The news about the first "child from three parents" in the history of mankind gave an opportunity to talk about Ley's syndrome, a disease, which until now, perhaps, was heard only by those whose family was affected by such a tragedy. From now on, this incurable disease, caused by mutations in mitochondrial DNA, can certainly not be cured but prevented.
However, the name of the person who described the pathology remains unknown. We will try to write at least a few words about this outstanding person, who is much more famous in psychiatry, although he started out as a neurosurgeon. The biography of this man is accompanied by a lot of abbreviations, which the British have fallen so hard on. This is what his biography looks like in three lines:
MB ChB Manch(1939) BSc(1939) MRCP(1941) MD(1947) FRCP(1955) FRCPsych(1971)
Let's decipher this "secret writing" step by step.
Archibald Denis Ley was born on October 11, 1915. The father of the future psychiatrist worked as a manager at the Lancashire cotton factory. Soon the factory closed down, however, he successfully changed his career as a journalist, becoming an editor at the Picture Post.
The first two abbreviations
Ley graduated high school and enrolled at the University of Manchester in the medical department. It is worth mentioning that our outstanding character studied with Sir Jeffrey Jefferson (1886-1961), who was known not only for his work at the Anglo-Russian Hospital in Petrograd during the First World War but also for being one of the pioneers of neurosurgery. He also gave a lecture on "The Mind of Mechanical Man" at the end of his life in 1949, which was the impetus for one of the first discussions on the possibility of creating an artificial man. One way or another, in 1939 Ley received the very first important abbreviation of his life: MB ChB Manch(1939). What does this mean?
This is an acronym from Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery, Bachelor of Medicine and Surgery. At the University of Manchester. At the same time, he holds a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree. These are the first scientific and medical degrees.
Military Neurology
But World War II begins, and Ley goes to war, receiving the abbreviation MRCP in 1941. It means "Membership of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of the United Kingdom" or a member of the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom.
Ley spent the Second World War working as a military doctor. First, he was a "regimental doctor", but then, as a highly qualified neurologist, he was transferred to the Oxford Cranial Trauma Center, where he dealt with soldiers injured in the head. It was there that he did his first scientific work, describing in detail the case of loss of smell after a gunshot wound, which is still quoted to this day.
However, the young doctor is not sitting on the spot, and he goes to the Asian theater of war. After all, he is a neurosurgeon and from now on he runs a mobile neurosurgical hospital on the Burmese front. Victory year 1945, he meets in the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of the Advisor on Neurology of the medical service of the Eastern Army of His Majesty in India. However, without the cherished prefix MD to the name. The military doctor does not mean that he is a "doctor of medicine". So, he has no right to open his practice or work in a hospital.
to be continued in the next part