Miss Vera Mit'-he'i of the Christchurch family of

furniture makers, is visiting the city for the first time in 40 years. Dr. Allison won an international reputation for his amazing success in quickly tracing the sources of epidemic outbreaks and for many years was Britain’s arch-exponent of the art of killing germs. He retired recently from the Hospitals Authority qf Northern Ireland after ringing the country with workshops where weapons to fight disease were made.

Before and during the war he worked with the Ministry of Health and at one time was under direct orders from the Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, to produce vast ouantities of penicillin needed for wounded soldiers. “We had to report to the Prime Minister ever - week on our progress,” he said.

“The use of penicillin saved thousands of soldiers who would otherwise have died from wound infections,” he said. But the work on penicillin was only one of 100 or more full investigations Dr. Allison made in 40 years. For much of his career he was involved in tracking germs which caused epidemics.

“When I was working in Cardiff, two young boys caught typhoid by drinking from a stream one hot day. “We tested the river every quarter mile and found it was infected with paratyphoid. Eventually we traced the source to the effluent of a mental hospital.

“Then we had to track down the carriers from more than 300 patients. We found 19 people were infected. Weisolated them and checked the outbreak and there has

been no typhoid in that hospital since.” Dr. Allison has written more than 60 research papers and from these he will compile a medical thriller with titles like “The Deadly Fur Coat,” “The Affair of the Poisoned Milk,” and “The Case of the Dangerous Ducks.” Sir Andrew Fleming is the character who stands out distinctly in his memory of medical men. “He was a most stimulating man. He taught me all I know. He used to laugh at me for being so tidy and he would chide me for clearing up after a day’s work. “But for his untidiness he may not have discovered penicillin. He used to keep his culture plates for two or three weeks and one day he found a fungus growth on one of them which was killing the germs.'*