M R James’s involvement in the search for a cure for Tuberculosis

M R James had been friends with Walter Fletcher, as he detailed in his forward to Maisie Fletchers 1957 memoir of her husband, The Bright Countenance, since “ He crossed my path in the May term (at King’s) of 1893...Walter was then an undergraduate, I was Dean of Kings.[1]What neither was then to realise was Walters eventual role in the race to find a cure or vaccination for that most pernicious of diseases Tuberculosis.

Walter had been active in medical research since his Cambridge days, and had been an active member of the British Medical research council since its inception in 1913, and undertook the promotion of research into Tuberculosis in 1919. It was often gruelling work and James often managed to relieve the workload of both of them with regular bicycling trips to France to view cathedrals, and days spent out playing lawn tennis and golf. It was also when Walter later met Maisie Cropper that James was introduced into a circle of friendship that was to last the rest of his life.

In this close friendship Walter was supported in this most vital of research, and under this energising encouragement the cross pollination of discussion found a firm footing when it came to the vexed method of gaining access to the central bacillus of the Tuberculosis virus which was hitherto very hard to target due to a fatty layer that surrounded it.

As Sir Arthur MacNalty in the supplement to Walter’s memoir explained, (detailing another member of the research team Professor George Dreyer’s laboratory experiments)

“His first experiments...with the vaccine, to which the name Diaplyte was given at the suggestion of Dr M R James, appeared to support the belief” (of the access to the bacillus)...

Although this later work was not as promising as had first been hoped, there was still no doubt that James’s support and friendship to Walter and his help in as above, the Greek translations of the name given to the early vaccine was of great help.

His involvement in what was to become one of the great medical discoveries of that century, the search to find the Tuberculosis vaccine is not perhaps so surprising when an appraisal is taken of the spider web of friendships he formed whilst at Eton and later Cambridge, one of which was the then Albert Prince of Wales.[2]

One thing was sure, when James was around, the friendship he extended which included regular readings of his ghost stories at the Cropper house Ellergreen, enriched and cheered many of the scholarly lives of his circle.


[1] Maisie Fletcher, The Bright Countenance, London, Hodder and Stoughton ltd, 1957. P.9

[2] Richard William Pfaff, Montague Rhodes James, London, Scolar Press, 1980. P.53