Hugh Spear Pemberton

We received this biography from Kwan S. Lee. Lee is (February 2005) an Internal Medicine Resident at the Mayo Clinic Scottsdale.

Hugh Spear Pemberton graduated MB ChB from Liverpool University with first-class honours in 1913 and joined the resident staff of David Lewis Northern Hospital in the same year. He served in the RAMC during the first world war and on his return to Liverpool was appointed junior physician at the Northern Hospital to which he devoted the rest of his professional career.

Pemberton obtained his MRCP in 1921 and was appointed a senior consultant in 1924. At the university he was a lecturer in clinical medicine. The Royal College of Physicians appointed him as a Fellow in 1941 and he served in various administrative posts with the British Medical Association in addition to his busy clinical work.

Pemberton had a specific interest in diabetes and founded the diabetic clinic at the Northern Hospital in 1922. He also published several papers in the British Medical Journal on diabetes, thyrotoxicosis, peripheral vascular disease, and hospital planning. His description of Pemberton's Sign appeared in a brief letter to The Lancet in 1946.

He finally retired from his post in June of 1955 and died suddenly at his home in Cheshire on January 15 1956.

• H. S. Pemberton. The British Medical Journal, January 28, 1956, 4960: 237-238.