James Deeny

James Andrew Donnelly Deeny (7 November 1906 – 3 April 1994) was the Chief Medical Adviser of the Republic of Ireland and a senior administrator in the World Health Organization.

Background Deeny was born in Lurgan, County Armagh, the son of a Catholic doctor. He was educated at Clongowes College and graduated as a doctor from Queen's University, Belfast at the age of 21. He continued his studies at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin.

In 1930, he went to Vienna where he worked in The State Service Institute under the auspices of the American Medical Association, specializing in the technology of tuberculosis. In 1931, he joined his father's practice in Lurgan.

Career in Northern Ireland He first came to prominence in the 1930s after publishing a study on the nutritional deficiencies of male factory workers in Lurgan in the Journal of the Ulster Medical Society.

Treating two Lurgan "blue men", he discovered the use of ascorbic acid in the treatment of familial idiopathic methemoglobinemia.

He became an expert on pellagra and diagnosed it among his patients. It had not been reported in Ireland before.

There was a strong discrimination against Catholics in the Northern Ireland of the time and Deeny judged that his career would advance better in the Republic of Ireland.

Career in Dublin In 1944, Deeny was appointed Chief Medical Adviser for Ireland. The two main problems confronting him were tuberculosis, where Ireland had the worst problem in Western Europe, and a high infant and maternal mortality rate. Deeny and his colleagues prepared a plan which led to the Tuberculosis (Establishment of Sanatoria) Act 1945. This allowed the department to acquire land compulsorily for the building of sanatoria. A White Paper Tuberculosis was published in 1946. A battle against tuberculosis began.

World Health Organization In May 1948, Deeny attended the first assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva as chief of the Irish delegation. This included writing the Fourth Report on the World Health Situation in 1968 and serving as the WHO's first Ombudsman.

Publications Deeny, James, The Irish worker: a demographic study of the labour force in Ireland, Institute of Public Administration, Dublin 1971. Deeny, James, To Cure and to Care: Memoirs of a Chief Medical Officer, The Glendale Press, 1989. Deeny, James, The End of an Epidemic: Essays in Irish Public Health 1935-1965, edited by Tony Farmar, Dublin 1995.