This volume is from the collection of Sir Michael Woodruff, most famous for having been the first surgeon to perform a kidney transplant operation in the United Kingdom.
He trained as a doctor in Australia and, during the Second World War, he volunteered for service and was sent to an Australian medical unit in Malaya. When the Japanese invaded, Woodruff was interned in Changi jail where he and his medical colleagues attempted to take care of the men who were becoming increasingly malnourished.
Watercolour sketches made by Dr Grove-Wright in a World War Two prisoner of war camp in Singapore
There are four volumes of medical records in the collection and they demonstrate the careful notes that Woodruff took. On this page the kind of information he collected included the date of the onset of the illness, previous hospital treatment and the weight on admission , the lowest recorded on this page being just 110lbs. He also recorded the patient’s past history of deficiency and non-deficiency diseases, which often included dystentry and malaria.
Woodruff later published an account of his methods through the Medical Research Council titled "Deficiency Diseases in Japanese Prison Camps". There is a typed copy of that report with the collection.
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