ABSTRACT
In 1913, William Norman Pickles joined the general practitioner partnership in Aysgarth in Wensleydale, where he would eventually work until his retirement. Pickles had an investigative nature and believed that general practitioners had unique opportunities to make valuable observations which other medical practitioners did not. W. Pickles wrote important epidemiological descriptions of measles and farmer’s lung, the latter being a hypersensitivity pneumonitis caused by repeated inhaling of dust from mouldy hay. In the 1950s, Pickles’ advice was much sought after. He became a member of many different committees including the Medical Advisory Committee of the Central Health Services and the Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust Medical Advisory Council. He was a prominent member of the British Medical Association and became a founding member of the Society for Social Medicine and the International Epidemiological Association. In 1965, Pickles suffered a partial tibial artery occlusion in his right leg, which ultimately required a leg amputation.
