Gerald Russell

Gerald Francis Morris Russell (12 January 1928 – 26 July 2018)[1][2] was a British psychiatrist.[3] In 1979 he published the first description of bulimia nervosa,[4][5] and Russell's sign has been named after him.

For the U.S. Marine Corps officer, see Gerald F. Russell.

Gerald Russell
Born(1928-01-12)12 January 1928
Died26 July 2018(2018-07-26) (aged 90)[1]
London, UK
Alma materUniversity of Edinburgh
OccupationPsychiatrist
Known fordescribing bulimia, an eating disorder
TitleProf
Children3 sons

Early life and education

Gerald Francis Morris Russell's father was a diplomate who worked at the British Embassy in Belgium. Russell went to school in Brussels. At the onset of World War 2 the family moved to the UK.[1] He then attended George Watson's College, Edinburgh, and qualified as a medical doctor with MBChB from the University of Edinburgh in 1950.[3][6] In 1957 Russell gained a PhD in Neurology from the University of Edinburgh.[7] Russell was advised to complete training by temporarily working in psychiatry. While at London's Maudsley Hospital he met the psychiatrist Aubrey Lewis and "was completely won over by the way that Lewis thought about and practised psychiatry" and became a psychiatrist too.[1]

Career

From 1971 to 1979 Russell was a professor and consultant psychiatrist at the Royal Free Hospital, London. During this time he noticed patients who were overeating followed by self-induced vomiting or using purgatives or both and a morbid fear of becoming fat which not to fit the classic description of anorexia nervosa. He called it bulimia nervosa.[1]

From 1979 to 1993 he was a professor at the Institute of Psychiatry at the Maudsley Hospital, London,[3] where he set up an eating disorder unit,[8] which has been named after him.[3]

He used family therapy as a treatment for eating disorders and -in one of the earliest and most influential critical assessments of its efficacy- evaluated it in a controlled trial.[1] From 1993 onward he worked at Priory Hosp Hayes Grove, Bromley, Kent.[3]

Personal life

Russell married Margaret née Taylor on 8 September 1950, and they had three sons, born 1951, 1956 and 1957. His hobbies included art galleries, photography, and music.[3] He died of cancer in London, on 26 July 2018, aged 90 years.[1]

gollark: Milgram obedience experiments?
gollark: So just use 6 important people.
gollark: If you have differences you're testing two things at once, people's importance rankings *and* general deontological/utilitarianism leaning.
gollark: The 5 people and 1 person are the same apart from position generally.
gollark: Pick random wikipedia pages of people?

References
  1. Geoff Watts Gerald Francis Morris Russell. The Lancet, Vol.392, Number 10158, 3 November 2018
  2. Professor Gerald Russell obituary, Iron-willed psychiatrist who was the leading authority on eating disorders and will be remembered for his fascination with Rubens’nudes The Times. 22 August 2018.(subscription required)
  3. Debrett's People of Today 2005 (18th ed.). Debrett's. p. 1433. ISBN 1-870520-10-6.
  4. Russell, Gerald (August 1979). "Bulimia nervosa: an ominous variant of anorexia nervosa". Psychological Medicine. 9 (3): 429–48. doi:10.1017/S0033291700031974. PMID 482466.
  5. Palmer, Robert (2004). "Bulimia nervosa: 25 years on". The British Journal of Psychiatry. British Journal of Psychiatry. 185 (6): 447–448. doi:10.1192/bjp.185.6.447. PMID 15572732.
  6. "List of Registered Medical Practitioners (The online Register)". General Medical Council. Retrieved 18 July 2011.
  7. Russell, G. F. M. (1957). "Pupil and accommodation: observations on their nervous control in health and disease". Edinburgh Medical School thesis and dissertation collection. hdl:1842/22612. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  8. "The Eating Disorder Unit" (PDF). Comment: The College Newsletter. King's College London. July 2007. p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 19 March 2009.


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