Russell Brain, 1st Baron Brain
Russell Brain, 1st Baron Brain | |
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Born | Walter Russell Brain 23 October 1895 Reading, England |
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. |
Institutions | University of Oxford |
Alma mater | New College, Oxford |
Known for | Brain's reflex |
Notable awards | Fellow of the Royal Society[1] |
Walter Russell Brain, 1st Baron Brain (23 October 1895 – 29 December 1966) was a British neurologist. He was principal author of the standard work of neurology, Brain's Diseases of the Nervous System, and longtime editor of the homonymous neurological medical journal titled Brain. He is also eponymised with "Brain's reflex", a reflex exhibited by humans when assuming the quadrupedian position.[1][2]
Career
Brain was educated at Mill Hill School and New College, Oxford, where he began to read history, but disliked it. The First World War having begun in 1914, the following year he joined the Friends' Ambulance Unit as an alternative to volunteering for combat, and was sent to York, moving later to the King George Hospital in London, attached to the X-ray department. On the introduction of conscription in 1916 his work enabled him to be exempted as a conscientious objector.
After the war he returned to New College, and studied medicine, obtaining his BM BCh in 1922 and a DM in 1925; he specialised in neurology. Apart from his clinical practice, he was a member on a large number of government committees pertaining to physical and mental health, and was involved in the care of Winston Churchill on the latter's deathbed in 1965.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1931 and was President of the College from 1950 to 1956.
He was knighted in 1952,[3] made a baronet on 29 June 1954,[4] and on 26 January 1962 was created Baron Brain, of Eynsham in the County of Oxford.[5] In March, 1964 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.[6] In 1964 he gave the presidential address (Science and Behaviour) to the British Association meeting in Southampton.[7] In this address he discussed how humanity was approaching the anthropocene and he reiterated Alfred North Whitehead's warning that "'A muddled state of mind is prevalent. The increased plasticity of the environment for mankind, resulting from the advances in scientific technology, is being construed in terms of habits of thought which find their justification in the theory of a fixed environment."[8]
Family
He married Stella Langdon-Down and had a daughter, Janet, and two sons, Christopher (b. 1926) and Michael (b. 1928). Christopher succeeded him as the 2nd Baron Brain. In 1954 Janet married Dr Leonard Arthur, tried for the murder of a baby in 1981 but acquitted.
Religious beliefs
He became a Quaker in 1931 and gave the Swarthmore Lecture in 1944, ‘Man, society and religion’, in which he stressed the importance of a social conscience.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 39480. p. 1191. 29 February 1952.
- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 40224. p. 3959. 6 July 1954.
- ↑ The London Gazette: no. 42582. p. 683. 26 January 1962.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.[dead link]
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Further reading
- The Peerage
- Roster of physician writers
- Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages [self-published source][better source needed]
Academic offices | ||
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Preceded by | President of the Royal College of Physicians 1950–1956 |
Succeeded by Robert Platt |
Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
New creation | Baron Brain 1962–1966 |
Succeeded by Christopher Brain |
Baronetage of the United Kingdom | ||
New creation | Baronet (of Eynsham) 1954–1966 |
Succeeded by Christopher Brain |
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- Articles with dead external links from January 2016
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- 1895 births
- 1966 deaths
- Alumni of New College, Oxford
- People associated with the Friends' Ambulance Unit
- British conscientious objectors
- British neurologists
- British Quakers
- Converts to Quakerism
- 20th-century British medical doctors
- Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom
- Barons in the Peerage of the United Kingdom
- Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- Knights Bachelor
- Presidents of the Royal College of Physicians
- People from Reading, Berkshire
- Quakerism stubs
- Peerage of the United Kingdom baron stubs