Sir Gordon Ethelbert Ward Wolstenholme
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Gordon Ethelbert Ward Wolstenholme, director of the Ciba Foundation (Novartis) (b Sheffield 1913; q Middlesex Hospital Medical School, London, 1939; OBE, FRCP, FRSA, FACP, hon FDSRCS, hon LLD Cambs, hon DTech Brunel, hon MD Grenada, West Indies; Linnaeus medal, Sweden; Pasteur medal, Paris; gold medal, Perugia; Tito Lik; Chevalier Legion d’Honneur; fellow UCL; hon life governor Middlesex Hosp; fellow International Assoc Dental Research), died from carcinomatosis and atrial fibrillation cardiomyopathy on 29 May 2004.
During the second world war Gordon was in charge of distributing blood for transfusions throughout the central Mediterranean and Middle East with the Royal Army Medical Corps, finishing in 1947 as a lieutenant colonel and being awarded the military OBE.
In 1947 he became the first director of the Ciba Foundation (now Novartis), committed to the promotion of international co-operation in chemical and medical research. Scientific conferences were held which Gordon likened to "scientific house parties," bringing together a forum of clinicians, scientists, heads of state, and Nobel prize winners from all over the world. As director Gordon and his wife, Dr Dushanka Messinger, a Yugoslav whom he met in Italy during the war, travelled together to a great many countries, which placed him at the heart of the international scientific community as a "medical ambassador." He was an admired raconteur with an astonishing memory. In his 30 years at the Ciba Foundation Gordon was involved in topics such as transplantation, genetics, embryogenesis, carcinogenesis, and immunology.
He restructured the medical care in Ethiopia and Venezuela, receiving the Star of Ethiopia in 1966. He was knighted in 1976. He was president of the Royal Society of Medicine (1975-8), Harveian librarian of the Royal College of Physicians (1979-89), and master of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries (1979-80). When he retired from the Ciba Foundation in 1978 he set up Action in International Medicine (AIM), which he chaired until 1995.
Gordon aided the development of many other organisations, including the Arthritis Research Campaign, the Renal Association and National Kidney Research Fund, the International Society for Endocrinology, and the European Society for Clinical Investigation.
Publications: Portraits (Royal Coll of Physicians) vol 1 & 2; Monks Roll vol vi-viii; Portrait of Irish Medicine.
He is survived by his second wife, Dushanka, and children from both marriages. [Sarah Plumley]