Archive of Neil Stamford Painter (1923-1989)

The papers mainly relate to Painter's study of diverticular disease and the effects of fibre depletion in diet, 1950s-1980s, comprising: notebooks; correspondence, including with Denis Burkitt; publications, off-prints and other writings; Manor House Hospital patient notes and diverticulosis x-rays; Radcliffe Hospital data; questionnaires on bran for Manor House Hospital patients; press cuttings; material on travel; slides.

Neil Painter is well known for his work on diverticular disease.

He served as a fighter pilot in the Fleet Air Arm during the Second World War, starting his medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital Medical School, London, in 1946. (He remained in Reserve and continued flying until 1957). In 1965 he was appointed senior surgeon to the Manor House Hospital, north London.

From the early 1960s Neil Painter carried out studies under the supervision of Dr Sidney Truelove at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford, on pressures in the colon in health and diverticulosis. He demonstrated the effects of drugs on colonic pressures and elucidated the mechanism responsible for the pathogenesis of diverticula. This work was published in the journal Gut, his MS thesis, his Hunterian Lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1963 and at the American Proctological Society in Philadelphia in 1964. In 1966 he was involved in writing, with Surgeon Captain T. L. Cleave and Dr G. D. Campbell, a book deprecating the high content of refined carbohydrates in modern diet. In the second edition of this book he advocated the addition of unprocessed bran as treatment of constipation and diverticular disease.

In May 1971 Painter, with Denis P. Burkitt published "Diverticular Disease of the Colon: A Deficiency Disease of Western Civilization" (British Medical Journal, 22 May 1971). The article hypothesised that diverticular disease was prevalent in countries most economically developed. It was most common in Europe but almost absent in Africa and very rare in Asia. The reason, they argued, was the Western diet which was high in refined sugar and flour utilized in mass food production. The article referred to a survey of 70 diverticular disease patients who had been put on a high residue diet; after 22 months it was found that over 80% had been relieved of abdominal aches, pain and distension. The diet had consisted of whole meal bread, fresh fruit and vegetables but also a regular dose of unprocessed wheat bran which was very high in fibre. The result of the trial overturned the previous treatment of diverticular disease (which was a low residue diet and sometimes colostomy and colonic resection surgery), replacing it with a high fibre diet. Painter continued to write and lecture on the subject of dietary fibre and colonic function for the rest of his career, including talks to the British Medical Association and the McCarrison Society in 1971. In 1975 he published Diverticular Disease of the Colon: A Deficiency Disease of the Western Civilization and in 1986 Diverticular Disease of the Colon.

Neil Painter died on 7 August 1989, aged 66.

At Wellcome Collection:

PP/TLC, archives of Surgeon Captain 'Peter' Thomas Latimer Cleave

PP/HCT, archives of The Rev Dr Hubert Carey (Hugh) Trowell

WTI/DPB, archives of Denis Parsons Burkitt

Additional related material may also be found in the Archives and Manuscripts Sources Guide on Food and Medicine