Henry Bedson,

MD, MRCP
Henry Bedson[1]
Born(1929-09-29)29 September 1929
Died6 September 1978(1978-09-06) (aged 48)
Birmingham
Cause of deathSuicide
Medical career
InstitutionsUniversity of Liverpool University of Birmingham
Sub-specialtiesVirology

Henry Samuel Bedson, MD, MRCP (29 September 1929 – 6 September 1978), was a British virologist and head of the Department of Medical Microbiology at Birmingham Medical School, where his research focused on smallpox and monkeypox virus. He was head of the smallpox laboratory at Birmingham when Janet Parker, a photographer working above the laboratory, contracted smallpox and died.

He died on 6 September 1978, five days after being discovered with self-inflicted wounds to his throat.

Early life and education

Henry Bedson was born on 29 September 1929 to Sir Samuel Bedson and Dorothea Annie Hoffert,[2] the second of three sons.[3] He was educated at Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School, before gaining admission to the London Hospital Medical College,[2][4] where his father was Professor of Bacteriology.[3] He graduated in 1952 after having received the Charrington prize for anatomical dissection, a distinction in the second bachelor of medicine examination, and the prize for clinical surgery.[2]

Career

After completing his junior medical and surgical posts, Bedson took up an appointment in morbid anatomy and in clinical pathology in 1953.[2] A year later, he received a more senior appointment as junior registrar in pathology.[2] In 1955 he joined the RAMC and served in Hong Kong until July 1957.[2]

His career in virology began in 1958 when he was appointed John W. Garrett research fellow at the University of Liverpool's department of bacteriology, where he would spend the next six years.[2][4] At Liverpool, he worked under the supervision of Allan Downie, a leading expert in poxviruses.[3] He was appointed assistant lecturer in the following year and full lecturer a year later.[2] In 1961 he invented the "Bedson ceiling test".[3]

In 1964 Bedson was appointed Senior Lecturer and honorary NHS consultant in bacteriology and virology in the Department of Virology at the University of Birmingham.[2] In 1969, he was promoted to Reader in Virology and in 1976 to Professor and head of Birmingham's new Department of Medical Microbiology.[2][3]

His interest and research from his time at Liverpool focused on whitepox viruses, smallpox and monkeypox.[5] In 1976 he was a member of the International Commission for the assessment of smallpox eradication in Pakistan and Afghanistan and of the World Health Organization informal group on monkeypox and related poxviruses viruses, in addition to the dangerous pathogens advisory group established by the Department of Health and Social Security.[2][4]

Smallpox outbreak in Birmingham (1978)

In 1978, Bedson was head of the smallpox laboratory at Birmingham Medical School.[6][7]

In late August 1978, during the bank holiday weekend, Bedson was on-call when he was called by Alasdair Geddes, the region's smallpox expert, to examine fluid samples taken from blisters of Janet Parker, a photographer working above Bedson's smallpox laboratory.[8][9] She had been admitted to an infectious diseases ward at the East Birmingham Hospital with an initial diagnosis of flu and drug eruption.[8] Bedson recognised the brick-shape smallpox virus on electron microscopy.[8]

He attended the meeting at Birmingham area Health Authority's headquarters on 26 August, along with Geddes, S. S. Bakhkshi, the medical officer of environmental health, William Nicol, the Chair, and N. S. Galbraith, representing the public health laboratory service.[10] The day after confirming the specific strain of smallpox, while in quarantine at his home in Cockthorpe Close, Harborne,[8][11] he committed suicide by cutting his throat and died five days later on Wednesday 6 September.[12] His suicide note read:[13]

I am sorry to have misplaced the trust which so many of my friends and colleagues have placed in me and my work.

In Bedson's Munk's Roll biography published by the Royal College of Physicians, virologist Peter Wildy and Sir Gordon Wolstenholme wrote:[2]

Journalists launched a relentless effort to fix the blame on him and his staff for a breach of technique, and union officials stirred up public fears by confusing the issues with those then arising from genetic manipulation. Harassed as the chosen ‘villain’ of the tragedy, Henry Bedson’s normally stable personality broke down and he took his own life. It could be said that he was a victim of his own dedicated conscientiousness, and of his extreme sense of responsibility.

The verdict in court was that Bedson was "not guilty".[14] How Parker exactly became infected with smallpox remains unknown.[15]

Personal and family

In 1961, Bedson married Ann Patricia (née Ducker; died 31 January 2019, aged 81), a Yorkshire staff nurse working in Liverpool. They had a son and two daughters: Peter, Ruth and Sarah Elizabeth.[2][3] He was a close friend of virologist Keith Dumbell, and a godparent to his children.[3]

Bedson's hobbies included cricket, and dry fly fishing, an activity learnt from his childhood days with his father. He owned a holiday home in Llangynog, Wales.[3]

Selected publications

  • Bedson, H. S.; Dumbell, K. R. (December 1961). "The effect of temperature on the growth of pox viruses in the chick embryo". The Journal of Hygiene. 59 (4): 457–469. doi:10.1017/s0022172400039152. ISSN 0022-1724. PMC 2134458. PMID 13866488.
  • Dumbell, K. R.; Bedson, H. S. (June 1964). "The use of ceiling temperature and reactivation in the isolation of pox virus hybrids". The Journal of Hygiene. 62 (2): 133–140. doi:10.1017/s0022172400039863. ISSN 0022-1724. PMC 2134592. PMID 14171265.

References

  1. ↑ "The Lonely Death of Janet Parker". janetparker.birminghamlive.co.uk. Retrieved 19 June 2021.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 "Henry Samuel Bedson". Munk's Roll. Royal College of Physicians. Retrieved 15 June 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Pallen, Mark (2018). "23. Bedson". The Last Days of Smallpox; Tragedy in Birmingham. Independently Published. pp. 68–70. ISBN 9781980455226.
  4. 1 2 3 "NEWS AND NOTES". British Medical Journal. 2 (6039): 823–825. 2 October 1976. ISSN 0007-1447. PMC 1688657. PMID 824011.
  5. ↑ Obituary; H. S. Bedson. British Medical Journal. 23 September 1978. pp. 903
  6. ↑ "Notes and News". The Lancet. 312 (8093): 799–800. 7 October 1978. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(78)92697-1. ISSN 0140-6736. S2CID 43971790.
  7. ↑ Kristin Sharon Shrader-Frechette (1994). Ethics of Scientific Research. Lanham, maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. p. 45. ISBN 0-8476-7981-0.
  8. 1 2 3 4 Williams, Gareth (2010), Williams, Gareth (ed.), "Legacy of an Angel", Angel of Death: The Story of Smallpox, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 355–372, doi:10.1057/9780230293199_16, ISBN 978-0-230-29319-9
  9. ↑ Pallen, Mark (2018). "34. The diagnosis". The Last Days of Smallpox; Tragedy in Birmingham. Independently Published. pp. 105–107. ISBN 9781980455226.
  10. ↑ Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons (1979). Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons and Command. H.M. Stationery Office. pp. 70–73.
  11. ↑ "Smallpox Threat: Preparations bring back memories of outbreak". Birmingham Mail. 2002.
  12. ↑ "Why I had to die - by smallpox professor". Sandwell Evening Mail. 9 September 1978. p. 6 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  13. ↑ Stockton, William (4 February 1979). "Smallpox is not dead". The New York Times Magazine.
  14. ↑ Pallen, Mark (2018). "60. Verdict". The Last Days of Smallpox; Tragedy in Birmingham. Independently Published. p. 234. ISBN 9781980455226.
  15. ↑ Pallen, Mark (2018). "67. So, what actually happened?". The Last Days of Smallpox; Tragedy in Birmingham. Independently Published. p. 254. ISBN 9781980455226.

Further reading

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