WilliamWilson Ingram (1888–1982) MC, MB, ChB, MD (Aberdeen), FRACP WilliamWilson Ingram graduated from the University of Aberdeen in 1912. On the declaration of war, he enlisted in the Royal Medical Corps. He served in France, where he received the Military Medal in 1915. He was wounded and returned to England. In 1916, Captain Ingram resumed active service, and ultimately took command of the pathology services at the headquarters of the British Expeditionary Force in France. After the War, Ingram completed a medical degree at Aberdeen. He then accepted the post of lecturer in physiology at the University of Sydney, and also established a general medical practice. In 1921, Ingram was appointed honorary pathologist at Royal North Shore Hospital where, in addition to supervising the routine pathology service, he founded the Institute of Pathological Research.
After the move into the new building, which provided much needed laboratory space and a library, and to re-emphasise its focus on research into common medical conditions, the institute was renamed the Institute of Medical Research. Ingram was appointed honorary director, a position he held until his retirement in 1974. When Rudd
The Institute of Pathological Research of New South Wales
resigned in 1934, Ingram was unable to recruit a suitably qualified Australian-based scientist, and extended his search overseas. Max Rudolf Lemberg, with a 14-year background in biochemical research and working in Cambridge after fleeing Hitler’s Germany, applied for the position. Max Rudolf Lemberg (1896–1975) Max Rudolf (Rudi) Lemberg was born in Breslau (Silesia; now Wrocław, Poland), where he graduated in science in 1916. In mid-1917, he enlisted in the German army as a private, a gunner in the field artillery. Lemberg was wounded in action during the Somme offensive of March 1918, his bravery recognised with the Iron Cross. These experiences had a profound effect on Lemberg, who became a convinced pacifist. He later joined the Society of Friends in Sydney. In 1922, he completed a doctorate in Breslau under Heinrich Blitz, an organic chemist. Blitz strongly advised him against an academic career, citing the poor prospects for a scientist of Jewish descent in any German university. After a period as an industrial chemist with Boehringer in Mannheim, he returned to academic life in Heidelberg in 1926. Equipped with a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship, he moved to Cambridge to study with Sir Frederick Gowland Hopkins in the Institute of Biochemistry. He then returned to Heidelberg, but Lemberg later recalled that “the Nazi shadows began rapidly to gather”, and in 1933 his academic career came to an abrupt halt. He realised that, despite his war service and Iron Cross, he was unlikely to escape ending in a concentration camp. Lemberg fled Germany and returned to Cambridge, which at the time was full of highly qualified refugees from Germany, and not all could stay. Lemberg successfully applied for the position of director of the biochemical laboratories at Royal North Shore Hospital, going “into the wilderness, for I did not expect inspiration from my Australian colleagues at that time.”
In 1920, a group of influential NSW citizens proposed a research institute for investigating the “common diseases of mankind”, inspired by the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London. They launched an appeal for establishing the Institute of Pathological Research of New South Wales. Initial donations were disappointingly few, but after Thomas Rofe, a member of the hospital board donated £5000, the institute was ready to proceed in 1923. These funds facilitated the appointment of G. Vincent Rudd, senior biochemist, as its first fulltime research scientist in 1925. Later that year, Ingram returned to London for postgraduate study, during which he observed the clinical effects of the newly discovered insulin. On his return to Royal North Shore Hospital, he established one of the first specialist diabetes clinics in Australia. He later collaborated with Rudd on the significant and popular text, The diagnosis and treatment of diabetes , published in 1933. By 1928, space at the institute was at a premium, and as it expanded in scope and personnel, more convenient, fully equipped laboratories were urgently required. Ingram invited Eva Kolling, the widow of American-born merchant, Charles Kolling, to tour the original hospital cottage that now served as a laboratory. Mrs Kolling was suitably impressed by the standard of clinical research carried out in extremely cramped conditions. With the opportunity to commit funds to commemorate her husband, but also because “many lives will be spared and humanity assisted generally”, she donated £5000, a sum matched by the NSW Government. Ingram drew up plans for the “Charles Kolling Memorial Laboratory” shortly before his departure as medical officer with Douglas Mawson and the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition. Eva Kolling laid the foundation stone for the new laboratory in 1930 and, after Ingram returned from his second Antarctic expedition, she officially opened the new facility on 12 September 1931.
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KOLLINGNEWS | DECEMBER 2020
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