Obituary

摘要

Few specialists in diabetes have combined clinical careers with a research programme as diverse as that of Harry Keen, Professor of Medicine at Guy's Hospital in London, UK. It encompassed epidemiology, laboratory investigations, and the development of a novel method of administering insulin. He also pioneered new ways of organising diabetes care, campaigned to raise awareness of the disease, and championed the needs of people with diabetes in developing countries. A supporter of the UK's National Health Service (NHS), he fought to maintain its core principles. And he remained active in these causes until his death. Keen studied medicine at St Mary's Hospital Medical School in London from where he graduated on the day in 1948 when the NHS formally came into existence. He was greatly influenced by the hospital's then Professor of Medicine, Sir George Pickering, a man with what Keen described as "an experimental cast of mind". It was he who got Keen into diabetes by offering him a job measuring the blood pressures of people with the illness, and of their relatives. The work that first put Keen himself on the map was the Bedford Survey, says John Pickup, Professor of Diabetes and Metabolism at King's College London. "This was not only one of the first population surveys, but also led to the idea of borderline diabetes." From this effort grew new diagnostic criteria for the disease.