Professor Oliver Wrong

Wrong's papers cover his research from the 1950s until his death in 2012, with some posthumous publications, and fall largely into the following categories:

Please note that this archive contains a significant amount of patient medical data that is highly sensitive in nature. Patient data will require closure or restriction for the lifetime of the data subjects in accordance with the 1998 Data Protection Act. For information on how the library handles sensitive archival data, see our Access to Archives policy.

Michela Wrong, one of Professor Wrong's daughters, and Anthony Norden, one of Wrong's colleagues, prepared a Guide to the Catalogue that can be found within this collection and is referred to throughout the catalogue itself (PP/WRO/A/5). Their notes provide relevant anecdotes, connections between material and Wrong's areas of research, and descriptions of material to assist the researcher in their work.

The collection is divided into sections as follows:

A: Biographical (comprising A: 1, Autobiography, A: 2, Guide to the Contents of the Research Archive, A: 3, Photographs, A:4, Obituaries, and A:5 Biographical Digital Material Including an Interview with Michela Wrong, Daughter):

B: Research and Clinical (comprising B:1, dRTA (Distal Renal Tubular Acidosis), B:2, Dent's Disease, B:3, Southeast Asian Ovalocytosis, B:4, Faecal Dialysis, B:5, Sevelamer, B:6, Patient Files, B:7, X-Rays, CT Scans and Photographs, B:8, Nephrocalcinosis, B:9, Sir William Osler, B:10, Other, B:11, Wrong Digital Material).

C: Lectures, Conferences and Teaching (comprising C.1, Prepared Talks; C.2, PhD Supervision; C.3, Teaching and Research Posts; C.4, and Lecture Slides and Index Cards).

D: Published Papers (listed individually).

E: Correspondence (listed individually).

Professor Oliver M. Wrong (7 Feb 1925-24 Feb 2012) was an eminent academic nephrologist (kidney specialist) and one of the founders of the speciality in the United Kingdom. He was born into a family of eminent Oxford and Canadian historians, but embraced science instead, belonging to the generation of idealistic young doctors responsible for the establishment of the UK's National Health Service in the post-War years.

He worked under Charles E Dent at University College Hospital (UCH) until 1961, when he was made senior lecturer at the Hammersmith Hospital. He moved to Dundee in 1969 and returned to UCH in 1972 as Professor of Medicine.

From a background as a 'salt and water' physician he made detailed clinical observations and scientifically imaginative connections which were the basis of numerous advances in the molecular biology of the human kidney. Though academic in his leanings, he was a compassionate physician who established a warm rapport with patients. He regarded this link as the keystone of his research, and placed great emphasis on the importance of talking to his patients in order to gain insights into their conditions. He was also skilled in collaborating with and synthesising data from colleagues, and read very widely around his subject, approaches reflected in the correspondence and background materials in his research files.

A striking characteristic of Wrong's career was his readiness to experiment upon himself and members of his family, including his wife. The archive contains an experiment in water intoxication Wrong conducted upon himself as a young man (complete with before-and-after photos) and the only remaining examples of the "Wrong bags" (for faecal dialysis). The entries in his laboratory notebooks make this reliance on self-experimentation explicit.

Wrong's archive charts the transformation of nephrology through the 20th and 21st centuries. His work began as traditional clinical observation of disease, in a way that would be recognisable in the 19th century or earlier. His work then became, in his lifetime, the basis of numerous advances in the molecular biology of medicine, to which he directly contributed. His later research materials trace growing genetic understandings and analyses of the medical conditions that he had been following in specific patients for decades.

Wrong's papers complement the archive of his mentor C E Dent (Wellcome Library collection PP/CED) in that they document Dent's and Wrong's shared research into the hereditary kidney disease named by Wrong as 'Dent('s) Disease'. Dent had recognised the condition in the 1960s but it was Wrong's subsequent clinical and laboratory observations of his and Dent's patients that enabled him to elucidate the chemical basis of the condition. This research formed the basis of major advances in the molecular biology of the kidney tubule and was a landmark in nephrology.

For further details of Professor Wrong's career, see his many obituaries including: