Peter Kynaston Thomas
Authors: Caroline Richmond
Journal: BMJ (2008)

Always known by his initials, PK, Peter Kynaston Thomas was a prolific expert in peripheral neuropathy. He was a gifted researcher and writer, his research covering peripheral neuropathy and myopathy, both clinical and laboratory. He had wit, charm, and a gleam in his eye that readily mutated into a twinkle. He had exceptional energy and managed on five hours sleep a night. He hunted boars in Poland on his holidays.

The son of a timber importer, PK was educated at a bible school in Swansea, where he had an inspiring teacher. The school offered him a university scholarship but required him to work as a missionary afterwards, so he refused it. He entered University College London on an open scholarship in 1944 and got a first in anatomy three years later. By the time he qualified, three years later, he had worked as anatomy demonstrator and had published his first research paper. It was on the segmental growth of the lateral line nerve in fishes, cowritten with the anatomist J Z Young. The research material (trout) was an excellent source of dinner during food rationing.

After a year of house jobs at UCH, PK did his national service as a physiology specialist as secretary to a military research committee. Returning to civilian life, he spent a year each at the North Middlesex Hospital, the West End Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, and the Middlesex Hospital. In 1957 he got his MD for a thesis on constitutional hirsutism in women.

During four years as senior registrar at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases he started on the laboratory and clinical research he was to continue for a further 45 years, assembling his own recording equipment in the days before it became commercially available. He spent 1961-2 at McGill University, Montreal, as associate professor of neurology, doubling as consultant neurologist at the Montreal Neurological Institute and running the electromyography department.

He returned to the United Kingdom as consultant neurologist at the Royal Free Hospital and Queen Square, by then renamed the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery. He was made senior lecturer and, from 1974, professor of neurology. From 1991, when he was 65, he was emeritus professor.

He remained at the Royal Free, researching, writing, and editing, until in 1999—two years after he received a CBE and the Association of British Neurologists’ medal—it was decided that he could no longer have a room, whereupon he moved to Queen Square, which welcomed him.

PK was a fellow of two royal colleges, the physicians and the pathologists, a past president of the Association of British Neurologists, editor of the Journal of Anatomy and the Journal of Neurology and Brain, and served on several other editorial boards.

He published 314 original research papers, 74 articles and review papers, and 46 chapters in multiauthor books. His own books include Peripheral Neuropathy (1975 and 1984, with P J Dyck, E H Lambert, and R Bunge), Disorders of Peripheral Nerves (1983 and 1992, with four coauthors), Aids to the Examination of the Peripheral Nervous System (1986, with six coauthors), Diabetic Peripheral Neuropathy (four editions, with four co-authors), and Peripheral Nerve Disorders (1995, with A K Asbury).

He was immensely hardworking. While waiting at airports he would work on manuscripts. He was, said Dr Ros King, his colleague for 43 years, great fun to his colleagues and students. He would stay up till the early hours at conferences and still be down to breakfast. He was very active—skiing, gardening, walking, and playing squash.

Professor Alastair Compston of Cambridge University said he was “An extraordinarily versatile and intuitive clinician. He drew effortlessly on a vast font of knowledge and experience in shaping his clinical opinions and writings. As a talented scientist, PK was a key figure in the evolution of British neurology from its golden descriptive age into the modern discipline of clinical neuroscience.”

Professor Bill Pryse-Phillips of Newfoundland University, Canada, said: “He was my first neurology mentor in 1969. He was a man of great humanity and warmth. If you said something stupid, he took it seriously and gave a reasoned reply. He was free with good advice and a good listener. He would analyse what you said and come back to you. He was rational and non-judgmental. He was a fun-loving person and a passionate Welshman. He was a hesitant speaker but a superb writer.”

He married three times. His first wife, Mary Cox, died in 1977 after 25 years of marriage. He then married his former house officer Professor Anita Harding, who died of bowel cancer in 1995 (BMJ 1995;311:1085). In 1999 he married Sawanthana (Sam) Ponsford, an electrophysiologist. Two years later, in 2001, he had a major stroke while at a conference in the Netherlands. He struggled on despite suffering from frequent aspiration pneumonia, and managed to review a PhD thesis (with Dr Ros King’s help) and contributed to the editing of the fourth edition of Peripheral Neuropathy. He also helped to finished off some papers that were in the pipeline. 

Details of his memorial service are available from the Association of British Neurologists or graham.venables@sth.nhs.uk.