Lee T C
Department of Anatomy, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Dublin.
J Ir Coll Physicians Surg. 1996 Apr;25(2):126-30.
Denis Burkitt's was a remarkable career. A surgeon in the Colonial Medical Service in Uganda, his keen observation of the incidence of jaw tumours in children led him to describe a new form of lymphatic cancer. He confirmed, for the first time in man, that a cancer was caused by a virus and, most remarkable of all, he discovered a cure--low-dose chemotherapy. The condition was named after him--Burkitt's lymphoma--and with this came membership of a select group of eponymous Irishmen, including Graves, Colles and Corrigan. His ability to link the incidence of disease with geographical distribution brought him, first to question and then to champion Peter Cleave's theory that lack of dietary fibre contributed to many of the diseases common in western civilisation. In the process, he changed the dietary habits of the Western world. Yet Denis Burkitt's early career in Trinity College, Dublin was not auspicious for, as a Junior Freshman engineer in 1929, his tutor despaired of him, writing to his father 'Don't blame me if he gets stuck'. A happy irony then, that the College made him an Honorary Fellow half a century later.
丹尼斯·伯基特有着非凡的职业生涯。他曾是乌干达殖民地医疗服务机构的一名外科医生，对儿童颌部肿瘤发病率的敏锐观察使他描述了一种新型淋巴癌。他首次在人类身上证实一种癌症是由病毒引起的，而最了不起的是，他发现了一种治疗方法——低剂量化疗。这种病症以他的名字命名——伯基特淋巴瘤，随之而来的是他跻身于一群以名字命名疾病的杰出爱尔兰人之列，包括格雷夫斯、科利斯和科里根。他将疾病发病率与地理分布联系起来的能力，首先使他质疑，进而支持彼得·克利夫的理论，即膳食纤维的缺乏是西方文明中许多常见疾病的成因。在此过程中，他改变了西方世界的饮食习惯。然而，丹尼斯·伯基特在都柏林三一学院的早期职业生涯并不顺利，1929年作为一名大一工科新生时，他的导师对他不抱希望，写信给他父亲说：“如果他学业受阻，别怪我。”颇具讽刺意味的是，半个世纪后学院授予他荣誉院士称号。
