Royal College Physicians Cuyler Hammond (1 results)

Soft cover. Condition: Very Good. 1st Edition. An important piece of medical history, SIGNED on the title page by RICHARD DOLL, dated 11 October 2001. Included is a typed letter signed by Doll, dated 28 November 2001. The book is the first American edition of a seminal work summarizing the adverse health effects of smoking, including the groundbreaking research done by Sir Richard Doll throughout the 1950s (cited in references 50-61). Forward by Dr. E. Cuyler Hammond, Director, Statistical Research Section, American Cancer Society. Glossy print/illustrated wraps, 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 inches, 70 pp., references (pp. 59-70), tables and charts. Very good (moderate edgewear and rubbing, covers). The letter is trifolded and fine. Signed material by Doll is scarce. "Sir William Richard Shaboe Doll CH OBE FRS (28 October 1912 24 July 2005) was a British physiologist who became an epidemiologist in the 20th century, turning the subject into a rigorous science. He was a pioneer in research linking smoking to health problems. With Ernst Wynder, Bradford Hill and Evarts Graham, he was credited with being the first to prove that smoking caused lung cancer and increased the risk of heart disease. (German studies had suggested a link as early as the 1920s but were forgotten or ignored until the 1990s.) He also carried out pioneering work on the relationship between radiation and leukemia as well as that between asbestos and lung cancer, and alcohol and breast cancer. --- Doll was a socialist, and one of the significant figures in the Socialist Medical Association whose campaign helped lead to the creation of Britain's postwar National Health Service. He joined the Royal College of Physicians after the outbreak of World War II and served for much of the war as a part of the Royal Army Medical Corps on a hospital ship as a medical specialist. --- In 1950, he then undertook with Austin Bradford Hill a study of lung cancer patients in 20 London hospitals, at first under the belief that it was due to the new material tarmac, or motor car fumes, but rapidly discovering that tobacco smoking was the only factor they had in common. Doll himself stopped smoking as a result of his findings, published in the British Medical Journal in 1950, which concluded: The risk of developing the disease increases in proportion to the amount smoked. It may be 50 times as great among those who smoke 25 or more cigarettes a day as among non-smokers. Four years later, in 1954 the British doctors study, a study of some 40 thousand doctors over 20 years, confirmed the suggestion, based on which the government issued advice that smoking and lung cancer rates were related. In 1955 Doll reported a case controlled study that has firmly established the relationship between asbestos and lung cancer. In 1966 Doll was elected to the Royal Society. The citation stated: Doll is distinguished for his researches in epidemiology, and particularly the epidemiology of cancer where in the last 10 years he has played a prominent part in (a) elucidating the causes of lung cancer in industry (asbestos, nickel & coal tar workers) & more generally, in relation to cigarette smoking, and (b) in the investigation of leukaemia particularly in relation to radiation, where using the mortality of patients treated with radiotherapy he has reached a quantitative estimate of the leukaemogenic effects of such radiation. In clinical medicine he has made carefully controlled trials of treatments for gastric ulcer. He has been awarded the United Nations prize for outstanding research into the causes & control of cancer & the Bisset Hawkins medal of the Royal College of Physicians for his contributions to preventative medicine. In 1969, Doll moved to Oxford University, to sit as the Regius Professor of Medicine, succeeding the clinical researcher Sir George Pickering. Initially, epidemiology was held in low regard, but in his time at Oxford he helped reverse this. He was the primary agent behind the creation of Green College, which was founded in 1979. Dol. Signed by Author(s).