Lucan Pratt RIP

Kyt · May 29, 2009

Lucan Pratt: physiologist | Times Online Obituary

Lucan Pratt was a physiologist who spent most of his adult life as an academic and admissions tutor at the University of Cambridge . His wartime research into the physical effect of underwater water explosions, however, formed part of the invaluable preparations made before the Normandy landings in 1944.

Clarence Lucan Gray Pratt was born in London and and educated at Liverpool Collegiate School and the University of Liverpool where he graduated in medicine in 1929 and held a series of clinical and teaching hospital appointments there and in London and Oxford.

Pratt’s special interest had been into the chemistry of digestion and anaesthesia, but the expert medical evidence he submitted to the Board of Inquiry into the loss of the submarine Thetis in Liverpool Bay in 1939, led to his appointment as medical officer in charge of the Royal Navy’s Physiological Laboratory at Alverstoke, Hampshire, with the rank of surgeon-commander RNVR.

For his services there and at the shore establishment HMS Dolphin at Gosport, where he helped to build the submarine escape test tanks, he was appointed OBE.

The most noteworthy of his experiments were those he organised, at great peril to himself, in the spring of 1944 into the physiological effects of underwater explosions at close range. A job which he estimated would in normal conditions occupy two years had to be completed in eight weeks, in anticipation of the imminent Normandy landings.

One practical outcome was the design of the kapok jacket used for the protection of frogmen clearing French harbours such as Cherbourg.

After the war Pratt was appointed university lecturer in mammalian physiology at Cambridge, where he published papers and a textbook. He was elected to a fellowship at Christ’s College in 1946 and later appointed a senior tutor.

During the 18 years that he lived in the College, Christ’s became well-known for athletic successes, chiefly in soccer and rugby union. As captain of athletics and a rugby player at Liverpool, he always appreciated sporting prowess.

Pratt was a member of the Council of the Senate from 1953 to 1961, and a valued Syndic of Cambridge University Press for two terms of office. He was chairman of its scientific committee and editor of the Journal of Physiology, which it published. After the expiry of his senior tutorship in 1967 he continued as praelector until retirement in 1976.

His wife, Elizabeth, died in 2002. He is survived by five sons.

Lucan Pratt, OBE, physiologist, was born on September 26, 1906. He died on March 24, 2009, aged 102
Click to expand...

Antipodean Andy · May 29, 2009

One of the unsung types. RIP.

Log in or Sign up

Lucan Pratt RIP

Kyt Άρης

Antipodean Andy New Member

Share This Page

Log in or Sign up

Lucan Pratt RIP

Thread Tools

Kyt Άρης

Antipodean Andy New Member

Share This Page

Useful Searches