Paul Brand

Paul Brand

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Category: Social Work

Paul Brand Profile

  • Name:
  • Paul Brand
  • Other Name:
  • Paul Wilson Brand
  • Born:
  • July 17, 1914
  • Died:
  • July 8, 2003
  • Spouse:
  • Margaret

Paul Brand Biography

Paul Brand was a pioneer in developing tendon transfer techniques in the treatment of leprosy. His contributions to the fields of hand surgery and hand therapy are really significant and most of those works were carried through lectures and writings. He is mostly known as the first physician to recognize that leprosy does not cause the rotting away of tissues, but that it gives the loss of the sensation of pain which make sufferers susceptible to injury. He has published his findings through several books and publications. His most noted work is Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants (1993), which he co-authored with Philip Yancey. He also published his lectures, autobiographical books about his childhood, his parents' missionary work, and his philosophy about the valuable properties of pain.

 

He was born to missionary parents in Kolli Hills, Tamil Nadu, India on July 17, 1914. His childhood days were spent in India and he was sent to US in 1923 for higher education. His father died in 1928 of black water fever, when Brand was 15. He trained Medicine during the Second World War. He gained his surgical qualifications whilst working as a casualty surgeon in the London Blitz. In 1946, he was invited to join Christian Medical College & Hospital in Vellore, Tamil Nadu. After a visit to the Leprosy Sanatorium at Chingleput, he was motivated to do research on this disease.

 

After observations, he came to a conclusion that most injuries in Hansen's disease patients were a result of the pain insensitivity and not directly caused by the bacilli. In 1950, with a donation from a missionary woman, Brand established the New Life Center, Vellore. It was a rehabilitation center for Hansen's disease patients. In 1966, after 19 years of service in India, he moved to the U.S.A.  He received Hunterian professorship of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1952, and the Lasker Award in 1960. Queen Elizabeth honored him with the title of the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1961.

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Updated: January 08, 2014

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