Stiffening the Sinews

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The origin of the concept of the post of Medical Officer of Health has been dealt with in detail in the previous chapter. The first time I personally came across a real live example of such an individual coincided with my having to confront the reality that the onset of the Second World War was imminent. It was August 1939, I was 9 years old and I was being medically examined by Dr Harry Rae, the well-known Medical Officer of Health of the City of Aberdeen, in order to obtain an FFI (Freedom from Infection) Certificate prior to being evacuated forthwith to the United States to live with my father’s aunt in Buffalo, New York State. The FFI examination was a rather cursory affair, searching for skin infections, scalp infestation etc. and the chest was auscultated. An additional embarrassment was the inclusion of a brief test for hernia. When Dr Rae said “Cough” I thought he was asking a question and replied in the negative, earning a sharp prod from my mother! It was 17 years before I saw Dr Rae again, this time as a visiting lecturer on my postgraduate course at Aberdeen University. (This early encounter was to have a profound impact on my own subsequent career in public health, as the image with which I was confronted was that of a white-coated, stethoscope-wielding clinician, carrying out medical examinations on individuals just like any family doctor or hospital specialist. This professional role model was the one I instinctively adopted in due course, as I moved through the grades of the public health service, retaining personal clinical responsibility at all times for infectious disease control, even alongside my formal management responsibilities as head of department, until I retired. To have given up this particular branch of clinical work completely would, for me, have removed a major part of the satisfaction of being a public health doctor.)