Denis Parsons Burkitt

Denis Parsons Burkitt (1911 to 1993) was an Irish surgeon who made significant advances in health, notably on the aetiology of a paediatric cancer now called Burkitt's lymphoma and on the finding that rates of colorectal cancer are higher in people who eat little dietary fibre. He was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, lost his right eye in an accident at eleven, and studied at Trinity College, Dublin, moving from engineering to medicine and graduating in 1935. He passed the Edinburgh surgical fellowship examinations in 1938, served with the Royal Army Medical Corps in England, Kenya and Somaliland during the Second World War, and afterward settled in Kampala, Uganda, until 1964. In 1957 he noticed children with jaw swellings and investigated, tracing the distribution of what became known as Burkitt's lymphoma. He was made a CMG in 1974.