farmdoc's blog post number 488

Adding to my posts about my medical influences [1, 2], today I write about Richard Asher (pictured). Born in Sussex in 1912, he was an eminent London endocrinologist and haematologist. But it wasn’t his clinical work he’s remembered for. Rather he was, and is, famous for his medical thinking and writing. He warned of the dangers of prolonged bed rest [3], he was the first to write of the relationship between thyroid disease and mental function [4], he described the Seven Sins of Medicine (i.e. obscurity, cruelty, bad manners, over specialisation, love of the rare, common stupidity, sloth) [5], and he was presciently concerned that many clinical notions are accepted because they’re comforting rather than because there’s any evidence to support them. He wrote superbly and published widely. I own a copy of his 1959 book Talking Sense which remains the bible on medical method and medical writing. Medically Asher’s best known for describing and naming Munchausen syndrome in a 1951 article in The Lancet. Munchausen syndrome’s still in the news [6]. Asher suicided in 1969. (My Dad’s years were also 1912-1969.) And for trivia buffs (like I) he was the father of Peter Asher (half of the singing duo Peter & Gordon) and Jane Asher (who once was betrothed to Paul McCartney).