Nancy Conn

Nancy K. Conn (1919–2013) was a Scottish bacteriologist known primarily for her work on preventing the spread of typhoid in Edinburgh in the summer of 1970.

Life Agnes "Nancy" Kirkland Conn was born on 27 June 1919 in Barrhead, Scotland to James Charles Conn and Margaret Aitken. Her father was a Church of Scotland minister, who in 1926 was transferred to Broughty Ferry, and so Nancy attended the High School of Dundee. She earned an MA in Modern History and English in 1940 from the University of St Andrews, and in 1945 graduated M.B.,Ch.B from the Bute Medical School there. She played hockey for Scotland as an adolescent, named in team photographs as A.K. Conn.

She worked at the Central Microbiological Laboratories at Edinburgh's Western General Hospital until December 1972, when she became a consultant and the Deputy Director of the Western Regional Hospital Board in Glasgow. She retired in 1979. She was a Soroptimist and a member of the National Trust for Scotland. She died aged 93 on 20 March 2013. An imagined exhibition demonstrating her work can be found at the Glasgow Science Centre. The woman had lived in the house for 13 years and had never once been abroad.

Conn's systematic investigation stopped a typhoid outbreak in Edinburgh, as locals ceased drinking from the Water of Leith and the river was cleaned. Subsequent actions were taken to further clean the rivers in Leith, such as the "Operation Riverbank" in 1983.

Publications N.K. Conn et al. (1959) Systemic candidiasis and endocarditis due to C. tropicalis. British Medical Journal, 1:944-947. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.5127.944 N.K. Conn (1969) Coliform bacteraemia in infants. Scottish Medical Journal, 14: 23-28 doi:10.1177/003693306901400104 N.K. Conn (1970) A study of some of the methods of urinary collection in children. Journal of Clinical Pathology, 23: 81-84 doi:10.1136/jcp.23.1.81 N.K. Conn and R.J. Farrand (1970) Shellfish Toxicity in Scotland, 1969. Scottish Medical Journal, 15: 169-171 doi:10.1177/003693307001500502 N.K. Conn et al. (1972) Water-borne typhoid fever caused by an unusual Vi-phage type in Edinburgh. Journal of Hygiene, 70: 245-253 doi:10.1017/s0022172400022300