Anthony Seaton

Regional Lung Function in Patients with Obstructive Lung Diseases

Regional lung function was measured, using radioactive xenon-133, in a group of normal subjects and in three carefully defined groups of patients with obstructive lung disease. When compared with the normal subjects, patients in the emphysematous group showed a relative reduction of ventilation and perfusion to the upper zones, while patients having chronic bronchitis without cardiac or respiratory failure showed a predominantly lower zone defect. In the group of patients with chronic bronchitis with cardiac and respiratory failure no consistent pattern was found.

William Keith Campbell Morgan.

Keith Morgan was one of a notable cohort of British physicians who migrated to North America in the early years of the NHS and made a lasting impact on the worldwide development of respiratory medicine. His reputation rested on three foundations: his clinical skills, his leadership of research into occupational lung disease, and …

Alick John Robertson.

Former consultant physician Liverpool Royal Infirmary and editor, Thorax (b 1919; q Liverpool 1943; MD, FRCP, MFOM), died from a heart attack on 22 June 2006. To generations of Liverpool students, John Robertson was a conscientious physician and a formidable teacher. To colleagues, he was editor of Thorax, and the man who discovered why sputum goes green, reawakened an interest in Laennec and the aetiology of lung sounds, and elucidated the condition of tin refiners, stannosis. To friends and family, he was never still, physically or intellectually. His investigations of tin mining and refining took him round the world and were recorded in his Milroy lectures of 1964. Thereafter, especially in retirement, he travelled widely. He helped provide health services in Libya and Afghanistan, climbed in the Andes, and lived with the Inuit in northern Canada. He leaves five children. His wife, Elizabeth, died shortly after him.