Lucy Wills
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Lucy Wills, LRCP (10 May 1888 – 26 April 1964) was an English
haematologist Hematology ( always spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the produc ...
and physician researcher. She conducted research in India in the late 1920s and early 1930s on macrocytic anaemia of pregnancy, a disease which is characterized by enlarged red blood cells and is life-threatening. Pregnant women in the tropics with inadequate diets are particularly susceptible. Wills discovered a nutritional factor in yeast that both prevents and cures this disorder. This component, the so-called 'Wills Factor', was subsequently shown to be
folate Folate, also known as vitamin B9 and folacin, is one of the B vitamins. Manufactured folic acid, which is converted into folate by the body, is used as a dietary supplement and in food fortification as it is more stable during processing and ...
, the naturally occurring form of folic acid.


Early life

Generations of the Wills family had been living in or near
Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...
, a city known as "the workshop of the world" for its many factories and industry. Lucy Wills was born on 10 May 1888 in nearby
Sutton Coldfield Sutton Coldfield or the Royal Town of Sutton Coldfield, known locally as Sutton ( ), is a town and civil parish in the City of Birmingham, West Midlands, England. The town lies around 8 miles northeast of Birmingham city centre, 9 miles south ...
. Her paternal great-grandfather, William Wills, had been a prosperous attorney from a
Nonconformist Nonconformity or nonconformism may refer to: Culture and society * Insubordination, the act of willfully disobeying an order of one's superior *Dissent, a sentiment or philosophy of non-agreement or opposition to a prevailing idea or entity ** ...
Unitarian family (see
Church of the Messiah, Birmingham The Church of the Messiah, Birmingham was a Unitarian place of worship on Broad Street. The impressive Victorian Gothic church was constructed between 1860-1862 and straddled the Birmingham Canal. The congregation pre-dates the building, and h ...
). One of his sons,
Alfred Wills Sir Alfred Wills (11 December 1828 – 9 August 1912) was a judge of the High Court of England and Wales and a well-known mountaineer. He was the third President of the Alpine Club, from 1863 to 1865. Early life Wills was the second son of Wi ...
, followed him into the law and became notable both as a judge and a mountaineer. Another son, Lucy's grandfather, bought an edge-tool business in
Nechells Nechells is a district ward in central Birmingham, England, whose population in 2011 was 33,957. It is also a ward within the formal district of Ladywood. Nechells local government ward includes areas, for example parts of Birmingham city centr ...
, AW Wills & Son, which manufactured such implements as scythes and sickles. Lucy's father continued to manage the business and the family was comfortably well off. Lucy Wills's father, William Leonard Wills (1858–1911), was a science graduate of Owens College (later part of the
Victoria University of Manchester The Victoria University of Manchester, usually referred to as simply the University of Manchester, was a university in Manchester, England. It was founded in 1851 as Owens College. In 1880, the college joined the federal Victoria University. Afte ...
, now part of the
University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...
). Her mother, Gertrude Annie Wills née Johnston (1855–1939), was the only daughter (with six brothers) of a well-known Birmingham doctor, James Johnston. The family had a strong interest in scientific matters. William Wills, the lawyer mentioned above, had been involved with the
British Association for the Advancement of Science The British Science Association (BSA) is a charity and learned society founded in 1831 to aid in the promotion and development of science. Until 2009 it was known as the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA). The current Chie ...
and wrote papers on meteorology and other scientific observations. Her father was particularly interested in botany, zoology, geology, and natural sciences generally, as well as in the developing science of photography. Her brother,
Leonard Johnston Wills Professor Leonard Johnston Wills (1884–1979) – known as 'Jack' to friends and family – was one of the leading British geologists of his generation. He held the Chair of Geology at the University of Birmingham from 1932 to 1949, and received m ...
, carried this interest in geology and natural sciences into his own career with great success. Lucy Wills was brought up in the country near Birmingham, initially in Sutton Coldfield, and then from 1892 in
Barnt Green Barnt Green is a village and civil parish in the Bromsgrove District of Worcestershire, England, situated south of Birmingham city centre, with a population at the 2011 census of 1,794. History Originating from the development of the railway ...
to the south of the city. She went at first to a local school called Tanglewood, kept by a Miss Ashe, formerly a governess to the Chamberlain family of Birmingham.


Education

English girls had few opportunities for education and entry into the professions until towards the end of the nineteenth century. Wills was able to attend
Cheltenham Ladies' College Cheltenham Ladies' College is an independent boarding and day school for girls aged 11 to 18 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England. Consistently ranked as one of the top all-girls' schools nationally, the school was established in 1853 to pr ...
,
Newnham College Newnham College is a women's constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1871 by a group organising Lectures for Ladies, members of which included philosopher Henry Sidgwick and suffragist campaigner Millicent ...
Cambridge, and 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 September 1903 Wills went to Cheltenham, one of the first British
boarding school A boarding school is a school where pupils live within premises while being given formal instruction. The word "boarding" is used in the sense of "room and board", i.e. lodging and meals. As they have existed for many centuries, and now exten ...
s to train female students in science and mathematics. Wills's elder sister Edith was in the same house, Glenlee, two years ahead of her. Wills's examination record was good. She passed the 'Oxford Local Senior, Division I' in 1905; the 'University of London, Matriculation, Division II' in 1906; and 'Part I, Class III and Paley, exempt from Part II and additional subjects by matriculation (London). In September 1907, Wills began her studies at Newnham, a women's college.Newnham College Register 1871–1971 Vol 1 p. 203 Wills was strongly influenced by the botanist
Albert Seward Sir Albert Charles Seward FRS (9 October 1863 – 11 April 1941) was a British botanist and geologist. Life Seward was born in Lancaster. His first education was at Lancaster Grammar School and he then went on to St John's College, Cambrid ...
and by the geologist Herbert Henry Thomas, who worked on carboniferous palaeobotany. Wills finished her course in 1911 and obtained a Class 2 in Part 1 of the Natural Sciences
Tripos At the University of Cambridge, a Tripos (, plural 'Triposes') is any of the examinations that qualify an undergraduate for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. For example, an undergraduate studying mathe ...
in 1910 and Class 2 in Part 2 (Botany) in 1911. While she was allowed to sit the University examinations, she was ineligible as a woman to receive a Cambridge degree.


1911 to 1914

In February 1911, Wills's father died at the age of 53. She had been very close to him, and it is likely that his unexpected death affected her final exam results that summer. In 1913, her elder sister Edith died at the age of 26. Later that year, Wills and her mother travelled to Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, where they visited relatives and friends. In 1914, she and her younger brother Gordon travelled to South Africa. A friend from Newnham, Margaret (Margot) Hume, was lecturing in botany at the
South African College The South African College was an educational institution in Cape Town, South Africa, which developed into the University of Cape Town (UCT) and the South African College Schools (SACS). History The process that would lead to the formation of t ...
, then part of the
University of the Cape of Good Hope The University of the Cape of Good Hope, renamed the University of South Africa in 1916, was created when the Molteno government passed Act 16 of 1873 in the Cape of Good Hope Parliament. Modelled on the University of London, it offered examinati ...
. She and Wills were both interested in
Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating psychopathology, pathologies explained as originatin ...
's theories. At the outbreak of war in August 1914, Gordon enlisted in the
Transvaal Scottish Regiment Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name Transvaal. * South African Republic (1856–1902; af, ...
. Wills spent some weeks doing voluntary nursing in a hospital in Cape Town, before she and Margot Hume returned to England, arriving in Plymouth in December.


Medical training

In January 1915, Wills enrolled at the London (Royal Free Hospital) School of Medicine for Women, the first school in Britain to train female doctors. The school had strong links with India, and had a number of students from there, including
Jerusha Jhirad Jerusha Jacob Jhirad FRCOG, MBE (21 March 1891 – 2 June 1984) was an Indian physician.Sharon Kirsh, Florence Kirsh (2002). ''Fabulous Female Physicians''. Second Story Press. . pp. 40-48 Early life and education Jhirad born in Shivamogga, ...
, who became the first Indian woman to qualify with a degree in obstetrics and gynecology in 1919. Wills became a legally qualified medical practitioner with the qualification of Licentiate of the
Royal College of Physicians The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is a British professional membership body dedicated to improving the practice of medicine, chiefly through the accreditation of physicians by examination. Founded by royal charter from King Henry VIII in 1 ...
London awarded in May 1920 (LRCP Lond 1920), and the University of London degrees of Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery awarded in December 1920 (MB BS Lond), at age 32.


Professional career


1920 to 1928

On qualifying, Wills decided to research and teach in the department of Pregnant Pathology at the Royal Free. There she worked with Christine Pillman (who later married Ernest Ulysses Williams OBE, a doctor on its teaching staff) who had been at Girton at the same time Wills was at Newnham, on metabolic studies of pregnancy.


To India

In 1928 Wills began her seminal research work in India on macrocytic anaemia in
pregnancy Pregnancy is the time during which one or more offspring develops ( gestates) inside a woman's uterus (womb). A multiple pregnancy involves more than one offspring, such as with twins. Pregnancy usually occurs by sexual intercourse, but ca ...
, a condition where the red blood cells are larger than normal. This was prevalent in a severe form among poorer women with dietary deficiencies, particularly those in the textile industry. Dr Margaret Balfour of the
Indian Medical Service The Indian Medical Service (IMS) was a military medical service in British India, which also had some civilian functions. It served during the two World Wars, and remained in existence until the independence of India in 1947. Many of its officer ...
had asked her to join the Maternal Mortality Inquiry by the Indian Research Fund Association at the
Haffkine Institute The Haffkine Institute for Training, Research and Testing is located in Parel in Mumbai (Bombay), India. It was established on 10 August 1899 by Dr. Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine, as a bacteriology research centre called the "Plague Research Labora ...
in Bombay, now
Mumbai Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...
. Wills was in India between 1928 and 1933, mostly based at the Haffkine. From April to October 1929, she moved her work to the
Pasteur Institute of India Pasteur Institute of India, Coonoor is one of the pioneer Institute in India in the production of Anti Rabies Vaccine (dog bite vaccine) and DPT vaccine (triple antigen) for the Expanded Programme of Immunization of Government of India. This ...
in
Coonoor Coonoor, natively spelt as Kunnur (), is a Taluk and a municipality of the Nilgiris district in the Indian State of Tamil Nadu. As of 2011, the town had a population of 45,494. Demographics According to 2011 census, Coonoor had a population ...
(where Sir Robert McCarrison was Director of Nutrition Research). In early 1931 she was working at the Caste and Gosha Hospital in Madras, now the Government Kasturba Gandhi Hospital for Women and Children of
Chennai Chennai (, ), formerly known as Madras ( the official name until 1996), is the capital city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost Indian state. The largest city of the state in area and population, Chennai is located on the Coromandel Coast of th ...
(see Gosha woman). In each of the summers of 1930–32 she returned to England for a few months and continued her work in the pathology laboratories at the Royal Free. She was back at the Royal Free full-time in 1933, but there was another 10-week working visit to the Haffkine Institute from November 1937 to early January 1938. On this occasion, and for the first time, Wills travelled by air to
Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...
and onward by sea. She travelled to India in October 1937 by air, a five-day journey on
Imperial Airways Imperial Airways was the early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and principally serving the British Empire routes to South Africa, India, Australia and the Far East, including Malaya and Hong Kong. Passenger ...
's recently inaugurated route carrying mail and some passengers. The aircraft was a Short 'C' Class
Empire flying boat The Short Empire was a medium-range four-engined monoplane flying boat, designed and developed by Short Brothers during the 1930s to meet the requirements of the growing commercial airline sector, with a particular emphasis upon its usefulness ...
, the Calypso, G AEUA. The route started at Southampton and involved landings on water for refuelling at Marseilles, Bracciano near Rome, Brindisi, Athens, Alexandria, Tiberias, Habbaniyah to the west of Baghdad, Basra, Bahrain, Dubai, Gwadar and Karachi, with overnight stops at Rome, Alexandria, Basra and Sharjah (just outside Dubai). This was the first IA flight to go beyond Alexandria. In Bombay Wills was on dining terms with the governors and their wives at
Government House Government House is the name of many of the official residences of governors-general, governors and lieutenant-governors in the Commonwealth and the remaining colonies of the British Empire. The name is also used in some other countries. Gover ...
Sir Leslie Wilson ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English language, English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist i ...
in 1928 and Sir Frederick Sykes in 1929. In 1929 she visited
Mysuru Mysore (), officially Mysuru (), is a city in the southern part of the state of Karnataka, India. Mysore city is geographically located between 12° 18′ 26″ north latitude and 76° 38′ 59″ east longitude. It is located at an altitude of ...
and wrote to her brother that "I was most fortunate to be under the wing of Sir Charles Todhunter, who is a very important person there." Todhunter had been Governor of Madras and in 1929 was the secretary to the Maharaja of Mysuru.


Anaemia of pregnancy

Wills observed a correlation between the dietary habits of different classes of Bombay women and the likelihood of their becoming anaemic during pregnancy. Poor Muslim women were the ones with both the most deficient diets and the greatest susceptibility to anaemia. This anaemia was then known as '
pernicious anaemia Pernicious anemia is a type of Vitamin B12 deficiency, vitamin B12 deficiency anemia, a disease in which not enough red blood cells are produced due to the malabsorption of Vitamin B12, vitamin B12. Malabsorption in pernicious anemia results fr ...
of pregnancy'. However, Wills was able to demonstrate that the anaemia she observed differed from true pernicious anaemia, as the patients did not have achlorhydria, an inability to produce gastric acid. Furthermore, while patients responded to crude liver extracts, they did not respond to the 'pure' liver extracts (vitamin B12) which had been shown to treat true pernicious anaemia. She postulated that there must have been another nutritional factor responsible for this macrocytic anaemia other than vitamin B12 deficiency. For some years this nutritional factor was known as the 'Wills Factor', and it was later shown, in the 1940s, to be folate, of which the synthetic form is
folic acid Folate, also known as vitamin B9 and folacin, is one of the B vitamins. Manufactured folic acid, which is converted into folate by the body, is used as a dietary supplement and in food fortification as it is more stable during processing and ...
. Wills decided to investigate possible nutritional treatments by first studying the effects of dietary manipulation on a macrocytic anaemia in albino rats. This work was done at the Nutritional Research Laboratories at the Pasteur Institute of India in Coonoor. Rats fed on the same diet as Bombay Muslim women became anaemic, pregnant ones dying before giving birth. The rat anaemia was prevented by the addition of yeast to synthetic diets which had no vitamin B. This work was later duplicated using rhesus monkeys as the rat results were tainted by a lice infection which may have skewed those results. Back in Bombay, Wills conducted clinical trials on patients with macrocytic anaemia and established experimentally that this type could be both prevented and cured by yeast extracts, of which the cheapest source was
Marmite Marmite ( ) is a British savoury food spread based on yeast extract, invented by the German scientist Justus von Liebig. It is made from by-products of beer brewing ( lees) and is produced by the British company Unilever. Marmite is a vegan ...
.


After India

Wills was back again at the Royal Free Hospital in London from 1938 until her retirement in 1947. During the Second World War she was a full-time pathologist in the Emergency Medical Service. Work in the pathology department was disrupted for a few days in July 1944 (and a number of people were killed) when the hospital suffered a direct hit from a V1 flying bomb. By the end of the war, she was in charge of pathology at the Royal Free Hospital and had established the first haematology department there. After her retirement, Wills travelled extensively, including to Jamaica, Fiji and South Africa, continuing her observations on nutrition and anaemia. In Fiji she, along with New Zealander Dr.
Muriel Bell Muriel Emma Bell (4 January 1898 – 2 May 1974) was a New Zealand nutritionist and medical researcher. Early life Bell was born in Murchison, New Zealand on 4 January 1898, the daughter of Thomas, a farmer, and Eliza (). Bell attended the lo ...
, was responsible for carrying out the first multi-ethnic nutritional survey of women and children in Fiji (1950). They studied the source of anaemias, protein and vitamin deficiencies there. Their work was based on some flawed assumptions about the causes of these issues, while at the same time their recommendations were responsible for the introduction of free iron tablets for anaemic pregnant women and attempts to provide infants and children with increased protein intake through feeding programmes at schools and health centers.


Personal life

Wills never married. She was close to her parents, her siblings, and their children. She enjoyed a number of close lifelong friendships, including with Christine and Ulysses Williams, with her Cambridge contemporary Margot Hume (with whom she jointly owned a cottage in Surrey whose botanical garden they cultivated), and with Kait Lucan (the Dowager Countess of Lucan, mother of
John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan Richard John Bingham, 7th Earl of Lucan (born 18 December 1934 – disappeared 8 November 1974, declared dead 3 February 2016), commonly known as Lord Lucan, was a British peer who disappeared after being suspected of murder. He was an Anglo- ...
, the disappearing earl), who was a fellow Labour Councillor in Chelsea. Obituaries and other publications describe her as independent, autocratic, not a sufferer of fools, a joyous and enthusiastic teacher, an indomitable walker and skier, an enthusiastic traveller, a lover of the beauty of nature, mirthful and entertaining. Wills died on 26 April 1964. Her obituary in the ''
British Medical Journal ''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...
'' the following month included the following comments:


Publications

Wills's first learned paper was in 1914, on
plant cuticle A plant cuticle is a protecting film covering the outermost skin layer (epidermis) of leaves, young shoots and other aerial plant organs (aerial here meaning all plant parts not embedded in soil or other substrate) that have no ''periderm''. The ...
s. There were a further two papers in the 1920s before she started her work in India. Four reports of her field and laboratory studies in India were published in the ''Indian Journal of Medical Research'' in 1930 and 1931. After her return to England, there were a number of further papers concerning her work on tropical macrocytic anaemia. A list of her main publications is set out below: * * * Pillman-Williams, EC & Wills, L (1929), Studies in blood and urinary chemistry during pregnancy: blood sugar curves. Quarterly Journal of Medicine 22 493–505 * Wills, L & Mechta, MM (1930), Studies in 'pernicious anaemia' of pregnancy. Part I Preliminary report. Indian Journal of Medical Research 17 777–792 * Wills, L & Talpade, SN (1930), Studies in 'pernicious anaemia' of pregnancy. Part II A survey of dietetic and hygienic conditions of women in Bombay. Indian Journal of Medical Research 18 283–306 * Wills, L & Mechta, MM (1930), Studies in 'pernicious anaemia' of pregnancy. Part III Determination of normal blood standards for the nutritional laboratory's stock albino rat. Indian Journal of Medical Research 18 307–317 * Wills, L & Mechta, MM (1930), Studies in 'pernicious anaemia' of pregnancy. Part IV The production of pernicious anaemia (Bartonella anaemia) in intact albino rats by deficient feeding. ''Indian Journal of Medical Research'' 18 663–683 * Wills, L (1931), Treatment of 'pernicious anaemia' of pregnancy and 'tropical anaemia,' with special reference to yeast extract as a curative agent. ''British Medical Journal'' 1 1059–1064 * Wills, L (1933), The nature of the haemopoietic factor in Marmite. ''Lancet'' 221 1283–1285 * Wills, L (1934), Studies in pernicious anaemia of pregnancy. Part VI. Tropical macrocytic anaemia as a deficiency disease, with special reference to the vitamin B complex. ''Indian Journal of Medical Research'' 21 669–681 * Wills, L & Stewart, A (1935), British Journal of Experimental Pathology 16 444 * Wills, L & Clutterbuck, PW & Evans, BDF (1937), A new factor in the production and cure of certain macrocytic anaemias. ''Lancet'' 229 311–314 * Wills, L & Evans, BDF (1938), Tropical macrocytic anaemia: its relation to pernicious anaemia. ''Lancet'' 232 416–421 * Wills, L (1945), Nutrition surveys. ''London School of Medicine Magazine'' 6–7 NS 2–5


Popular recognition

On 10 May 2019, the 131st anniversary of her birth, search engine
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commemorated Wills with a
Doodle A doodle is a drawing made while a person's attention is otherwise occupied. Doodles are simple drawings that can have concrete representational meaning or may just be composed of random and abstract lines or shapes, generally without ever lift ...
, shown in North America, parts of South America and Europe, Israel, India, and New Zealand. The accompanying text stated, "Today's Doodle celebrates English haematologist Lucy Wills, the pioneering medical researcher whose analysis of prenatal anemia changed the face of preventive prenatal care for women everywhere."


References


General references

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Wills, Lucy 1888 births 1964 deaths Alumni of Newnham College, Cambridge 20th-century English medical doctors British haematologists People from Sutton Coldfield English women medical doctors Alumni of the London School of Medicine for Women 20th-century women physicians 20th-century English women 20th-century English people