Mr Parkinson and his shaking palsy. Dr Christopher Gardiner-Thorpe November 1st 2017

An ordinary meeting of the Society was held on the 1st November 2017. The President was in the chair. He introduced the evening’s speaker, Dr Christopher Gardiner-Thorpe who spoke to the title “ Mr Parkinson and his Shaking Palsy”.  
James Parkinson was born in Hoxton Square in Shoreditch, then a separate village in the country near London, in 1755.  His father was a surgeon and apothecary.He was the eldest of 5 siblings. In 1783 he married and eventually had 8 children two of whom died in infancy.He established himself in his Father’s practice having been registered as a surgeon in 1784.In addition to a flourishing medical practice, he had an avid interest in geology and palaeontology, as well as politics for a time. He published many pamphlets mainly concerned with the underprivileged and poor. He was a supporter of universal suffrage which was a controversial subject at that time. He attacked Pitt’s government frequently and he was accused of being involved in a trumped up plot to kill King George the 3rd with a poisoned dart fired from a pop-gun. Fortunately no charges were brought. He was also a pillar of the local church and gave his time working for the impoverished. As a doctor he was very concerned about the poor. He wrote a self help book on medicine and a pamphlet on protecting children from head injuries. He recognised in another pamphlet that the poor had to buy their own trusses for hernia and gave advice on how to make your own. He also played a part in changing the law so that two signatories were needed to commit someone to the madhouse. His most famous book, which is a very small one, is called “An Essay, on the Shaking Palsy”and was published in 1817. It is a study of 6 patients. Three were his own patients and three he came across in the street. He named the condition Paralysis Agitans.  Only 100 copies of the book were printed. After this little interest was shown in the condition. Sixty years later Charcot named the condition as “ La Maladie de Parkinson”. Neurology as a speciality only developed in the early 1900s but there was still a long gap before the condition was seriously studied. Parkinson didn’t study the natural history of the disease  but described the condition as he saw it. He didn’t follow up the cases as we would do nowadays. 
Parkinson was also very well known as a geologist and palaeontologist. In 1801 he wrote a three volume work “Organic Remains of a Former World” which was illustrated by his daughter Emma, as well as other works on the subject. He was a founder member of The Geological Society. He died in 1824.

The President thanked Dr Gardiner-Thorpe for a fascinating lecture.There being no other business the meeting was closed at 21.58pm.

Professor Nick Cross on Genes Genomes and Genomics

The Society’s AGM was held on Wednesday 5th April 2017. The President was in the chair. The meeting commenced with a short silence in memory of Professor George Lewith. The President then introduced the evening’s speaker Professor Nick Cross who spoke to the title Genes, Genomes and Genomics.

Professor Cross said that his Lab, the Wessex Regional Genetic Laboratory in Salisbury was one  of only 19 in the country. He is particularly interested in cancer in children - especially haematological types. He researches into blood disorders and imprinting disorders. He explained that the human genome contains about 24,000 genes of which 4,800 are associated with medical conditions and 300 with blood cancers. Many mutations are irrelevant. Most mutations are acquired through a lifetime. Some may have been present for decades such as mutations for leukaemia in 10% of the over 75s and which disease they will never get. Salisbury is at the forefront in developing new techniques resulting in a type of personalised medicine. This means that there will be tests to target treatment at only those who will benefit from it and also an ability to target drugs to genes as is being done in some cases of cystic fibrosis. Furthermore the techniques can also be used in microbiology and virology to trace a source of infection. The genome is now read by machine and it costs about $1000 to sequence a person. The Genome Project, introduced by the last government, aims to sequence 100,000 whole genomes and is aiming to make the NHS to be the first healthcare system to treat rare genomic diseases. He said there are between 5 and 8,000 such diseases which means that there are 120,000 cases in Hants and Dorset alone. These account for 35% of first year deaths in children. We are beginning to realise the true power of genomic information. The benefits to health care systems is evident.

The President thanked Professor Cross for his excellent talk. 

The meeting then continued with the AGM.

Prof. Diana Kuh on The British Birth Cohort study

An ordinary meeting of the Society was held on Wednesday 11th October 2017. The retiring President, Dr Margaret Keightley, opened the meeting with a welcome to attendees. She then inaugurated the new President, Mr Iain Chisholm, who took the Chair. The meeting commenced with a short silence in memory of Romsey GP Dr John Wattie. In the Secretary’s absence, the minutes of the last meeting were read by Dr Dracass and were accepted as correct by a show of hands. The meeting wished the Secretary a speedy recovery.

The President then introduced the evening’s speaker, Professor Diana Kuh, formerly Director of the Medical Research Council (MRC) Unit for Lifelong Health and Ageing (LHA) at University College London, who spoke to the title ‘From Paediatrics to Geriatrics: Insights into ageing from the oldest British birth cohort study’. Professor Kuh is internationally recognised in the field of life course epidemiology and evolutionary theory.

Professor Kuh explained that she had recently retired from the Directorship of the LHA, home to the MRC National Survey of Health and Development (NSHD), a post she had held since 2007. She had worked on the NSHD, the longest running life cohort study in the world, for 30 years. The study was set up in 1946 by Dr James Douglas under the auspices of the LSE Population Investigation Committee and was initially intended as a one-off project designed to answer questions about the experience and safety of childbirth. Over 13,000 mothers were interviewed and 5,362 UK babies, born in March 1946, (the Douglas babies) were entered into the study which found significant variations in obstetric outcome with social class. However its potential as a lifelong longitudinal cohort study was quickly realised and, as a result, the survey continued using regular follow-ups to explore the impact of factors such as social class, childhood health, education and the NHS on later health and development.  In 1962 the study was taken over by the MRC and in 2006 the focus of the research moved towards ageing, and the effect of early life experience and environment on longevity and health in old age.

The study subjects have recently passed their 70th birthdays and a vast amount of data on their physical, mental, social and biomedical development has been accumulated during 24 individual contacts each. About 20% of the subjects have died but, of those surviving, 94% are still in contact with the study. This has been achieved by regular communication such as annual birthday cards and, in 2016, a mass 70th birthday party was held. Subjects are seen by nurses who complete a questionnaire and undertake blood sampling, cardiac and respiratory function tests, bone scans and body composition analysis, as well as measurements of physical and mental health such as hand grip, walking speed, balance, dexterity and memory. Between the ages of 60 and 64, study subjects were assessed for 15 clinical disorders. Only 1 in 3 subjects were free of serious conditions and 1 in 6 of minor conditions. 1 in 4 were taking 5 or more medications. 

Professor Kuh explained that the study was now looking at the determinants of healthy old age, defined as optimal functioning for maximum time, and the prevention of disability. She illustrated, by way of graphs, a number of examples from the research such as the links between respiratory function and previous smoking habit, verbal memory decline and educational attainment, hypertension and low birth weight, obesity and social class and the unexpected accelerated decline in physical strength in a proportion of patients. The explanation for these associations was not always apparent and probably depended on genetic and molecular influence on individual phenotypes. The key task now is to translate the study findings into national policy and practice in order to maintain function and resilience in old age by appropriate and timely intervention.         

After answering several questions from the audience, Professor Kuh was congratulated by the President on such an interesting talk and the meeting ended at 10.15pm.

Dr John Gould of the Oceanography Dept. Southampton University

An ordinary meeting of the Society took place at the Royal Southampton Yacht Cub on 11th January 2017. The President, Dr Keightley, was in the chair. After remembering Drs John Atwell and John Glanville who had recently died she introduced the speaker Dr John Gould who spoke to the title “Climate Change - questions and answers from the deep” . How do you approach a subject so big he asked? He followed the changes through his lifetime. An early memory was visiting the Festival of Britain aged 8 in which there was a model of the city of London that demonstrated at the press of a button what happened if the polar ice caps melted - the City flooded to a depth of 250feet - now considered an exaggeration. Later as a student at King’s College he helped on a research ship to measure sea temperatures worldwide.Later he joined the National Institute of Oceanography to measure deep currents in the Oceans. He described the early measuring devices made from common materials [such as scaffolding pipe] to the present sophisticated satellites devoted to Oceanography and the 9000 Argo measuring devices floating in the oceans of the world. He said that CO2 levels have been measured back to 400,000 years from ice cores. Levels in the last 5 decades had steadily risen and were now at their highest for half a million years and his graphs showed that the world temperature rise echoed the rise in CO2 and fossil fuel burning. This is reflected in the oceans too. Temperature measurements to 1000 metres deep show a similar rise since 1955. The consequences of this are a rise in sea levels partly due to expansion and partly ice cap melt. The temperature and increasing acidity of the sea affects plankton - which are the equivalent of the rainforests in the conversion of CO2 to Oxygen. Most of the sea ice in the Arctic has gone. Sea ice protects and insulates the sea from the climate above it. The result is more evaporation and more rain and a change in the currents. He said that a change in the gulf stream could be devastating for Europe. The President thankedDr Gould for his interesting talk and there being no other business the meeting was closed at 9.55pm.