INTRODUCTION

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Dr Jack Penn, M.B., Ch.B., F.R.C.S.(E.)., Mil. Dec. M.B.E., S.M., plastic and reconstructive surgeon, Member of the President's Council, sculptor and author, was born in Cape Town in 1909, the youngest of 7 children. The family went to live in Johannesburg after World War I, where he attended Parktown High School, and studied medicine at the University of the Witwatersrand.

After his marriage to Diana Malkin in 1934 (1 daughter and 1 son), he and his wife went to the U.K. where he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1935. After spending a short time at the Orthopaedic Centre in Liverpool, he worked successively as the first resident to the Head of Surgery at the new British Postgraduate School in London, secondly as acting Senior Surgeon at one of the major County Council hospitals in London, and finally as Resident Surgical Officer at the Royal Salop Infirmary in Shrews­bury. Later, in 1936, he spent several months in Rochester, U.S.A., at the Mayo Clinic. In 1937, after working again in London for a short period, he and his wife, returned to Johannesburg.

He was offered a part-time appointment as lecturer in Clinical Anatomy by Prof. Raymond Dart at the University of the Witwatersrand. He also enlisted as a part-time officer with the rank of major in the Union Defence Force. When war broke out in 1939 he was called up as a major attached to the 7th Field Ambulance. He was sent to London to help with the enormous number of war casualties in need of plastic and reconstructive surgery, particularly during the Battle of Britain. On his return to South Africa he took charge of the Brenthurst Military Hospital, which he founded. In 1944 part of Brenthurst was severely damaged by fire and after it was restored the house was returned to its owner, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer. At this time it was decided by the Military Authorities to treat all plastic surgery cases under one roof in a new hospital founded on the Tara estate.

At the same time Sir Ernest Oppenheimer was approached by the Witwatersrand University and asked to donate some funds for their proposed Chair of Plastic, Maxillo Facial and Oral Surgery. At the age of 35 Dr Penn was appointed first professor of Plastic Surgery at the Witwatersrand University. He resigned from the University in 1950 in order to found his own clinic, which he named the Brenthurst Clinic. In 1958 the Clinic moved into new premises owned by Dr Penn, which were specially designed for the clinic and which were extended in 1964.

When the Israeli war broke out in 1948 Dr Penn was invited to Israel to set up plastic surgery facilities there. He spent several months in the country and made a number of trips between Israel and Johannesburg. He not only organised medical services in that country but also became a permanent Honorary Visiting Professor of Plastic Surgery to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

At Dr Albert Schweitzer's invitation he went to Lambarene early in 1956. Strong bonds of friendship and co-operation were tied during this first visit, which lasted until after Schweitzer's death. A great deal of help was given to the hospital at Lambarene by the "S.A.Friends of Albert Schweitzer", an organisation based in Johannesburg. After Gabon gained its independence, it became increasingly difficult to arrrange for doctors, nurses and technicians to be sent to Lambarene from Johannesburg.

In 1957 Dr Penn was invited to Japan by Norman Cousins, then editor of the "Saturday Review", and also founder and Chairman of the Hiroshima Peace Centre Associates, an organisation founded in the U.S, to help Atom bomb victims. He worked in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki with his own anaesthetist and theatre nurse. While there he launched the Japanese Society of Plastic Surgery in Tokyo.

He was invited to visit Taiwan in 1968 in order to review the plastic surgery situation in that country and to recommend improvements. In 1969 he again went to Taiwan taking his son, by then a qualified doctor, with him as his assistant.

Apart from his appointment as permanent visiting Professor to Jerusalem University he also held visiting professorships to the Universities of Harvard, Oxford, Ann Arbor, U.C.L.A., Pittsburgh and New York. During World War II while he was surgeon in Charge of Brenthurst Military Hos­pital, he was also Consultant Plastic Surgeon to the South African Army. In 1953 he was invited to become the first Commonwealth representative on the Council of the British Association of Plastic Surgeons. When the American Society of Plastic and reconstructive surgery was founded, he became an honorary Associate Member representing Africa and the Middle East

Dr Penn is an artistic and accomplished sculptor whose work is on display in various places in South Africa and elsewhere. A bust of Gen. Smuts was commissioned for the Jan Smuts Airport, and a statue of Henrietta Stockdale is in Kimberley. His bust of Albert Schweitzer was presented to Strasbourg, and those of Ben Gurion and Gen. Dayan are in Israel, and one of Lister is in England. He also sketches and paints, and has written four books.

Sources used

THE COLLECTION

The Jack Penn Collection was presented to the University of Cape Town Libraries by Dr Jack Penn in September 1983. It contains 418 items of which 326 form the correspondence he had with Dr Albert Schweitzer and members of his staff at Lambarene, and also other medical and nursing personnel who worked for sessions at Dr Schweitzer's hospital. There is also a very clear indication of the tremendous work done by way of co-ordinating supplies of equipment and medical and technical assistance for Dr Schweitzer's hospital from Johannesburg by Dr Penn.

There are interesting articles by different authors, as well as by Dr Penn, about Dr Schweitzer and the work done at his hospital, and three published articles by Dr Schweitzer. Some of the articles are very well illustrated. These illustrations are augmented by some very interesting photographs.

The collection also contains copies of 4 books by Dr Penn.

THE JACK PENN COLLECTION

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