Parry, Eldryd Hugh Owen (b.1930), Director, Wellcome Tropical Institute

Section 1: case notes re endomyocardial fibrosis, University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria, 1960s.

Section 2: questionnaires for his book Principles of medicine in Africa (1976), written by practitioners in the continent. Questions cover not only main reasons for hospital admissions and any foci of communicable disease, but also such topics as local attitudes towards ill health, traditional medicine practices causing disease, population movements and the influence of the seasons.

Eldryd Hugh Owen Parry was born in 1930.

Before his appointment to the Wellcome Tropical Institute, Parry spent all his working life in Africa:

1960-1966 University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria

1966-1969 Wellcome Fellow, then Associate Professor of Medicine, Haile Selassie I University, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

1969-1977 Professor of Medicine, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Nigeria

1977-1980 Foundation Dean and Professor of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Ilorin, Nigeria

1980-1985 Dean and Professor of Medicine, School of Medical Science, University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana

At the University College Hospital, Ibadan, under the leadership of DG Abrahams and with colleagues including Ian Brockington and Alfred Ikeme, Parry undertook the research of which the laboratory book (1) is a record, the first time such studies had been made of patients with endomyocardial fibrosis. While at Ahmadu Bello University, he commissioned and edited Principles of medicine in Africa (1976), written by practitioners in the continent. To get a general picture of the pattern of disease and to confirm priorities for treatment in the book, he sent questionnaires to colleagues throughout Africa, some of which are preserved here (Section 2).