William Pickles

William Norman Pickles CBE (6 March 1885 – 2 March 1969) was a British physician who worked as a general practitioner and was the first president of the Royal College of General Practitioners in 1953.

He showed the opportunities available to GPs for epidemiological observation in two British Medical Journal (BMJ) articles in 1930, on 'catarrhal jaundice' and in 1933, on Bornholm disease. His observations reached a wider audience in his book, Epidemiology in Country Practice (1939). This contained pioneering work on the incubation periods of common infectious diseases of the time and earned him the reputation of one of the world's leading epidemiologists.

He was in practice in Wensleydale for more than 50 years, half of which time he spent recording his observations, thus proving that the rural general practitioner had great opportunities to make observations on disease.

Early life Pickles was born in Camp Road, Leeds, on 6 March 1885 to the general practitioner, John Jagger Pickles and his Quaker wife Lucy Pickles. His grandfather was a local pharmacist. He was one of six sons, all of whom went into medicine and four of whom also became GPs.

He attended Leeds Grammar School and then Leeds Medical School (Yorkshire College) in 1902. In his third year, he proceeded with his clinical studies at the Leeds General Infirmary, qualifying as a licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries (LSA) in 1909. He served as the resident obstetric officer at the Infirmary, after which he held a series of temporary jobs and locum positions. He graduated MB BS from the University of London in 1910 and MD in 1918.

In 1933, Pickles was the first person to describe Bornholm disease in detail in Britain. Without any known cure, one response to his findings was that suffers could be “safely left to the care of the physician”. Pickles was said to remark on his view of the hazard being “that on some occasions it would come under the care of the surgeon”. The condition is now known to be caused by Coxsackie B virus. This was as a result of Pickles's close acquaintance with the eight villages he looked after. His wife Gertie, was deeply involved in keeping the charts up to date and in order.

Honours and awards 1942 - Milroy lecturer at the Royal College of Physicians of London - due to the war, the lecture entitled Epidemic Diseases in Village Life, in Peace and War was never given. 1953 - Gave first Sir James Mackenzie Lecture. 1955 - Honorary fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. 1957 - Awarded CBE.

Selected publications "Vincent's disease", Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service, 1919; 5: 87. "Epidemic catarrhal jaundice: An Outbreak in Yorkshire", British Medical Journal, (1930) I (3620): 944–46. "Bornholm Disease: Account of a Yorkshire Outbreak", British Medical Journal, (1933) 2 (3800) :817. "Epidemiology in Country Practice", Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 1935 August; 28 (10): 1337–1342. Epidemiology in Country Practice. John Wright & Sons, Bristol, 1939. Preface by Major Greenwood, FRS, FRCP. (Reissued 1949) (Reprinted Devonshire Press, Torquay, 1972 & in later editions by RCGP) "Trends of General Practice; A Hundred Years in a Yorkshire Dale", The Practitioner, 1951. "Sylvest's Disease", New England Journal of Medicine, 1954 Jun 17; 250 (24): 1033–6. "William Hillary; 1697–1763", British Medical Journal, 1957 Jan 12; 1 (5010): 102.