Dr William Aldis

With many other health care workers around the world, I was dismayed to learn of closure of the Welcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine. The Centre is unique for the originality, independence, and wide range of its investigations into historical topics in medicine and public health. Their findings have immediate relevance, sometimes in unexpected ways, for problems we are facing today. An example is the Centre's work on the history of smallpox eradication and its application to today's polio eradication effort. The Centre's detailed and rigorous historical study of smallpox eradication is immediately applicable for polio eradication, and may save polio eradication from the failure which some critics are predicting.

As an admitted Anglophile, I am also sad to see the UK walk away from a field in which they had obvious and universally accepted global leadership. Surely a wide, inclusive and thoughtful public enquiry is needed before irreversible steps are taken.

W. Aldis MD FACP
Asst. Prof. (Global Health) Faculty of Public Health
Thammasat University Pathumthani, 12121 Thailand