First ‘Geek-in-Chief’: shy Scot who paved way for Prof Chris Whitty
Dr James Niven in Manchester achieved UK-wide fame during Spanish flu pandemic in 1918
If the coronavirus outbreak has produced a star it is perhaps England's chief medical officer, Prof Chris Whitty, the cool-headed epidemiologist described by the Guardian sketch writer, John Crace, as "the Geek-in-Chief, whom everyone now regards as the country's de facto prime minister".
But Whitty is not the first medic to achieve celebrity status during a national health crisis. Over 100 years ago there was Dr James Niven, a straight-talking if shy Scot, who as medical officer for Manchester managed to cut the city's death rate from 24.2 per thousand in 1893 to 13.8 per thousand in 1921 - thanks to his pioneering insistence on improved sanitation, maternity services, health visiting, infant welfare, smoke abatement, and preventive measures against TB.
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