Iain William Stewart Mair

William Stewart Halsted. Our surgical heritage.

William Stewart Halsted (1852-1922): father of American surgery.

William Stewart Halsted: his life and contributions to surgery.

William Stewart Halsted was a pioneer of surgery in the USA and made many wide-ranging contributions, including the surgical treatment of breast cancer. He changed the training of surgeons from a disorganised apprenticeship to the residency training programmes used today. Halsted's research developed a better understanding of surgically amenable disease and a multitude of new techniques and ope...

On the exoneration of Dr. William H. Stewart: debunking an urban legend

BACKGROUND It is one of the most infamous quotes in the history of biomedicine: "It is time to close the book on infectious diseases, and declare the war against pestilence won." Long attributed to the United States Surgeon General, Dr. William H. Stewart (1965-1969), the statement is frequently used as a foil by scientific and lay authors to underscore the ever-increasing problems of antibioti...

Mair Representative versus Responsible Government

The changing circumstances in which parties compete in contemporary democracies, coupled with the changing circumstances in which governments now govern, have led to a widening of the traditional gap between representative and responsible government. Although it is generally seen as desirable that parties in government are both representative and responsible, these two characteristics are now b...