Ian MacGillivray

Classification of perinatal death

Three paediatric pathologists, one perinatal paediatrician, one obstetrician, and one epidemiologist separately used information collected on 239 babies in an attempt to validate the Wigglesworth classification of perinatal deaths. This was first done using clinical data only, then using the combination of clinical and gross necropsy findings and finally using clinical, gross necropsy, histological and any other information (for example, chromosome analyses, microbiological investigations). Only 14 (6%) of deaths changed groups within the Wigglesworth classification when gross necropsy findings were considered as well as clinical findings, and altogether only 21 (9%) changed classification when complete investigations were available. There was an unacceptable amount (15%) of disagreement between the classifiers, largely the result of failure to comply with the rules laid down for classification. We set out amendments to Wigglesworths original definitions to clarify certain ambiguities.

Jane Easdale Cook

Jane Easdale Allen was the daughter of an Ayrshire farmer and went to Beith Academy. After qualifying she married her classmate Arthur Cook in October 1943, and 10 days …

John Henry McKnight Pinkerton

After house posts in Belfast John Henry McKnight Pinkerton (“Jack”) served from 1945 to 1947 in the Royal Navy with a flotilla of minesweepers in the Mediterranean, based in Malta. When he returned to Belfast in 1947 he married Florence McKinstry, also a doctor. He was appointed a lecturer in Belfast and then senior lecturer in obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of the West Indies, where he …