DEATH OF PROFESSOR.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 December 1921, Page 5

DEATH OF PROFESSOR.

DR. S. T. OHAMPTALOUP. BRIIuLIANT BACTERIOLOGIST. The death of Dr. S. T. Champtaloup professor of bacteriology in the University of Otago, took place at Dunedin recently. Dr. Champtaloup was a New Zealander, having been born in Auckland. He was a son of the late Mr. Edward Champtaloup. He .graduated with first-class honors in medicine at Edinburgh University, where he had a distinguished career. After graduation he held several resident medical, surgical, and fever hospital appointments in Edinburgh, Manchester, and Cardiff, For a year he acted as assistant to the professor of surgery in Edinburgh Uni-, varsity, holding at the same time an .appointment in the medical out-patient department of the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. In 1908 he took his degree in public health, and became assistant in the Public Health Department under Professor Hunter Stewart, as well as pathologist to the Chalmers Hospital, Edinburgh. In 1909 the Council of Otago University, the Otago Hospital Board, and the Health Department co-operated in the adoption of a scheme for the institution of a lectureship in bacteriology and pathology in the local university in conjunction with the Public Health Service of the Government, and Dr. Champtaloup being selected for this appointment entered on the duties of his office in May 1910. Besides lecturing on bacteriology and public health in the medical school, he acted as district health officer for Otago and honorary bacteriologist to the Dunedin Hospital. The appointment from the first proved an entirely fortunate one for the university and the State. Dr. Champtaloup threw himself) with energy and enthusiasm into the performance of his duties, a striking evidence of this being shown in the fact that by 1911 he had organised a post graduate course in medicine. A second course was held in 1918.

To an engaging personality Dr. Champtaloup added conscientiousness, zeal, skill, and thoughtfulness in his work, of the value of which members of the medical profession not in Otago only, but in other portions of the Dominion, had experience in the great aid it afforded to them in the diagnosis of disease. In 1911 he relinquished his position as district health officer and became full-time professor of bacteriology and public health, as well as Government bacteriologist, in Dunedin. Tn this year the need for adequate accommodation both for the growing department of bacteriology and for the other departments of the medical school became acute. Dr. Champtaloup threw his whole energy into this project, and thanks mainly to his organising ability the details soon took concrete form in the shape of the new medical buildings in King Street. Meanwhile the. war had broken out and training camps were formed for the growing armies of the Dominion. In 1915 at Trentham a serious outbreak of illness occurred among the soldiers, one which presented many points of difficulty, until at the invitation of the military and health authorities Dr. Champtaloup, accompanied by Dr. Bowie, investigated the crisis on the spot and demonstrated bacteriologically that the disease was cerebro-spinal fever. Again during the influenza epidemic toward the end of 1918 a system inaugurated by Dr. Champtaloup was satisfactorily adopted to meet the national emergency, and students were promptly despatched all over the Dominion. There is no doubt that by these efforts he overtaxed his strength, ajid he himself did not escape unscathed from this battle against the epidemic. Early last year he was granted leave of absence to undertake a fresh course of study in Britain, as the outcome of which he secured the degree of doctor of medicine (Edinburgh) and doctor of science in public health. Unfortunately by. the time he had returned to the Dominion toward the end of the year the seeds of the insidious disease by which he was laid aside from active work for some months past had been sown. He was only 41 years of age. He leaves a widow and two young daughters to whom sympathy will be widely extended in their bereavement.