Cicely Williams

Cicely Delphine Williams, OM, CMG, FRCP (2 December 1893 – 13 July 1992) was a Jamaican physician, most notable for her discovery and research into kwashiorkor, a condition of advanced malnutrition, and her campaign against the use of sweetened condensed milk and other artificial baby milks as substitutes for human breast milk.

One of the first female graduates of Oxford University, Williams was instrumental in advancing the field of maternal and child health in developing nations, and in 1948 became the first director of Mother and Child Health (MCH) at the newly created World Health Organization (WHO). She once remarked that "if you learn your nutrition from a biochemist, you're not likely to learn how essential it is to blow a baby's nose before expecting him to suck."Stanton, Jennifer (16 July 1992)
"Obituary: Dr Cicely Williams"
The Independent UK. Retrieved 28 July 2012.

Early life

Cicely Delphine Williams was born in Kew Park, Darliston, Westmoreland, Jamaica into a family which had lived there for generations. She was the daughter of James Rowland Williams (1860-1916), and Margaret Emily Caroline Farewell (1862-1953). Her father is said to have remarked, when Cicely was nine years old, that she had better become a lady doctor as she was unlikely to find a husband.Tortello, Rebecca (26 November 2002)
"Dr Cicely Williams: Jamaica's Gift to the Field for Maternal and Child Health Care 1893–1992"
. Jamaica Gleaner. Retrieved 28 July 2012. At 13 she left Jamaica to be educated in England, beginning her studies in Bath and was then awarded a place at Somerville College, Oxford when she was 19.Gairdner, Douglas (1984)
"Book review: Retired, Except on Demand: The Life of Dr Cicely Williams, by Sally Craddock"
Archives of Disease in Childhood (hosted by British Medical Journal Online). Retrieved 28 July 2012. She deferred her place at college, as she returned to Jamaica to help her parents after a devastating series of earthquakes and hurricanes. After the death of her father in 1916 Williams, then 23, returned to Oxford and began studying medicine. Williams was one of the first females admitted into the course, only because of the dearth of male students caused by World War I. She graduated in 1923.

Williams qualified from King's College Hospital in 1923, at 31, and worked for two years at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital for Children, in Hackney. It was here that Williams decided to specialise in paediatrics, acknowledging that to be an effective physician she must have first hand knowledge of a child's home environment and background, a notion which would come to define her medical practice.

Due to the end of World War I, and the return of male physicians, Williams found it difficult to find a medical position following graduation. She worked for a term in Salonika with Turkish refugees. She completed a course at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) from 1928–9 and afterwards applied to the Colonial Medical Service, and in 1929 was posted to the Gold Coast (present day Ghana).

Colonial Medical Service

Williams was employed specifically as a "Woman Medical Officer"- a distinction she disagreed with, not least because it meant she was paid a lower rate than her male counterparts.Stanton, J (May 2012)
"Listening to the Ga: Cicely Williams' Discovery of Kwashiorkor on the Gold Coast"
World Public Health Nutrition Association. Retrieved 29 July 2012. Her role on the Gold Coast was to treat acutely ill infants and children, and give advice at a clinic level. Faced with the shocking rate of death and illness in the community, Williams trained nurses to do out-reach visits, and created well-baby visits for the local community. She also began a patient information card system to assist with record keeping. Williams, while supportive of modern medicine and scientific techniques, was one of the few colonial physicians who gave credence to traditional medicine and local knowledge. Williams noted that while the child mortality was high, newborns were not represented nearly as highly as toddlers between two and four years. The repeated presentation of young children with swollen bellies and stick thin limbs who very often died despite treatment, piqued Dr Williams' interest. This condition was often diagnosed as pellagra, a vitamin deficiency, but Williams disagreed, and carried out autopsies on the dead children at great personal risk to herself (there were no antibiotics in colonial Ghana, and she became severely ill with streptococcal haemolysis from a cut during one such procedure). Williams asked the local women what they called this condition, and was told ''kwashiorkor'', which Williams translated as "disease of the deposed child".Konotey-Ahulu, Felix (14 May 2005)
"There is nothing mysterious about kwashiorkor"
British Medical Journal. Retrieved 28 July 2012. Her findings- that the condition was due to a lack of protein in the diets of weanlings after the arrival of a new baby- were published in the ''Archives of Disease in Childhood'' in 1933.

Her colleagues in the colonies were quick to oppose her claims, particularly H.S. Stannus, regarded as an expert on African nutritional deficiency, and Williams thus followed up her paper with another, more directly contrasting kwashiorkor and pellagra, published in ''The Lancet'' in 1935. This did little to sway medical opinion, and colonial physicians continued to avoid using the term kwashiorkor, or even acknowledge that it was a distinct condition from pellagra, despite the continued deaths of thousands of children who were being treated for the latter condition. Williams remarked about the ongoing issue "These men in Harley Street

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