Peter Oswald Derrick Pharoah, 1934–2021

Abstract

... I knew Peter when he was head of the Department of Public Health at the University of Liverpool and worked closely with him for >10 years. My interest in paediatric and perinatal epidemiology was nurtured and developed by him, and I eventually took over the running of the Merseyside and Cheshire Cerebral Palsy register. He was also Editor of the International Journal of Epidemiology during this time (1991–2000)—a responsibility he took seriously, spending many hours reading submitted papers, often before sending them out for review. My personal knowledge of Peter comes from the many stories he would tell of himself, of his wife Margaret, of his four children and of his many grandchildren. He was proud of all of them, and clearly loved them dearly. Peter was born in India, where his parents were teachers. He trained as a doctor at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School, London, where he met his wife Margaret, also a doctor and who predeceased him. He qualified in 1958. While a student, he occasionally worked as a film extra. Peter’s first ambition was (as he told it) to become a physician but he had some difficulty passing the MRCP and so, in 1963, with his wife and young family, he took up a post as a medical officer in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea (PNG), followed by positions in Mount Hagen, Wewak and Goroka. While based in Mount Hagen, Peter learnt there were areas in the highlands where goitre and cretinism were common and the cause had not been identified. On his visit to one of these areas, the Jimi Valley, he was told that goitre had been present for many years, but endemic cretinism (which is characterized by severe spasticity of the legs, a squint, profound deafness and mental disability, affecting infants and young children) was new. According to the local inhabitants, this problem was seen for the first time after the arrival of ‘the White man’ (in 1959).