Peter Pharoah, a public health expert whose clinical work on nutrition during pregnancy was crucial for ending the motor disability endemic cretinism in regions of Papua New Guinea, passed away from dementia at the age of 87 on October 23.
Pharoah was born in 1934 in Ranchi, India, to teachers Phyllis and Oswald Pharoah, the latter of whom passed away when Peter was seven years old. Peter moved to the UK in 1948 to continue his education. He met Margaret McMinn, who he would eventually marry in 1960, while both were training as doctors at St. Mary’s Hospital Medical School in London, according to an obituary penned by his son, University of Cambridge cancer epidemiologist Paul Pharoah, in The Guardian.
After working for the National Health Service (NHS) at various London hospitals from 1958 to 1963, Pharoah began serving as a medical officer in Papa New Guinea, where he would ...
