Maurice Henry Pappworth

Maurice Henry Papperovitch was born on 9 January 1910, Pappworth was the seventh child in a family that included three sons and six daughters. He graduated MB ChB (Hons) (Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery with honours) from Liverpool University's medical school in 1932 after previously studying at the Birkenhead Institute. In 1936, he received his MD degree (medical doctorate) and passed the MRCP exam (Membership of the Royal College of Physicians), after which he worked in several Liverpool hospitals in junior roles—including as a registrar under Henry Cohen. That position eventually went to a student whom he had coached for the MRCP exam. From 1941 to 1946, he served in the Royal Army Medical Corps, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel and serving in Africa, Italy, Greece and finally India, where he ran a British general hospital. In 1946, Pappworth moved to London, where his applications for consultant posts in university teaching hospitals were rejected. He turned down several lesser posts before setting up as an independent consultant. In 1953, he married Jean Goldberg; the couple went on to have three daughters. ==Postgraduate teaching==

In the 1950s, the pass rate for the MRCP examination seldom topped fifteen percent, partly due to the medical establishment's need to restrict the number of applicants to senior positions, so Pappworth resolved to tutor qualified doctors in the particulars of medicine and patient examination that the exam required. Charging one pound—then not inconsiderable—for a two-hour class, Pappworth began teaching in his consulting rooms, later moving the classes to a public hall in London. One of his most influential pupils was the oncologist Martin Gore, who also wrote a foreword in the biography written by Pappworth's daughter. ==Human Guinea Pigs==

In the 1950s and 1960s, Pappworth became concerned by descriptions in medical journals of unethical experiments on human subjects in the United Kingdom and United States; Pappworth made plans to publish an extended version of his article as a book. Human Guinea Pigs: Experimentation on Man named those responsible for the research and fully cited its sources. It detailed experiments on children and inmates of mental and penal institutions, and included 78 examples of research that had been carried out on patients who were at National Health Service hospitals for routine surgery. Some of these patients had been subjected to cardiac catheterisation—the insertion of a catheter into a chamber or vessel of the heart—without informed consent. Pappworth was advised by the medical establishment to keep quiet on the issue, but he refused. but Human Guinea Pigs was eventually published in 1967 by Routledge and Kegan Paul. but had not named those involved. Despite official lack of interest and professional impedance, Pappworth's and Beecher's work eventually led to the introduction of stricter codes of practice for human experimentation and the establishment of research ethics committees, which would have come much later had it not been for their exposés. In an article published by King's Fund Alex Bayliss argues that this book had a huge impact on research ethics, he argues it was so powerful as Pappworth named names in the book and cited the papers in which unethical experiments were described. ==Later career and personal life==

It has been suggested that the unintended consequence of this exposure was Pappworth's becoming persona non-grata within the medical establishment. ==Selected publications==

• A Primer of Medicine. Eliciting and assessing clinical signs, and the art and science of diagnosis. London: Butterworths. 1st ed. 1960; 2nd ed. 1963; 3rd ed. 1971 ; 4th ed. 1978 • Human Guinea Pigs. Experimentation on man. London: Beacon Press 1968. • Published in Italian as Cavie Humane and German as Menschen als Versuchskaninchen • Passing Medical Examinations. A guide to undergraduates, postgraduates and examiners. London: Butterworths 1975. ==References==