Person:Adrian Stokes (1)

The dates are form Dict. of National Biography. Adrian Stokes D.S.O., O.B.E (1887-1927). He was a doctor working on tropical fevers. He became successively Professor of Bacteriology and Preventative Medicine at Trinity College Dublin, and Professor of Pathology at London University, but worked at times for the Rockefeller centre on tropical infections, particularly yellow fever, of which he died at the age of 40.

Nat. Dic. Biography: Stokes, Adrian (1887-1927), pathologist, born at Lausanne, Switzerland, on 9 February 1887, was the youngest son of Henry John Stokes of the Indian Civil Service, of Howth, co. Dublin, and his wife, Mary Anne, daughter of William MacDougall. He was the great-grandson of Whitley Stokes, regius professor of medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, and the grandson of William Stokes, regius professor of medicine at the University of Dublin. He was educated at St Stephen's Green School and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he obtained honours in anatomy, and graduated MB in 1910 and MD in 1911. Between 1910 and 1911 he worked at St Mary's Hospital, and was house-surgeon at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton. In 1911 he was awarded the medical travelling prize and the Banks medal by Trinity College. After spending six months at the Rockefeller Institute for medical research in New York, he was appointed assistant to the professor of pathology in Dublin, a position which he held until the outbreak of the First World War.Stokes went out to France in September 1914 as a lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and was appalled by the number of men who reached the base with tetanus. He packed the sidecar of his old motorcycle with anti-tetanic serum and set off by himself to visit the field dressing-stations to administer the life-saving medicine. In this way the first mobile laboratory of the British expeditionary force was established. Stokes also invented the method of giving oxygen continuously through a nasal catheter to victims of gassing, a method which was then adopted in civilian practice and which saved countless lives; he also did invaluable work on typhoid and cerebrospinal fever, gas-gangrene, trench nephritis, dysentery, and wound infections. In 1916, when an epidemic of jaundice appeared in the Ypres salient, Stokes proved by animal experiment that the disease was spirochaetal in origin and identical with that described by Japanese investigators in 1914. He showed that it was conveyed by rats which infested the trenches, and helped to locate the niduses, with the result that the epidemic was stamped out. For his war services he received the DSO in 1918 and was appointed OBE in 1919.In 1919 Stokes returned to Dublin as professor of bacteriology and preventive medicine at Trinity College. His investigations on epidemic jaundice led to a request in 1920 from the Rockefeller Yellow Fever Commission that he should go to Lagos, but as no cases were available for investigation, the expedition proved fruitless. In 1922 Stokes was appointed Sir William Dunn professor of pathology at London University, working at the pathology department of Guy's Hospital. Many important contributions to scientific literature, generally published in the hospital Reports, came from his laboratory.In 1927 the Rockefeller commission again sought Stokes's assistance with its research into yellow fever in Nigeria. Stokes travelled to Lagos in June of that year, and his decisive experiments showed that yellow fever could be transmitted to monkeys, and thus provided a basis for further progress by animal experiment. On 15 September he developed yellow fever and died at the European Hospital, Lagos, on 19 September 1927 at the early age of forty. He was buried at the Ikogi cemetery in Lagos. During the few days of his illness he insisted that mosquitoes should be fed on him, that his blood should be taken for inoculation into monkeys, and that an autopsy should be performed if he died. The infected mosquitoes were allowed to bite a monkey, which then developed yellow fever; this was the first time that the disease had been thus transmitted. Stokes's own autopsy showed the characteristic changes of yellow fever.Stokes was a keen sportsman, and especially delighted in fishing, shooting, and cricket. He was extremely popular, and in his short life he exerted an enormous influence for good on all those with whom he came in contact at Trinity College, Dublin, in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and at Guy's Hospital. He was unmarried.A. F. Hurst, rev. Mary E. Gibson Sources A. F. H. and J. A. R., ‘Adrian Stokes’, Guy's Hospital Reports, 4th ser., 8 (1928), 1-17 · Guy's Hospital Gazette, [3rd ser.], 41 (1927), 442-4 · J. T. W., ‘Adrian Stokes, 1887-1927’, Journal of Pathology and Bacteriology, 31 (1928), 121-5 · BMJ (1 Oct 1927), 615-18 · The Lancet (1 Oct 1927), 734-6 · personal knowledge (1937) Likenesses Elliott & Fry, photograph, repro. in J. T. W., ‘Adrian Stokes’, pl. 13 Wealth at death £13,511 17s. 8d.: probate, 9 Nov 1927, CGPLA Eng. & Wales

1.   Burke's Irish family records.