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On July 14th, Trevor Wainwright of MERSC organised a vigil outside the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead to mark 50 years of “chronic inaction” since the outbreak of ME at the hospital.

On July 13th, 1955, a doctor and a ward sister at the Royal Free were admitted with an obscure illness. July 25th saw 70 plus staff affected. The hospital had an epidemic of what appeared to be a virulent virus. The hospital closed until October 5th, although sporadic cases appeared up to the end of November. 292 members of staff were affected. Many were admitted to other hospitals. Only 12 patients developed the disease. It didn’t affect those resting in their beds. It hit the workers.

Dr Melvin Ramsay (pictured below) who was the consultant in infectious diseases at the hospital at the time gave it the name Benign Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. The work “benign” was later dropped. He carried out years of careful, painstaking medical research into the chronic cases who remained ill. 14 years later, two psychiatrists McEvedy and Beard, without talking to a single patient and without considering Ramsay’s work or talking to him, concluded that the cause was mass hysteria. Dr Ramsay, who died in 1990 became the first president of the MEA. His daughter wrote, “For many years I watched my father battle with the unbelieving; he must have felt much as the ME sufferers themselves as setback followed setback.”

To mark the 50th anniversary the MEA is republishing the commemorative edition of Dr Ramsay’s study “ME and Postviral Fatigue States: the Saga of Royal Free Disease”. His fury at the illness being hijacked as “mass hysteria” ignites several pages. The reprint is available from the MEA, 4 Top Angel, Buckinghamshire MK11 1TH for £6.00 including postage and packing.

Colin Parratt, who was present at the vigil, writes:

I arrived at the Royal Free at 11.30 am and met some members of the North London ME Network, our sister group in North London. Trevor Wainwright had been caught in traffic and had yet to arrive. It was a very hot day; 30C in the shade some say. We had been allocated 2 police constables courtesy of the Metropolitan Police, just in case we cut up rough!

In a short time Trevor and his wife turned up with some leaflets and a banner which said, or I thought it said, “ME5 OYE ARSON”. I had this surrealistic vision of town criers calling for fire-raising and that we would soon be knee deep in lighted matches. However I put on my reading glasses and it became “ ME 50 YEARS ON”.

We handed out leaflets to remind staff and patients that 50 years ago the Royal Free had an outbreak of ME; many people didn’t know that the hospital was put into quarantine and was closed to the outside world for 10 weeks.

Just before midday, hundreds of hospital staff poured out of the building and assembled on the concourse at the front of the hospital to stand silently in homage to the dead and injured from the London bombing; some victims were still being treated at the Royal Free. Traffic came to a halt. The silence was profound.

At half past twelve normal service was resumed when two security guards in the employ of the hospital management asked us to move from hospital property to the hospital entrance. So we decamped to the shade of two plane trees at the entrance. At one o’clock I made a lame excuse and left. I think I said I was going back to bed.