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Obituary: Arthur Ralph Henderson (1932–2006)

Department of Laboratory Medicine, and Pathobiology, The University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, david.goldberg{at}sympatico.ca

David E. Bruns, Editor

(dbruns{at}clinchem.aacc.org)

On 29, June 2006, Arthur Ralph Henderson, Emeritus Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario, succumbed to complications of diabetes mellitus, leaving behind his wife Carol, daughter Sarah, son David, and many friends by whom he will be sorely missed.

Known to most by his middle name, Ralph embarked on an academic career in his native city, Glasgow, after serving 4 years in the British Merchant Navy, an apprenticeship that doubtless accounted for the nautical gait that formed part of his formidable physical presence. At Glasgow University, he followed the degree of BSc (First Class Honours) in 1962 with a medical degree in 1964, graduating 2nd in his class, with Commendation, and a long list of prizes and distinctions in various subjects along the way. His postgraduate degrees and awards included a PhD in Biochemistry (1970), Membership (1974), and Fellowship (1985) of the Royal College of Pathologists, and a thesis for the degree of DSc submitted to the University of Glasgow in 1997.

From 1969 until 1973, he served as Lecturer and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Pathological Biochemistry (Royal Infirmary) at the University of Glasgow prior to taking up a professorial appointment in the Department of Clinical Biochemistry at University Hospital, London, Ontario, and the University of Western Ontario, where he rose to the highest hierarchical levels as Professor of Biochemistry and Chief of the Division of Clinical Biochemistry. In the small-town environment of southwestern Ontario populated by the small-minded individuals vividly characterized in the novels of Robertson Davies, and working in a milieu more notable for its academic virulence than its intellectual brilliance, Ralph not only survived but thrived to build a distinguished international reputation.

His achievements were the result of his uncompromising dedication to "quality", his personal integrity, his adherence to his primeval roots—best exemplified by the fact that not one decibel of his broad Scots accent was ever adulterated by the elocution of those among whom he was immersed in North America, and a fierce intelligence that could burn as well as illuminate. The scientific contributions for which he will be remembered best are those that set the standard for field of diagnostic enzymology when that branch of laboratory medicine was reaching its apogee. His many original contributions defining the utility of lactate dehydrogenase and creatine kinase earned him a hallowed place in the pantheon of that productive but ephemeral discipline, as did his collaboration in major treatises with such Olympian figures as Norbert Tietz and Donald Moss, among many others.

Throughout his working career, Ralph Henderson’s name figured on many expert panels and working groups, including several under the auspices of AACC, CSCC, and WHO. He also served 15-year stints on the Editorial Boards of Clinica Chimica Acta and Clinical Biochemistry. As Editor-in-Chief of the latter journal, I was well aware of his worth. Known and even feared for his critical faculties in most interactive situations and admired for the devastating accuracy of his comments (he had served, after all, for 2 years in the Royal Artillery after quitting the Merchant Navy), he was the model of tact and generosity when it came to reviewing manuscripts that were less than perfect, and his unstinting help and advice rescued many a paper that I had mentally consigned to the garbage-can. Mere numbers (close to 200 career publications) do not tell the whole story. One has also to look to a coterie of young scientists, including Dan Nealon and Fred Leung, whose careers were shaped in some measure by his inspiration.

Less honoured than he deserved to be, he nonetheless won recognition from CSCC in the form of its Award for Research Excellence in 1992. But, as has happened elsewhere in Canadian academic circles, the hyenas eventually drew blood. Forced into early retirement in 1997, he spent a couple of brief periods in the Yorkshire borough of Barnsley before going off to Bahrain where, for 3 happy years, he held the Chair of Medical Biochemistry at the Arabian Gulf University, returning to Toronto in 2001. There, unbeknown to most of his erstwhile friends and colleagues, he continued to labour quietly on mathematical aspects of laboratory medicine right up to the time of his death. His many contributions deserve our esteem and gratitude, and his family merits our profound sympathy on their loss.

View larger version (118K): [in this window] [in a new window]   Figure 1. Dr. Arthur Ralph Henderson

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