William Alexander Young
William Alexander Young MB, CHB, DPH, DTM (5 November 1889 – 28 May 1928) was a Scottish doctor and surgeon who specialised in tropical medicine.
He gained experience as a surgeon at the Halifax Royal Infirmary, and then took a course of instruction at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, prior to joining the West African Medical Staff in 1913.
During the First World War he held a commission as lieutenant in the Royal Army Medical Corps,[2] serving with the Expeditionary Force in the Cameroons campaign in 1915–1916.
[3] According to his obituary in the British Medical Journal, "Young's bent was towards investigation, and early in his career in West Africa he undertook studies in the fascinating problems of diseases endemic in that region … each in turn engaged his attention and by careful and painstaking work in the laboratory and in the field he added something to our knowledge of each of them.
Incidentally he found time for the study of interesting pathological conditions encountered in the course of routine work, and from 1923 to 1926 he contributed a number of short papers on these subjects to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene…in annual and special reports he recorded the results of his studies in the epidemiology and pathology of yellow fever, and many of his observations are of first-class importance.
"[4] As Director of the Medical Institute, Accra, Young was responsible for overseeing field work investigating local sporadic outbreaks of yellow fever and Professor WH Hoffmann of the Laboratorio Finlay, Havana, Cuba credits him with having found the first endemic focus in Africa: "In the Tropical Congress in Cairo I read a paper on yellow fever in Africa, which I dedicated to the memory of Dr WA Young, who in my opinion has the merit to have found the first endemic focus there.
[7] This was contrary to the theories of Dr Hideyo Noguchi, a leading scientist with the Rockefeller Foundation, who believed the bacillus Leptospira icteroides was responsible.
Although Young differed profoundly from Noguchi in his opinion about the nature of yellow fever, he made both facilities and staff available to him and afforded him every possible assistance, and considerable autonomy, turning over to him about half of the floor space of his department, together with the animal houses.
According to the diaries of Oskar Klotz,[8] another researcher with the Rockefeller Foundation, Noguchi inoculated increasing numbers of monkeys and apes with material from suspected yellow fever cases, or other infective tissue, causing such overcrowding in the animal houses that tags were pulled off and proper records could not be kept.
Klotz relates: "He commanded the boys to do this or to do that, and when they appeared slow in carrying out instructions he yelled at them, chased them, and threw what was handy at them until all was in an uproar.
"[10] In May 1928 Noguchi, having failed to find evidence to support his theories, was set to return to New York and Young heaved a sigh of relief.
[9] Young's letters go on to state that he had performed a post mortem one hour after death and had concluded that Noguchi had contracted the disease from handling infected tissue without gloves.
According to his last letters, Young spent the next days cleaning Noguchi's laboratory and ensuring all infective material was contained or destroyed and escaped mosquitoes exterminated.
Knowing that news of Noguchi's death would already have been published to the world and that his letters would take some time to arrive, he took the precaution of preceding them with a telegram, also dated 25 May, stating "Absolutely fit".
[3][13] This belief may have circulated largely because of the release of a photograph showing Young and Dr Helen Russell, another colonial researcher at Accra, standing next to Noguchi at a dissection bench and not wearing gloves.
An obituary in the British Medical Journal states:[4] "In a letter received in London only a few weeks ago Young discussed his own recent observations on the infectivity of post-mortem material in experimental work on yellow fever.
He was therefore well aware of the grave risk he ran in performing a necropsy upon his colleague, and it is not to be doubted that so careful a man took every precaution to avoid infection."
"[17] In recognition of Young's work and extraordinary courage the French awarded him posthumously the Médaille des Epidémies du Ministère de la France d'Outre-Mer,[18] which subsequently became the Gold Military Health Service Medal.
Although based in Scotland, she divided her time between their home in Letham, Angus, and with her husband in West Africa, and accompanied him during his secondment to the tsetse research station in Sherifuri, Nigeria.
Young's grave at Osu Cemetery, Accra, bears the inscription "To tread the walks of death he stood prepared, and what he greatly thought he nobly dared".
