Abstract
Francis Fraser was Professor of Medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital (1920–34) and at the British Postgraduate Medical School, Hammersmith Hospital (1934–39). He went on to direct the nation's Emergency Medical Services during World War II (1939–45) and later became Director of the British Postgraduate Medical Federation (1945–60). Alexander G Bearn, himself a distinguished Professor of Medicine, has brought together Fraser's life and work in a most readable biography of the way in which a canny Scott shaped Medicine in good fashion for Britain even now nearly 50 years after Fraser's death. This elegant account also proclaims the author's gratitude for Fraser's influence in helping to launch him in to a career of medical research.
Francis Fraser believed in whole-time academic staffing with research opportunities made possible by the conjunction of the hospital bed with a laboratory. This is what he offered to active young physicians at Hammersmith Hospital and later through the British Postgraduate Medical Federation.
Sir Francis Fraser was a man of high intelligence, administrative ability and unwavering integrity. He lacked pomposity and was a good friend to fellow workers with a similar determination to provide excellent standards of academic medicine. This is the recurring theme in this most enjoyable account of a great British physician.