Andrew Melvin Ramsay (1901–1990) was a British physician, who is known for his research and advocacy on myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), a chronic disease causing muscle weakness and cognitive dysfunction. Ramsay worked as a consultant at the Royal Free Hospital in London during a mysterious 1955 disease outbreak of what later became known as ME. He studied the disease and similar outbreaks elsewhere. Work by Ramsay showed that although ME seldom caused death, the disease could be highly disabling.
Upset by the lack of sympathy for long-term sufferers, he became their lifelong advocate and co-founded the ME Association. In 1986 he published the first case definition of ME. Two research grants are named after him: the Ramsay research grant from the Solve ME/CFS Initiative and the Ramsay Research Fund of the ME Association.
Melvin Ramsay was born in Preston, Lancashire in 1901. He attended secondary school at the Mackie Academy in Stonehaven, Scotland and, in 1923, obtained a Master of Arts degree from the University of Aberdeen and completed an undergraduate medical degree there in 1926.
From 1926 to 1935, he practiced medicine in South Africa.[1] He then returned to the United Kingdom to work at Fulham Hospital. In 1937, he moved to the North Western Fevers Hospital. His duties included the education of nurses and medical undergraduates on the practical aspects of managing infectious diseases.[1] By 1939, he attained an MD degree, again from Aberdeen, based on a thesis investigating findings in 1205 cases of puerperal sepsis, a type of infection that can occur after miscarriage or birth.[1]
Upon the integration of the North Western Fevers Hospital into the Royal Free Hospital in 1947, Ramsay became the consultant physician for the Infectious Diseases Department. Additionally, he served as a consultant for smallpox to the Ministry of Health and worked as a lecturer on infectious diseases at the University of London[1] and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.[2]
Ramsay worked in the Royal Free Hospital in 1955 when an unknown infection affecting 300 staff raged between July and November, which required the hospital to close down.[4][5] The disease, initially dubbed the Royal Free Disease, was renamed benign myalgic encephalomyelits in a Lancet article the following year.[4][5] Ramsay studied the outbreak and found similar individual cases in north-east London. Furthermore, he described comparable outbreaks in Cumbria, England and Durban, South Africa.[5]