Margaret Angus Patterson

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

(9 November 1922 – 25 July 2002) was a Scottish surgeon and medical missionary in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. She claimed to be able to treat

drug addiction Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use oft ...

using electric shocks, something she called "neuro-electric therapy" (NET). The reputation gained by NET was based on celebrity endorsements, but there is no evidence that it is an effective treatment. – ''excerpted at'
Health Libraries in Lincolnshire Online
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Early life and education

Margaret Angus Ingram was born in

Aberdeen Aberdeen (; sco, Aiberdeen ; gd, Obar Dheathain ; la, Aberdonia) is a city in North East Scotland, and is the third most populous city in the country. Aberdeen is one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas (as Aberdeen City), and ...

, Scotland, in 1922. The daughter of Alexander Ingram, she was the youngest of five children. Patterson started medical school at 21 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, and qualified as a member

Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons Fellowship of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons (FRCS) is a professional qualification to practise as a senior surgeon in Ireland or the United Kingdom. It is bestowed on an intercollegiate basis by the four Royal Colleges of Surgeons (the Royal ...

when she was 25, the only woman in the group.

Career

Patterson went to India as a

medical missionary Medical missions is the term used for Christian missionary endeavors that involve the administration of medical treatment. As has been common among missionary efforts from the 18th to 20th centuries, medical missions often involves residents of th ...

. While in India she met George Patterson in Kalimpong and they married in 1953; the couple were committed Christians. George Patterson had become famous through his involvement with the

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current D ...

, and his reporting on the

1959 Tibetan uprising The 1959 Tibetan uprising (also known by other names) began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the People's Republic of China since the Seventeen Point Agreem ...

and the subsequent events in China's annexation of Tibet. For her work establishing and expanding clinics in India she was awarded the

in 1961. In 1964, she moved to

with her husband, where she was appointed surgeon-in-charge at

Tung Wah Hospital Tung Wah Hospital is a Charitable hospital in Hong Kong under the Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. Located above Possession Point, at 12 Po Yan Street in Sheung Wan, it is the first hospital established in Colonial Hong Kong for the general publi ...

. They remained in Hong Kong until 1973. In 1972, other doctors in Hong Kong, H.L. Wen and S.Y.C. Cheung, published their work on

electroacupuncture Electroacupuncture is a form of acupuncture where a small electric current is passed between pairs of acupuncture needles. According to some acupuncturists, this practice augments the use of regular acupuncture, can restore health and well-bei ...

for treatment of

addiction Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to engage in certain behaviors, one of which is the usage of a drug, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences. Repetitive drug use o ...

. Patterson adopted their method, developing a technique called "neuro-electric therapy" (NET), replacing the acupuncture needles with

electrode An electrode is an electrical conductor used to make contact with a nonmetallic part of a circuit (e.g. a semiconductor, an electrolyte, a vacuum or air). Electrodes are essential parts of batteries that can consist of a variety of materials d ...

s, making this a form of

cranial electrotherapy stimulation Cranial electrotherapy stimulation (CES) is a form of neurostimulation that delivers a small, pulsed, alternating current via electrodes on the head. CES is used with the intention of treating a variety of conditions such as anxiety, depression a ...

. On returning to the UK she and her husband collaborated to popularise the technique, which became popular with rock and pop stars. The medical and scientific community was skeptical about the technique. Patterson found herself building clinics with minimal funding, much as she had in India. In 1974, Patterson treated Eric Clapton for heroin addiction. In 1976, Patterson set up a clinic in Broadhurst Manor, East Sussex, funded by the

Robert Stigwood Organisation RSO Records was a record label formed by rock and roll and musical theatre impresario Robert Stigwood and record executive Al Coury in 1973. The letters "RSO" stood for the Robert Stigwood Organisation. RSO managed the careers of several ma ...

. Donors misleadingly marketed the clinic as "a cure for heroin addiction", which it was not. In 1981, funding ran out and she moved the clinic to California. A 1986 article in ''

New Scientist ''New Scientist'' is a magazine covering all aspects of science and technology. Based in London, it publishes weekly English-language editions in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. An editorially separate organisation publish ...

'' said that the medical establishment viewed Patterson as a

quack Quack, The Quack or Quacks may refer to: People * Quack Davis, American baseball player * Hendrick Peter Godfried Quack (1834–1917), Dutch economist and historian * Joachim Friedrich Quack (born 1966), German Egyptologist * Johannes Quack (b ...

for trying to remove addiction with tiny electrical currents, and that one

clinical trial Clinical trials are prospective biomedical or behavioral research studies on human participants designed to answer specific questions about biomedical or behavioral interventions, including new treatments (such as novel vaccines, drugs, diet ...

found it to be ineffective.

People A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

magazine said there was "disbelief and even hostility from Britain's medical establishment and from the US medical world".

Death and legacy

In 1999, Patterson had a major stroke a week after opening a clinic in

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. In 2001, she and her husband returned to Scotland, where she died on 25 July 2002. She was survived by her husband, a daughter, two sons, and five grandchildren. Her husband and one of her sons, Lorne, continued marketing the NET technique. As of 2012, evidence reviewed within

NHS Scotland NHS Scotland, sometimes styled NHSScotland, is the publicly funded healthcare system in Scotland and one of the four systems that make up the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. It operates 14 territorial NHS boards across Scotland, ...

found no substantial evidence that neuro-electric therapy was helpful in treating

opiate addiction Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a substance use disorder characterized by cravings for opioids, continued use despite physical and/or psychological deterioration, increased tolerance with use, and withdrawal symptoms after discontinuing opioids. Op ...

Awards and honours

* MBE, 1961

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Patterson, Meg 1922 births 2002 deaths Scottish Christian missionaries 20th-century Scottish medical doctors 20th-century Scottish inventors Members of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh Scottish women medical doctors Women surgeons People from Aberdeen Alumni of the University of Aberdeen Scottish surgeons Christian medical missionaries Female Christian missionaries 20th-century women physicians Women inventors 20th-century surgeons 20th-century Scottish women

Early life and education

Career

Death and legacy

Awards and honours

See also

References