Giles R Youngs: Chester Porphyria Papers

The following is an interim description which may change when detailed cataloguing takes place in future:

The collection comprises papers relating to Dr Youngs' research into the Chester Porphyria family and for his book Dobson's Complaint. The story of the Chester Porphyria on the family, including correspondence, publications, articles, family trees, pedigrees, patient notes and hospital files, c.1940s-2000.
A detailed box list of the collection exists.

Please note that this archive includes patient data that is highly sensitive in nature. When the archive is catalogued, the patient data may require closure in accordance with the 2018 Data Protection Act..

c.1940s-2000

3 transfer boxes

The material was donated to the library at Wellcome Collection by Dr Youngs, 23/06/2002.

Dr Giles Youngs is a physician formerly based in Chester. His interest in porphyria (once commonly known as 'The Royal Malady' since it was used as an explanation for the bizarre behaviour, abdominal pain and coloured urine of King George III) began in 1980 following a consultation with a female teenage outpatient at the Chester Royal Infirmary. The patient, who was suffering from porphyria, came from a long line of familial sufferers. After this meeting Youngs resolved to learn more about the condition and to study the family who had suffered from this inherited disease for several decades without having been properly diagnosed, managed or officially recognised by the medical professions in Chester.

In 1995 the Royal College of Physicians published a monograph edited by Youngs, Dobson's Complaint. The story of the Chester Porphyria. This book tells the story of the exhaustive work he and his colleagues did in order to finally trace back members of the 300 strong Cheshire kindred affected by this condition to the marriage of a Dee salmon fisherman in 1888. Youngs recognised the role of doctors who preceded him, in particular Dr Zorka Bekerus, who in 1965 was the first to recognise the uniqueness of this variant of porphyria. Youngs also published an article in Medical Historian. Bulletin of Liverpool Medical History Society, Number 10, 1998, "La petite simulatrice: The story of the Chester porphyria."

This collection is currently uncatalogued and cannot be ordered online. Requests to view uncatalogued material are considered on a case by case basis. Please contact collections@wellcomecollection.org for more details.