WISE PHYSICIAN

Taranaki Daily News, 16 November 1935, Page 18 (Supplement)

WISE PHYSICIAN

LOOKING BACK AT 90 YEARS. GIVING HIS BIRTHDAY AWAY. White-haired, white-bearded, Sir Thomas Barlow looks with kindly eyes through his gold-rimmed spectacles on a world he first knew 90 years ago. He can look back with, the same shrewd, observant gaze on many days well spent, for it is 70 years since, he came from Lancashire to London as a medical student, and in that time there have been thousands who have blessed " his knowledge and understanding. If a search for his distinctions' is made, the most resounding of them appears to be that he has been doctor to Queen Victoria and to King Edward and is physician to King George tend his household. We may add that the Royal Society has made him one of its Fellows and that his brothers in medicine at home and abroad have ever been eager to confer on him the’ highest honours their profession bestows. But among these unsought honours one that catches the eye is that he is consulting physician to the Hospital for Sick Children. Nobody in his time has done more for the health of the child. More than half a century ago, when he was little known, he. made his name by his inquiries about rickets and scurvy’. He was the first to distinguish between them, and one form of scurvy among children is named after him. Much has been made known since about these afflictions as about others, and Sir Thomas has taken a continual share in advancing knowledge. None '■ knows better than he the Importance of right living and right feeding, and other workers in the field where he was a pioneer have shown that both scurvy and rickets are the consequences of improper food and insufficient light and air. During his long life he has given of himself freely to his fellow-men, and he is still so young at 90 that one might say “to his fellow-children.” His ;90th birthday showed best the man he is, for the chief present which celebrated it was one he made himself. He is one of those who like to give their birthdays away, and he gave to Wendover, where he lives on his farm, a five-acre recreation ground, with a pond, and with enclosures reserved for children. It is a gift which will long be remembered and long be enjoyed in this little Buckinghamshire town, keeping Sir Thomas Barlow’s memory green.