The inventor of exercise is gone – just one run short

The funeral took place in London, yesterday, of a man whose understanding of the human condition changed the face of twentieth century preventive medicine and Western attitudes to physical exercise.

Jerry Morris, who would have been 100 next May, is widely regarded as the last century’s leading health inequalities researcher. He will be remembered best for his investigation of the causes of coronary ischemic heart disease, but he was also as notably the designer of the community physician as the mainstay of the UK National Health Service. He was a fervent defender of the reforming Socialist spirit of the 1940s – and, by his own reckoning, the first man to go jogging on Hampstead Heath.

In the weeks before his death, he was still going to work at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine where he was Emeritus Professor of Public Health, and only in September, in a spirited interview for The Financial Times he confessed to being a work addict.

“It’s an obsession," he said, " a compulsion. Now, that’s a happy way of getting into old age. It’s better than an alcohol addict or – are there womanizing addicts in old age? They must have a tough time.”

Prevention Action has two live contacts with Morris's long career through its connection with a sister project of the Social Research Unit’s, the Centre for Social Policy at Dartington. One Centre fellow, Roy Parker served with him on the Seebohm committee, whose recommendations led to the creation of UK local authority social services departments. - and they co-wrote the chapter on prevention in the committee’s influential report. Parker’s colleague, Michael Power, worked alongside Morris at the London Hospital soon after he had published his landmark report on the occupational disease and mortality of London bus crews.

”It was a lesson in how to be thoughtful”

Of the Seebohm years Roy Parker writes:
“Jerry was the sole voice of the medical profession and indeed the only senior academic. However, it was not until the committee’s deliberations got under way that I came to appreciate what a remarkable man he was.

“He did not rush into the discussions but always seemed to be weighing up what was being said before he made his contribution. From time to time he would make notes (usually with a pencil that seemed to be for ever worn down).

“He was always attentive but always wore a quizzical expression which gave the impression that, at any moment, he was about to make an observation or pose a question which would be more insightful and more telling than what had gone before.

“And that, indeed, was what so often happened. It was a lesson in how to be thoughtful, how to deal as constructively as possible with contrary views, and how to sift out what amounted to evidence from what merely passed as such.

“As the committee began to formulate the kinds of recommendations that it was to offer, it became apparent that these could well deprive local medical officers of health of some of their tradition social care responsibilities such as day nurseries, parts of the mental health services and home help.

“The shake-up that this portended began to cause anxiety within the medical profession and Jerry was caught in crossfire. On one hand he was expected by many of his colleagues to defend ‘medical interests’ (particularly public health interests) within the Seebohm committee.

“At the same time he was becoming more sympathetic to the direction that its deliberations were taking. It is much to his credit that he maintained an open mind and that he was sufficiently persuaded by the evidence put before the committee to sign its final report, thereby provoking the displeasure of parts of the medical establishment.

“I came to work more closely with Jerry in writing two of the report’s chapters: those on prevention and research. Looking back I believe that they represented important statements that still stand up to scrutiny. They are just one of the many testimonies to Jerry’s clear understanding of these companion subjects and of their relevance to the practical issues of social improvement.

“Jerry also practiced what he preached when it came to food and drink. For instance, on the occasions that Frederic Seebohm arranged for the committee to dine together I noticed that Jerry took modest amounts of food, passed on the tempting desserts and sipped his water rather than accepting the wine. But he did it all unostentatiously; but the point was not lost – at least on me.

“We continued to communicate after the Seebohm committee finished its work. Indeed, he was a great communicator in all the senses of the word. He was an inspiring figure who, right up to the end, was deeply (one might almost say relentlessly) concerned with the promotion of human betterment through the application of well-grounded evidence.

”I had to run to keep up”

Michael Power writes:
“When I joined the MRC Social Medicine Unit at the London Hospital in 1960, the first of Jerry Morris’s greatest contributions had already been reported on the mortality of London bus crews between sedentary drivers and active conductors.

“Further non occupational studies of exercise in leisure time identified those at highest risk of one of the commonest forms of heart disease. Over the next few years this work sparked a change in lifestyle in the Western world: jogging was born!

“Just as important was his other epidemiological work on differential health rates by geographical area and social class, highlighting the effects of poverty on health.

“As a young psychiatric social worker who had already moved from social work to research to improve practice I found myself in a multidisciplinary group who all knew a lot more than I did. Jerry guided us in the application of epidemiology to the social sciences in a stimulating research environment where I had to run to keep up.

“It opened for me a world where theory had to be tested by hard evidence, carefully collected and double checked. The highest standards were expected. Yet he achieved this by creating a research unit where such striving was an exciting adventure that we all shared.”

• For Michael Power’s own account of Jerry Morris’s achievements, see The inspiration behind that Australian "treasure" [1]. For The Financial Times interview, visit The man who invented exercise [2].

• For analysis of the work and politics of the Seebohm committee. see Hall. P (1976), Reforming the Welfare: the politics of change in the personal social services, London: Heinemann.