Denis Parsons Burkitt, 28 February 1911 - 23 March 1993

Abstract

Denis Parsons Burkitt was born in Lawnakilla near Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, in 1911 and spent his early boyhood there. He graduated M.B. from Trinity College Dublin in 1935, passed the Edinburgh F.R.C.S. examination three years later, and served during the Second World War as a surgeon in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) in East Africa. On demobilization, Denis joined the Colonial Medical Service and went to Uganda to become what he described as ‘a simple bush surgeon’, but while working there he made observations on a hitherto unrecognized cancer of children which now bears his name, Burkitt’s lymphoma, with profound consequences for human oncology. In 1964, Denis transferred to a new appointment funded by the U.K. Medical Research Council (MRC) to work on geographical pathology in Uganda, but in the aftermath of Ugandan independence he moved his activities to London in 1966 and became interested shortly after this in the effects of diet on disease. As a result, he remained throughout the rest of his life a leading proponent of the importance of dietary fibre in the prevention and treatment of a wide range of human pathologies. Denis Burkitt came from a deeply religious family with a strong tradition of service in the Empire; these influences not only determined the way he lived, but were also responsible for the pattern of his career and, indeed, for the manner in which he made his scientific contributions. He was the elder of two brothers who both became surgeons.