Dr Honor Smith
© By kind permission of the Fellows of St Hugh's college
Image available by kind permission of the Principal and Fellows of St Hugh’s College, Oxford
Education
Pre-clinical medicine the London School of Medicine for Women, clinical training at the Royal Free Hospital in London.
Research area
Neurosurgery, tuberculosis and meningitis.
Career
- Smith worked at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital after qualifying as a doctor. In 1943 she moved to Oxford, where she worked in the peripheral nerve injury unit, and under Sir Hugh Cairns as a consultant neurologist.
- Smith was a pioneer in the use of intrathecal penicillin in the care of pneumococcal meningitis. Her management techniques gave her unrivalled success rate in treating patients, and she gained international renown, establishing a world-leading tuberculosis-meningitis unit at the Churchill Hospital.
- In 1959 Smith travelled to Morocco on behalf of the World Health Organisation to investigate an epidemic of paralysis, which was traced to contaminated cooking oil.
- She was appointed Honorary Consultant Neurologist to the Army's specialist neurology unit at Wheatley Military Hospital.
- Smith was appointed an OBE in 1962.
Further resources
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