Doctor discovered sun’s curative values

Discovery led to phototherapy in neonatal wards

Richard Cremer, the doctor who discovered the curative value of sunlight on jaundiced babies, which led to the use of phototherapy machines in neonatal wards across the world, died in January at 89.

Cremer made his landmark discovery early in his career, while working as a registrar in pediatrics at a general hospital in Essex, during the hot summer of 1956. Working alongside P.W. Perryman and D.H. Richards, he noticed the effect of direct sunlight on a specimen of blood taken from a jaundiced baby. The yellowish skin tone that is the telltale sign of jaundice is caused by high levels of bilirubin, a neurotoxic substance found in the blood that is normally excreted in bile or metabolized in urine.

In the course of performing an exchange blood transfusion for a baby whose bilirubin count was rising rapidly, he took a preliminary, preexchange blood test. He then satisfactorily completed the exchange of blood. The post-exchange bilirubin level was lower, as he had anticipated. However, the pre-exchange sample had gone missing. When it was eventually traced, Cremer found that its bilirubin level was unexpectedly low. The mislaid sample had stood on a window sill in direct sunlight.

Cremer was born on Jan. 4, 1925, in England. His father, Hubert Cremer was head of the chemical engineering department at King’s College, London, and after schooling at Westminster School, Richard Cremer studied medicine at his father’s college. On graduation he was posted, on national service, to Kenya, a country he grew to love. It was here that, as a Royal Army Medical Corps doctor, he first tended to newborn babies.

Cremer followed his eureka moment at Rochford General Hospital with extensive research. After Rochford, Cremer worked as a registrar at Harefield Hospital, alongside renowned cardiologist Sir Walter Somerville, and at Hillingdon Hospital, before going into general practice.

Cremer married, in 1958, Patricia Hegarty, an anesthetist whom he met working in Tunbridge Wells before his appointment to Rochford.

His wife survives him with their two daughters and a son.