PROFESSOR DREYER

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 48, 25 August 1923, Page 14

PROFESSOR DREYER

THE MAN AND'-'HIS WORK;

In any undertaking the outstanding figure is that of the individual who links up the theorist, with the practical man. Qeorges Dreyer, Professor of Pathology, at Oxford, who has recently become prominent in connection with the fiew tuberculosis cure, is essentially a scientist of this nature. . :

He first attained fame during the war by finding -the solution to a problem which occurred in the laboratory diagnosis of typhoid fever, states a scientist in the "Daily, Mail." Blood tests had been employed in this disease for many years,, but it is ■to . Dreyer. that we owe the devising of a method which can be employed by those having but little skill, ■ witli accurate results. .The .problem faced. .by Oxford's professor of pathology was the mass production of typhoid- emulsion, wliich would enable tests to be made in 'all the laboratories with the. British armies, and furnish results which were comparable. This he did, and for three years at least every bottle of emulsion used in the laboratories was issued from Oxford under his supervision, and was accompanied by such lucid instructions as to render the method almost foolproof.

His next appearance of note was associated with' the construction of a formula for estimating the vital capacity of individuals. ' -.

It had been stated that Height was the important factor in this connection, and that chest measurements were date of little value.. It is perhaps characteristic of the man that, after paying tribute to the work of the men who had come to .these conclusions/he traversed their findings. He laid it down in trenchant sentences that vital capacity is a function of weight, that the only height, measurement of value is that taken wherf the person under examination is sitting, and that the circumference of the chart must B8 taken into consideration together with the amount of air /expired. On: these conclusions Dreyer built a formula which is now widely used. Similarly, when he camo to investigate the -question of preparing an antidote to tuberculosis, he .was not faced by.a new problem, nor was the line which he followed out unexplored.. Other scientists had had the idea, had endeavoured to work it out on the stage of utility, and been -compelled to admit themselves beaten. "'■',.

Dreyer appreciated the value of the work which had gone before, corrected its errors, and gave, to the glory of British science, the world the most promising form of tuberculosis medication which we have had until this date.