Edward Lowbury
Encyclopedia
Edward Joseph Lister Lowbury (December 12, 1913 - July 10, 2007) was a pioneering and innovative English medical bacteriologist and pathologist, and also a published poet.
to the recently naturalised Benjamin William Loewenberg (of Latvian-Jewish background) and the Brazilian-born Alice Sarah Hallé (of German-Jewish origin) in 1913. The family name was anglicised to Lowbury at the start of World War 1. His father was a medical doctor and Edward’s middle names were chosen in honour of the surgeon Joseph Lister
who had done so much to reduce post-operative infection. His son was to follow closely in Lister’s footsteps in the medical career that he eventually chose.
Lowbury’s secondary education was as a foundation scholar at St Paul’s School (London), where he began to specialise in science. He was also twice winner of the school’s Milton Prize – the first time for a sequence of 40 sonnets. Having won a science scholarship to University College, Oxford
, he continued to take an interest in writing, gaining the 1934 Newdigate Prize
and the 1937 Matthew Arnold Memorial essay prize.
His initial medical training was at the Royal London Hospital
. He was called up to the Royal Army Medical Corps
in 1943, where he specialised in pathology and was posted to Kenya. There he was one of the editors of the wartime literary magazine Equator. While still in service, his collection Crossing the Line was given first prize in a competition judged by Louis MacNeice
and accepted for publication. On leaving the army, he took employment with the Common Cold Research Unit with James Lovelock
as one of his colleagues. Those days are remembered in the last of Lowbury’s “Apocryphal Letters”: Gaia – a letter to James Lovelock.
In 1949 Lowbury was appointed head of the microbiology department at the Medical Research Council burns unit of Birmingham Accident Hospital
and also taught pathology as a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham Medical School
. As founder of the Hospital Infection Research Laboratory at what is now known as City Hospital, Birmingham
in 1964, he emerged as one of the foremost researchers in hospital infection, particularly in the prevention of burns infection, the problems of antibiotic resistance and skin disinfection and lectured on his specialities throughout the world before retiring in 1979 and being awarded an OBE
.
Through clinical trials Lowbury confirmed previous work showing that specialist positively pressurised dressing rooms reduced infections.. With John Babb he proved that a specialised filter system could remove bacteria from an airstream and retain them, either reducing infection risk or allowing an already infected patient to be treated in an open ward. He documented treatment of infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa
, noting that the development of carbenicillin
resistance used a single mechanism which conferred protection against a range of antibiotics. He further showed that overuse of a new antibiotic led to increased staphylococcus
resistance, and that a subsequent reduction in use reversed the effect. His work with Rod Jones contributed to the development of a pseudomonas vaccine. With Harold Lilly he developed tests for effectiveness of hand washes before alcohol became the norm in 1974. These tests were still the basis for European standards when he died. He worked on topical
antibacterial compounds with surgeons Douglas Jackson and Jack Cason, eventually leading to topical silver, which continues in use.
His findings were usefully summed up in the Everett Evans Lecture and the Wallace Memorial Lecture that he gave in the years immediately before his retirement in 1979. He then became a founder member of the Hospital Infection Society, of which he served as its first president and where an annual Lowbury Lecture was sponsored in his honour. Other honours included a D.Sc.
at Aston University, where he was made Visiting Professor in Medical Microbiology; an LL.D
at Birmingham University; Fellowships of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, of Physicians and of Pathologists and membership of the New York Academy of Sciences.
In 1954 Lowbury had married Alison Young, daughter of the poet Andrew Young
, by whom he had three daughters – Ruth (1955), Pauline (1956) and Miriam (1959). He also published regular collections of poetry: Time for Sale (1961), Daylight Astronomy (1968), Green Magic (for children, 1972), The Night Watchman (1974). His poetry was widely anthologised and in 1974 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Following his retirement he continued to live (and write) in Birmingham until the death of his wife in 2001 and his deteriorating eyesight made it necessary to move to a nursing home in London.
A considerable part of Lowbury’s poetic output appeared first in small press editions, from which he then drew for his more commercial collections. Pride of place goes to the nine publications from Roy Lewis
' Keepsake Press
, some quite substantial, such as Poetry & Paradox (1976) with its 19 poems and introductory essay, or Birmingham! Birmingham! (1985) with its 22. Comparable with these are Goldrush from Roger Pringle’s Celandine Press (Shipston-on-Stour, 1983), which has 19 titles of which one is a six-part sequence, and Variations from Aldeburgh from Peter Scupham
’s Mandeville Press (Hitchin, 1987), which has 13 poems. Several of these books were made even larger by the number of illustrations that accompanied the poems: in the latter work there are eight line drawings by Donald Fairhall, while the three poems in Flowering Cypress from Kenneth Lindley’s Pointing Finger Press (Hereford, 1986) are supplemented by four of the artist’s woodcuts and a linoprint. Birmingham printers who used Lowbury’s work include F.E.Pardoe (The Ring, 1979) and David Wishart, whose Hayloft Press published a number of folded cards between 1987-97.
As a poet, Lowbury has been described as ‘a sort of missing link between the Georgians
and the Movement
’. His work, while remaining formal, avoided the mawkishness of the former and the attitudinising of the latter. Standing apart from literary fashions, he has a place among those of any age who continue to be read for having given lyrical expression to a striking or moving thought in plain and concise language. In this he resembled his father-in-law, Andrew Young
, and Lowbury often explained that it was because he recognised Young’s mastery of what he himself wished to achieve in poetry that he first made contact with the older poet.
The originality of the best of his poetry is on a par with that of his scientific work; it was achieved by rejecting the conventional and appealing to reason. But his scepticism was leavened with humour and appreciation of paradox, in which he found the stuff of poetry. One aspect of this, as the critic Glyn Pursglove has pointed out, was his play on words and subtle use of allusion. He also had (in life as in art) a narrative gift which particularly relished the off-beat and macabre. On the other hand, having a weakness for writing occasional verse on request, or prolonging a single theme into a sequence, in the poetry of his retirement he allowed the publication of work that is forced and pedestrian.
Lowbury’s bibliography also includes, besides poetry and medical works, two biographies: Thomas Campion poet, composer, physician (with Timothy Salter and Alison Young, London and New York, 1970) and To Shirk No Idleness, a biography of his father-in-law Andrew Young (with Alison Young, London, 1997). He and his wife had also brought out an edition of The Poetical Works of Andrew Young (London, 1985) and a Selected Poems (Manchester 1998). In the latter part of his career, Lowbury had given a number of lectures on literary themes to learned societies; these were eventually collected, along with a few essays, in Hallmarks of Poetry (University of Salzburg, 1994). One, the 1987 Tredegar Lecture to the Royal Society of Literature on “Medical Poets”, eventually led him to compile his anthology of doctor poets (Apollo, London 1990).
Soon after arriving in the city, he became a founder member of the Birmingham Chamber Music Society. He also went regularly to the Aldeburgh Festival
, at one session of which he gave a talk on Thomas Campion
. Out of these visits grew the poems collected in Variations on Aldeburgh. What had intrigued Lowbury about Thomas Campion was that he too combined medical practice with poetry and musicianship. In 1970 he co-authored a biography of Campion with his wife and the composer Timothy Salter. On a much smaller scale, he gave an account of his father’s former patient, the avant-garde composer Bernard van Dieren
, in one of his "Apocryphal Letters".
Another result of the co-operation with Timothy Salter was a setting of five Lowbury poems in his cantata “Against the Light” (1971) followed by two other settings in the next decade . During the 1980s there were further settings by two other composers teaching at Birmingham University, Ivor Keys and John Joubert
, as well as by David Haines
.
Life
Edward Lowbury was born in HampsteadHampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
to the recently naturalised Benjamin William Loewenberg (of Latvian-Jewish background) and the Brazilian-born Alice Sarah Hallé (of German-Jewish origin) in 1913. The family name was anglicised to Lowbury at the start of World War 1. His father was a medical doctor and Edward’s middle names were chosen in honour of the surgeon Joseph Lister
Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister
Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister OM, FRS, PC , known as Sir Joseph Lister, Bt., between 1883 and 1897, was a British surgeon and a pioneer of antiseptic surgery, who promoted the idea of sterile surgery while working at the Glasgow Royal Infirmary...
who had done so much to reduce post-operative infection. His son was to follow closely in Lister’s footsteps in the medical career that he eventually chose.
Lowbury’s secondary education was as a foundation scholar at St Paul’s School (London), where he began to specialise in science. He was also twice winner of the school’s Milton Prize – the first time for a sequence of 40 sonnets. Having won a science scholarship to University College, Oxford
University College, Oxford
.University College , is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2009 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £110m...
, he continued to take an interest in writing, gaining the 1934 Newdigate Prize
Newdigate prize
Sir Roger Newdigate's Prize is awarded to students of the University of Oxford for Best Composition in English verse by an undergraduate who has been admitted to Oxford within the previous four years. It was founded by Sir Roger Newdigate, Bt in the 18th century...
and the 1937 Matthew Arnold Memorial essay prize.
His initial medical training was at the Royal London Hospital
Royal London Hospital
The Royal London Hospital was founded in September 1740 and was originally named The London Infirmary. The name changed to The London Hospital in 1748 and then to The Royal London Hospital on its 250th anniversary in 1990. The first patients were treated at a house in Featherstone Street,...
. He was called up to the Royal Army Medical Corps
Royal Army Medical Corps
The Royal Army Medical Corps is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all British Army personnel and their families in war and in peace...
in 1943, where he specialised in pathology and was posted to Kenya. There he was one of the editors of the wartime literary magazine Equator. While still in service, his collection Crossing the Line was given first prize in a competition judged by Louis MacNeice
Louis MacNeice
Frederick Louis MacNeice CBE was an Irish poet and playwright. He was part of the generation of "thirties poets" which included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis; nicknamed "MacSpaunday" as a group — a name invented by Roy Campbell, in his Talking Bronco...
and accepted for publication. On leaving the army, he took employment with the Common Cold Research Unit with James Lovelock
James Lovelock
James Lovelock, CH, CBE, FRS is an independent scientist, environmentalist and futurologist who lives in Devon, England. He is best known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, which postulates that the biosphere is a self-regulating entity with the capacity to keep our planet healthy by controlling...
as one of his colleagues. Those days are remembered in the last of Lowbury’s “Apocryphal Letters”: Gaia – a letter to James Lovelock.
In 1949 Lowbury was appointed head of the microbiology department at the Medical Research Council burns unit of Birmingham Accident Hospital
Birmingham Accident Hospital
Birmingham Accident Hospital formerly known as Birmingham Accident Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre was established in April 1941 as Birmingham's response to two reports, the British Medical Association's Committee on Fractures and the Interdepartmental Committee on the Rehabilitation of...
and also taught pathology as a Research Fellow at the University of Birmingham Medical School
University of Birmingham Medical School
The University of Birmingham Medical School is one of Britain's largest and oldest medical schools with over 400 Medics graduating each year. It is based at the University of Birmingham in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England...
. As founder of the Hospital Infection Research Laboratory at what is now known as City Hospital, Birmingham
City Hospital, Birmingham
City Hospital is a major hospital in the city of Birmingham, England. It is located in the Winson Green area of the west of the city....
in 1964, he emerged as one of the foremost researchers in hospital infection, particularly in the prevention of burns infection, the problems of antibiotic resistance and skin disinfection and lectured on his specialities throughout the world before retiring in 1979 and being awarded an OBE
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
.
Through clinical trials Lowbury confirmed previous work showing that specialist positively pressurised dressing rooms reduced infections.. With John Babb he proved that a specialised filter system could remove bacteria from an airstream and retain them, either reducing infection risk or allowing an already infected patient to be treated in an open ward. He documented treatment of infections with Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a common bacterium that can cause disease in animals, including humans. It is found in soil, water, skin flora, and most man-made environments throughout the world. It thrives not only in normal atmospheres, but also in hypoxic atmospheres, and has, thus, colonized many...
, noting that the development of carbenicillin
Carbenicillin
Carbenicillin is a bacteriolytic antibiotic belonging to the carboxypenicillin subgroup of the penicillins. It was discovered by scientists at Beecham and marketed as Pyopen. It has Gram-negative coverage which includes Pseudomonas aeruginosa but limited Gram-positive coverage...
resistance used a single mechanism which conferred protection against a range of antibiotics. He further showed that overuse of a new antibiotic led to increased staphylococcus
Staphylococcus
Staphylococcus is a genus of Gram-positive bacteria. Under the microscope they appear round , and form in grape-like clusters....
resistance, and that a subsequent reduction in use reversed the effect. His work with Rod Jones contributed to the development of a pseudomonas vaccine. With Harold Lilly he developed tests for effectiveness of hand washes before alcohol became the norm in 1974. These tests were still the basis for European standards when he died. He worked on topical
Topical
In medicine, a topical medication is applied to body surfaces such as the skin or mucous membranes such as the vagina, anus, throat, eyes and ears.Many topical medications are epicutaneous, meaning that they are applied directly to the skin...
antibacterial compounds with surgeons Douglas Jackson and Jack Cason, eventually leading to topical silver, which continues in use.
His findings were usefully summed up in the Everett Evans Lecture and the Wallace Memorial Lecture that he gave in the years immediately before his retirement in 1979. He then became a founder member of the Hospital Infection Society, of which he served as its first president and where an annual Lowbury Lecture was sponsored in his honour. Other honours included a D.Sc.
Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science , usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D. or Dr.Sc., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries Doctor of Science is the name used for the standard doctorate in the sciences, elsewhere the Sc.D...
at Aston University, where he was made Visiting Professor in Medical Microbiology; an LL.D
Doctor of law
Doctor of Law or Doctor of Laws is a doctoral degree in law. The application of the term varies from country to country, and includes degrees such as the LL.D., Ph.D., J.D., J.S.D., and Dr. iur.-Argentina:...
at Birmingham University; Fellowships of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons, of Physicians and of Pathologists and membership of the New York Academy of Sciences.
In 1954 Lowbury had married Alison Young, daughter of the poet Andrew Young
Andrew Young (poet)
Andrew John Young was a Scottish poet and clergyman. His status as a poet was recognised quite late and he received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1952.-Life:...
, by whom he had three daughters – Ruth (1955), Pauline (1956) and Miriam (1959). He also published regular collections of poetry: Time for Sale (1961), Daylight Astronomy (1968), Green Magic (for children, 1972), The Night Watchman (1974). His poetry was widely anthologised and in 1974 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Following his retirement he continued to live (and write) in Birmingham until the death of his wife in 2001 and his deteriorating eyesight made it necessary to move to a nursing home in London.
Poetry
Between 1936-85 Lowbury published seven commercial collections (and shared in two joint collections). Much of that work can be found in the following (which were followed by a new collection):- Selected and New Poems 1935-1989 (Frome, 1990)
- Collected Poems (University of Salzburg, Austria, 1993)
- Mystic Bridge (Frome, 1997)
A considerable part of Lowbury’s poetic output appeared first in small press editions, from which he then drew for his more commercial collections. Pride of place goes to the nine publications from Roy Lewis
Roy Lewis
Roy Lewis was an English writer and small press printer.-Life and work:Although born in Felixstowe, Lewis was brought up in Birmingham and educated at King Edward's School. After studying at University College, Oxford, earning his BA in 1934, he went on to study at the London School of Economics...
' Keepsake Press
Keepsake Press
The Keepsake Press was a private press founded by English writer Roy Lewis. The press published more than 100 books and chapbooks using letterpress techniques. It ceased to operate in 1996 when Lewis died. Its archive is now housed at Reading University...
, some quite substantial, such as Poetry & Paradox (1976) with its 19 poems and introductory essay, or Birmingham! Birmingham! (1985) with its 22. Comparable with these are Goldrush from Roger Pringle’s Celandine Press (Shipston-on-Stour, 1983), which has 19 titles of which one is a six-part sequence, and Variations from Aldeburgh from Peter Scupham
Peter Scupham
-Life:He studied at Emmanuel College, Cambridge.He founded The Mandeville Press with John Mole. He lives in Norfolk, and runs a catalogue book business with Margaret Steward.-Awards:* 1990 Elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature...
’s Mandeville Press (Hitchin, 1987), which has 13 poems. Several of these books were made even larger by the number of illustrations that accompanied the poems: in the latter work there are eight line drawings by Donald Fairhall, while the three poems in Flowering Cypress from Kenneth Lindley’s Pointing Finger Press (Hereford, 1986) are supplemented by four of the artist’s woodcuts and a linoprint. Birmingham printers who used Lowbury’s work include F.E.Pardoe (The Ring, 1979) and David Wishart, whose Hayloft Press published a number of folded cards between 1987-97.
As a poet, Lowbury has been described as ‘a sort of missing link between the Georgians
Georgian poets
The Georgian poets were, by the strictest definition, those whose works appeared in a series of five anthologies named Georgian Poetry, published by Harold Monro and edited by Edward Marsh. The first volume contained poems written in 1911 and 1912. The poets included Edmund Blunden, Rupert Brooke,...
and the Movement
Movement
-In society and the arts:* Social movement, a coordinated group action focused on a political or social issue* Political movement, a coordinated group action focused on a political issue* Art movement, a tendency or style in art followed by a group of artists...
’. His work, while remaining formal, avoided the mawkishness of the former and the attitudinising of the latter. Standing apart from literary fashions, he has a place among those of any age who continue to be read for having given lyrical expression to a striking or moving thought in plain and concise language. In this he resembled his father-in-law, Andrew Young
Andrew Young (poet)
Andrew John Young was a Scottish poet and clergyman. His status as a poet was recognised quite late and he received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1952.-Life:...
, and Lowbury often explained that it was because he recognised Young’s mastery of what he himself wished to achieve in poetry that he first made contact with the older poet.
The originality of the best of his poetry is on a par with that of his scientific work; it was achieved by rejecting the conventional and appealing to reason. But his scepticism was leavened with humour and appreciation of paradox, in which he found the stuff of poetry. One aspect of this, as the critic Glyn Pursglove has pointed out, was his play on words and subtle use of allusion. He also had (in life as in art) a narrative gift which particularly relished the off-beat and macabre. On the other hand, having a weakness for writing occasional verse on request, or prolonging a single theme into a sequence, in the poetry of his retirement he allowed the publication of work that is forced and pedestrian.
Other work
Some 220 (often jointly authored) contributions to scientific and medical journals, textbooks, encyclopaedias, etc., appeared between 1943-79. There were also two larger works of reference:- Drug Resistance in Antimicrobial Therapy, with G.A.J.Ayliffe (Springfield, Illinois, 1974)
- The Control of Hospital Infection: a practical handbook, with G.A.J.Ayliffe, A.M.Geddes and J.D.Williams (London,1975; revised editions in 1981, 1992)
Lowbury’s bibliography also includes, besides poetry and medical works, two biographies: Thomas Campion poet, composer, physician (with Timothy Salter and Alison Young, London and New York, 1970) and To Shirk No Idleness, a biography of his father-in-law Andrew Young (with Alison Young, London, 1997). He and his wife had also brought out an edition of The Poetical Works of Andrew Young (London, 1985) and a Selected Poems (Manchester 1998). In the latter part of his career, Lowbury had given a number of lectures on literary themes to learned societies; these were eventually collected, along with a few essays, in Hallmarks of Poetry (University of Salzburg, 1994). One, the 1987 Tredegar Lecture to the Royal Society of Literature on “Medical Poets”, eventually led him to compile his anthology of doctor poets (Apollo, London 1990).
The Place of Music
Lowbury grew up surrounded by appreciation of music and regularly played the piano himself until almost the end of his life. He married a teacher of music and his two younger daughters became professional musicians. The eldest recalls his enthusiasm on discovering a new composer and the way he would play their records over and over. Lowbury himself recounted in an interview how, ‘When I was a student, somebody played me a record of Tapiola, the great sound-poem of Sibelius, and I was so overwhelmed by this that I couldn’t listen to any other music for a time.’ Soon after he wrote his own “Tapiola” and received enthusiastic permission from the composer to dedicate the poem to him.Soon after arriving in the city, he became a founder member of the Birmingham Chamber Music Society. He also went regularly to the Aldeburgh Festival
Aldeburgh Festival
The Aldeburgh Festival is an English arts festival devoted mainly to classical music. It takes place each June in the Aldeburgh area of Suffolk, centred on the main concert hall at Snape Maltings...
, at one session of which he gave a talk on Thomas Campion
Thomas Campion
Thomas Campion was an English composer, poet and physician. He wrote over a hundred lute songs; masques for dancing, and an authoritative technical treatise on music.-Life:...
. Out of these visits grew the poems collected in Variations on Aldeburgh. What had intrigued Lowbury about Thomas Campion was that he too combined medical practice with poetry and musicianship. In 1970 he co-authored a biography of Campion with his wife and the composer Timothy Salter. On a much smaller scale, he gave an account of his father’s former patient, the avant-garde composer Bernard van Dieren
Bernard van Dieren
Bernard Hélène Joseph van Dieren was a Dutch composer, critic, author, and writer on music.Van Dieren was the last of five children of a Rotterdam wine merchant, Bernard Joseph van Dieren, and his second wife, Julie Françoise Adelle Labbé...
, in one of his "Apocryphal Letters".
Another result of the co-operation with Timothy Salter was a setting of five Lowbury poems in his cantata “Against the Light” (1971) followed by two other settings in the next decade . During the 1980s there were further settings by two other composers teaching at Birmingham University, Ivor Keys and John Joubert
John Joubert (composer)
John Joubert is a British composer of South African descent, particularly of choral works. He has lived in Moseley, a suburb of Birmingham, England, for over 40 years. A music academic at the universities of Hull and Birmingham for 36 years, Joubert took early retirement in 1986 to concentrate on...
, as well as by David Haines
David Haines
David Charles Haines is an English composer and songwriter. He was trained at Bristol University, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Canada. Haines mostly works with community music groups, amateur theatrical societies, schools, colleges and pre-schools...
.