Janet Elizabeth Lane-Claypon, Lady Forber (3 February 1877 – 17 July 1967) was an English physician. She was one of the founders of the science of
epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in a defined population.
It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evi ...
, pioneering the use of
cohort studies
A cohort study is a particular form of longitudinal study that samples a cohort (a group of people who share a defining characteristic, typically those who experienced a common event in a selected period, such as birth or graduation), performing ...
and
case-control studies.
Early life and education
Lane-Claypon was born Janet Elizabeth Claypon in 1877 into an affluent family, in
Boston, Lincolnshire
Boston is a market town and inland port in the borough of the same name in the county of Lincolnshire, England. Boston is north of London, north-east of Peterborough, east of Nottingham, south-east of Lincoln, south-southeast of ...
, the daughter of
William Ward Lane-Claypon, a banker and former first-class cricketer, and Edith (''née'' Stow). Her uncle
C. G. Lane was also a first-class cricketer.
A few weeks after her birth, her father changed the family name to Lane-Claypon by royal license.
She was privately educated and entered the
London School of Medicine for Women
The London School of Medicine for Women (LSMW) established in 1874 was the first medical school in Britain to train women as doctors. The patrons, vice-presidents, and members of the committee that supported and helped found the London School of Me ...
in 1898, winning numerous honors and fellowships. During her training, the British Medical Society awarded Lane-Claypon a research scholarship—the first time it had ever bestowed the honor on a woman.
She earned both an
MD and
DSc (making her an early example of the
"Doctor-doctor" phenomenon).
Career
Immediately after her education, Lane-Claypon began research at University College, London. During the first phase of her career, Dr. Lane-Claypon's research focused on female reproductive physiology—specifically the structure and function of the ovary.
In 1912, Lane-Claypon published a ground-breaking study of two
cohort
Cohort or cohortes may refer to:
* Cohort (educational group), a group of students working together through the same academic curriculum
* Cohort (floating point), a set of different encodings of the same numerical value
* Cohort (military unit) ...
s (groups) of babies, fed cow's milk and breast milk respectively. Lane-Claypon found that those babies fed breast milk gained more weight, and she used statistical methods to show that the difference was unlikely to occur by fluke alone. She also investigated whether something other than the type of milk could account for the difference, an effect known as
confounding
In statistics, a confounder (also confounding variable, confounding factor, extraneous determinant or lurking variable) is a variable that influences both the dependent variable and independent variable, causing a spurious association. Con ...
.
Having demonstrated the power of cohort studies, Lane-Claypon went on to develop another key type of epidemiological investigation, the
case-control study.
Lane-Claypon tracked down 500 women with a history of
breast cancer
Breast cancer is cancer that develops from breast tissue. Signs of breast cancer may include a lump in the breast, a change in breast shape, dimpling of the skin, milk rejection, fluid coming from the nipple, a newly inverted nipple, or ...
the "cases"and compared them with 500 women who were free of the disease but otherwise broadly similar, known as "controls".
She showed that breast cancer risk increased for childless women, women who married later than average, and women who did not breast feed. The overall breast cancer risk decreased according to the number of children. For all cases, rapid treatment held the key to survival among women with breast cancer. This study eventually led to the incorporation of risk tables and life expectancy in cancer treatment.
In 1916, Dr. Lane-Claypon was named the dean of King's College for Women. However, departmental politics and pressures led her to resign her post and return to research, where she remained until the end of her career.
In total, Lane-Claypon published three books and 30 scientific papers.
Personal life
In 1929, Lane-Claypon married civil servant Sir
Edward Rodolph Forber (1878–1960), as his second wife.
Sir Edward held several prominent positions, including Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Health.
Lane-Claypon's final paper was published under her married name, and she essentially retired following her marriage, not uncommon for a woman of her class in this era.
Lady Forber died in 1967, aged 90.
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lane-Claypon, Janet
1877 births
1967 deaths
English women medical doctors
British public health doctors
People from Boston, Lincolnshire
Alumni of the London School of Medicine for Women
20th-century English medical doctors
Alumni of University College London
20th-century women physicians
Women epidemiologists
20th-century English women
20th-century English people
Women public health doctors