Date: |
4 March 2026 |
Time: |
7:00PM |
Location: |
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Entry: |
Title
How Denny-Brown came to HarvardPresented by
Neil AndersonAbstract
This lecture will deal with the controversial appointment of a New Zealander, Derek Denny-Brown, as the Director of the Neurological Unit at Boston City Hospital and Professor of Neurology at Harvard in 1939. Denny-Brown was born in 1901 in Christchurch, and educated at New Plymouth Boys’ High School and Otago Medical School. After a year as anatomy demonstrator in Dunedin, he was awarded a Beit Scholarship and completed his D.Phil. in physiology in Sir Charles Sherrington’s laboratory in Oxford. He conducted ground-breaking research on the physiology of the motor unit. He then trained in clinical neurology at the National Hospital, Queen Square and was appointed to the consulting staff at Queen Square and Bart’s. In 1939 when the chair in neurology at Harvard became vacant, he was encouraged to apply for the position. Despite strong opposition, he was appointed on the day before the outbreak of the Second World War. As a member of the Territorial Army, he was unable to take up the appointment, but the President of Harvard, James B. Conant, and the Dean of Harvard Medical School agreed to defer his appointment. During this time his opponents used all manner of skullduggery to try to derail Denny-Brown’s appointment. Through the intervention of Conant and the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, Denny-Brown was eventually able to go to Boston in 1941. During the next 25 years he made major contributions to knowledge of many aspects of neurology. He changed the way academic neurology was practised in the United States, Great Britain and other parts of the world.
Biography
Neil Anderson MB,ChB, FRACP
Neil is a neurologist at Auckland Hospital and the Chief Medical Adviser to the Neurological Foundation of New Zealand. After graduating in medicine from the University of Auckland in 1978, Neil trained in neurology in Auckland and New York. In 1987 he was appointed a consultant neurologist at Auckland Hospital.
Neil is the immediate past president of the Auckland Medical History Society (AMHS); he has authored several books on well-known neurologists including Dusty Allen -A Neurologist’s Life (2016 Mary Egan Publishing), Jock Caughey – Physician and Humanitarian (2023 Mary Egan Publishing) and he has presented many papers on medical history, often on lesser known topics.
Title
How Did Icarus Really Die? (Analysis of the First Aviation Accident in History)Presented by
Gus CabreAbstract
How Did Icarus Really Die Analysis of the First Aviation Accident in History is meant to be entertaining but also illustrating, Gus looks at what could have happened to Icarus. He does not believe the hypothesis that Icarus flew close to the sun and the wax melted. In fact, he analyses the historical evidence and proves the fallacy of the sun/wax theory. Thus, by applying his Aviation Medicine knowledge, Gus will establish the potential causes of this very first aviation accident in history and eventually reach a conclusion. Could you guess what really happened?
Biography
Squadron Leader (Dr) Gus Cabre, MBBS (Barc) FRCS(Eng) DRCOG DAvMed RNZAF
After learning to fly, Gus decided in 1999 to leave his NHS surgical career and transfer to the RAF. Since then, his life has been short of exhilarating: several bases as a GP; AvMed instructor; deployments to Iraq (retrieving by helicopter battlefield wounded Servicemen), Afghanistan (delivering immediate emergency care to allied injured personnel), Central Africa (looking for Boko Haram and the 200 kidnapped girls) but above all, several tours to the Falkland Islands, with exciting Search and Rescue retrieval of patients from ships at the South Atlantic high seas. His last job was overseeing UK AvMed policy as well as providing duty control for Aeromedical Evacuation.
Gus arrived from the UK in 2018 with his wife Helen (a Kiwi now a retired civilian GP) to take over as the Head of the RNZAF Aviation Medicine Unit at Whenuapai