The
Pharmaceutical Journal Vol 266 No 7129 p10-11 Arthur Robert George Chamings
Phyllis Eileen Cripps
Dorothy Fenwick
Muriel Herbert
Gerard Patrick Keating
Robert Derrick Tuck
In a tribute to the late Arthur Robert George Chamings (PJ, December
16, 2000, p888), Professor E.
J. SHELLARD writes: I was very sorry to learn of the death of Arthur Chamings,
whom I first met in 1942 when we both worked at Genatosan Ltd in Loughborough.
Mr Chamings was a pharmacognosist and a firm believer in herbal medicine and,
while he was still head of the department of pharmacy at Leicester during the
war, he encouraged the schoolchildren of Leicestershire and Derbyshire to collect
rose hips. In the autumn of 1942, sacks of these were brought to Genatosan and,
although I was employed in the chemistry research department, I was seconded
to the pharmacy department to help with the preparation of rose-hip syrup.
When the Medicines Bill was before Parliament in 1968, he was associated with
Mr Fletcher Hyde and Mrs Joyce Butler, MP, in the campaign to allow herbal practitioners
to continue in their practice. But the wording of the Medicines Act was so unclear
that the Minister of Health asked Mr Chamings to chair a small committee to
advise him regarding the use of plant material in herbal remedies. He invited
me to become a member along with Mr Hyde, Professor Fairbairn and Professor
Rowson.
I remained in close touch with Mr Chamings while I was at Chelsea college and
he often gave me interesting and useful information about plant materials used
in medicines. For example, he told me that when Ciba Ltd based its hypertensive
tablets on extract of rauwolfia root there were never any complaints about side
effects, but this changed as soon as the company began to use the isolated alkaloid
reserpine. This was the first direct proof I had about the synergistic effect
of all the constituents in a plant extract. He was also instrumental in persuading
Ciba to award an annual prize at Chelsea college for the best student in pharmacognosy.
Arthur Chamings was a kind, friendly and deeply religious man. Whenever he spoke
at a British Pharmaceutical Conference or wrote a letter to the PJ, or
even in conversation, he would usually find a quotation from the Bible to support
his point. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.
Dr K. GAIMSTER writes: I look back with pleasure and gratitude to my contact
with Arthur Chamings. First, he was responsible for my entering the profession.
Secondly, I was one of his students when he was head of the Leicester school
of pharmacy. Thirdly, we had regular contact over the years at scientific meetings,
including the British Pharmaceutical Conference, where he could always be relied
upon for a question or a comment. More recently, neither of us had been well
enough to get to such meetings but I treasure the memory of our acquaintance.
Dr ROBERT WOODWARD writes: I read with sadness of the death of Arthur Chamings.
He was one of the old school - a pharmacist’s pharmacist. He was widely experienced
in many branches of his profession and a doughty champion of herbalism.
He was a deeply Christian man, and the mighty bastion of Christianity made it
impossible for him not to believe that a properly trained and qualified pharmacists
was not the best health care professional to prepare, control, distribute and
retail medicines. He was full of hope that the Medicines Act 1968 would operate
in favour of pharmacy as a whole. Indeed, he had himself had input to it through
his involvement with the Council of the Pharmaceutical society. He saw pharmacists
playing the leading role and bringing practicality to bear. Herbal medicines
were particularly dear to his heart. He later wished that they had all been
specifically excluded from the Medicines Act.
He was full of grief when he realised in the early 1970s that in the Medicines
Act he had helped to spawn a bureaucratic monster with few practical pharmacists
involved. He saw herbal medicines sacrificed on the altar of pure chemistry
and thousands of useful remedies needlessly cleared from the community pharmacist’s
range of over-the-counter products. He could not understand what had gone wrong.
Why did established medicines such as aspirin, cascara, magnesium trisilicate,
vitamin capsules BPC, as well as herbal remedies, have to meet criteria suited
so specifically to powerful new molecules that were patented and aggressively
promoted by the ever stronger multinational pharmaceutical industry? When he
saw smaller companies driven out of business by the actions of zealous officials
he tried to help them at appeal tribunals, but to no avail.
He hated the jargon emanating from the new order and the waning of the pharmacist’s
practical skills - “secundum artem” - in the name of progress. We will miss
you, Arthur, but the battle continues, albeit at a higher level.
Mr LARRY HURST writes: So the daddy of original pack dispensing has passed away.
That man was my hero, from the moment he famously plucked those Continental
patient packs out of his pocket at the 1958 British Pharmaceutical Conference
in Llandudno and asked, “Why can’t we do it like this?” A salutary epitaph.
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On December 2, 2000, Phyllis Eileen Cripps (née Rogers), of 1 Woodspring Court,
Groveland Avenue, Swindon, Wiltshire SN1 4EH. Mrs Cripps registered in 1932
and retired from the register in 1993.
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On November 6, 2000, Dorothy Fenwick, MRPharmS, of “Pine Trees”, Briery Bank,
Arnside, Carnforth, Lancashire. Mrs Fenwick registered in 1962.
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On November 23, 2000, Muriel Herbert (née Gray), of 37 Sunnyside Grove, Ashton-Under-Lyne,
Lancashire. Mrs Herbert registered in 1946 and retired from the register in
1995.
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In a tribute to the late Gerard Patrick Keating (PJ, December 16, 2000,
p888), Mr VICTOR HAMMOND writes:
In October, 1995, Gerald Keating wrote to me giving details of his wartime service.
He joined the General Service Corps (later called the Primary Training Corps)
in the army in July, 1942. He wrote: “The first six weeks . . . were spent in
infantry training and doing mental and practical tests to determine what one
was best suited for. The latter were no use to pharmacists because, despite
our protests, we were destined for the RAMC [Royal Army Medical Corps]”.
After service in various parts of the United Kingdom, including Mollington Hall
military hospital near Chester, where he “spent most of the time in the dispensary
as ‘dogsbody’ to two VAD [Voluntary Aid Detachment] dispensers”, Gerry was one
of those who set up No 33 Casualty Clearing Station at Filey in Yorkshire. In
1944, the unit made a perilous and protracted voyage from Southampton on an
American Tank Landing Ship to the Normandy beaches and was taking in casualties
the next day joined by two field surgical units and a blood bank. Gerry wrote:
“. . . a very great number of casualties were treated, the surgeons and anaesthetists
working almost non-stop”.
Gerry remained with 33 CCS until the end of the war in a number places of places
noted for ferocity of action. He was discharged in September, 1946, to return
to pharmacy in Maghull, where he remained in retirement. Sadly, our correspondence
ceased in 1996 when he had become too ill to write.
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In a tribute to the late Robert Derrick Tuck (PJ, October 14, 2000, p553),
Dr ELLIS W. SLATER writes: I was saddened to see the obituary notice for Robert
Tuck. I first met Bob when he was acting as a dispenser in a Royal Air Force
field hospital in Burma (now Myanmar); owing to the shortage of pharmacists
he had been seconded to this post despite his aircraft instrument qualification.
He excelled in this job, extemporising all manner of preparations, and in particular
treatments for the many and varied skin complaints. He was often consulted by
the medical officers (New Age pharmacy, 55 years ago).
At that time in Burma, civilian medicine was almost non-existent, so Bob set
up an unofficial mobile clinic in the local village, treating many of the villagers.
In those days, despite the heat, Bob was of ample proportions and wore the jungle
green drill uniform, giving rise to the affectionate nickname of “Friar Tuck”.
Bob was a remarkable pharmacist and a true English gentleman.
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