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● Dr Frankland developed treatment for hay fever sufferers
A pioneering allergist and immunologist who developed desensitisation treatments for hay fever sufferers has died at the age of 108.
The many extraordinary events in the life of Dr Alfred William Frankland include surviving three years in a Japanese prisoner of war camp and telling Saddam Hussein to quit smoking.
Dr Frankland, known as the “Grandfather of allergy”, continued to publish and participate in scientific debate well past his 100th birthday. He was made an MBE for allergy research at the age of 103.
Born a twin in Battle, Sussex, in 1912, Dr Frankland studied medicine at Queen’s College Oxford and later at St Mary’s Hospital Medical School – now part of Imperial College London.
During the war years, he joined the Royal Army Medical
Corps and was captured by the Japanese in 1942.
In his three-and-a-half years in the notorious Changi Camp, Dr Frankland suffered starvation and regular beatings. He credits his survival to the fact he was able to treat Japanese troops.
After the war he began to work full-time in the allergy department of St Mary’s Hospital and in the 1950s would go on to act as assistant to Sir
Alexander Fleming in his penicillin research.
It was Dr Frankland who quoted Dr Fleming as saying that careless over-prescription of penicillin would inadvertently lead to “the death of man”. Among Dr Frankland’s greatest achievements was his work on desensitisation to allergens and venoms through administering repeated low doses of the allergens.
He often experimented on himself using insects supplied by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, almost dying on one occasion when he went into anaphylactic shock.
His work ultimately revealed that immunity to pollen could be induced in an average of three years through the treatment, and five years on average in the case of many venoms.
Dr Frankland’s work on the emerging science of pollen counts resulted in it becoming measured as a standard part of daily weather reporting.
Despite helping millions of allergy sufferers, Dr Frankland insisted he had never set out to assist people, saying instead he loved the mystery-solving element of his research.
He said in 2005: “I think being a doctor is rather like being a detective – someone is sick and there’s something you have to discover that’s not obvious.”
Dr Frankland had a run-in with Saddam Hussein in 1979 after being invited to Baghdad to treat a “VIP” patient.