James Deeny

James Deeny I Clongowes 1918-1923

James Deeny (1906-94), doctor and public-health reformer, was a native of Lurgan, County Armagh, who attended Clongowes in 1918-23. He graduated in medicine from Queen’s University Belfast in 1927, and subsequently obtained his MD and membership of the College of Physicians. Despite a brilliant academic record, he was denied an appointment in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, apparently on sectarian grounds. After a six-month study of tuberculosis in Vienna, he started a general practice in Lurgan, where he implemented a fresh approach, based on scientific research, into the causes and treatment of disease and the humane treatment of the sick. His experiences amongst the poor of Lurgan aroused his interest in the relationship between poverty, malnutrition and certain diseases. He published well-received studies on these and other topics, including tuberculosis, and was elected to the Royal Irish Academy. In 1944 he was appointed chief medical adviser to the Department of Local Government and Public Health in Dublin, where he quickly won renown as a dynamic innovator. His aim was to translate improvements in medical science into better and accessible public-health services. The results included enormous improvements in controlling typhoid fever and reducing infant mortality. However, his greatest achievement at this time was his plan to combat tuberculosis, which laid the foundation for the success of the anti-TB campaign of the 1950s. He drafted all public-health legislation. It was at his suggestion that a separate Department of Health was established in 1947. His detailed proposal for a free and comprehensive national health service was considered too radical to even publish. Seconded to the Medical Research Council as director, his persuasive skill was sorely missed when the inter-party government ran into trouble over the mother-and-child scheme he had formulated. He subsequently worked for the World Health Organisation in various countries and at its Geneva headquarters, where he wrote its fourth report on world health (1963-8). He remained extremely active in retirement, during which he served as special scientific adviser to the Holy See, received an honorary doctorate from QUB, was named 1988 Irish Life pensioner of the year and published his autobiography To Cure and to Care (1989).