Sir, - The space devoted to the late, great Dr Denis Burkitt of Co Fermanagh by William Reville (Science Today, February 1st) goes just a little way to compensate for the almost total ignorance of him among Irish people. In Collins's Irish Lives, 150 of the great and not-so-good find a place, but astonishingly there is no place for Denis Burkitt, who is revered in medicine and has long been the patron saint of the Christian Medical Fellowship worldwide.
Burkitt was the first to discover the cause and total cure of any form of cancer when he isolated the appropriately named Burkitt's Lymphoma in East African children. He followed that with an epic detective hunt through Africa and uncovered the strategic link between lack of fibre in the Western world's diet and many of the killer diseases which still affect us. The fibre revolution we are living through began at Denis Burkitt's instigation.
In a characteristically self-effacing interview in the 1980s, Burkitt said: "I was an absolute mug at everything at school. . .I don't think I have a high IQ, but I've had wonderful opportunities and wonderful colleagues. Also, anything you give to God in teaspoonsful he gives back to you in shovelsful." Dr Reville was right to identify Burkitt as first of all a man of God, devoted to Christ: from that came the dogged persistence that led to quantum leaps forward in understanding cancer and its causes, particularly in relation to diet.
Perhaps it may be possible, via Dr Reville's initiative, to install Denis Burkett in his proper place in history as one of modern Ireland's worthiest heroes? - Yours, etc.,
Rev Gordon Fyles, Crinken Parsonage, Bray, Co Wicklow.