Dr. Cicely Delphine Williams, OM (1893 – 1992) was born at Kew Park, Bethel Town, Westmoreland. She was a paediatrician and is best known for her research and treatment of children with kwashiorkor in Ghana, advocating against the substitution of condensed milk for breast milk in Malaysia and later Jamaican Vomiting Sickness (ackee poisoning). Dr. Williams studied in England, obtaining her medical degree from Oxford in 1923, one of the first women to do so. Later, she specialising in paediatrics and tropical nutrition and hygiene and went to work for the Colonial Medical Service. This took her to Ghana in 1929 where she identified protein deficiency as the cause of the disease kwashiorkor, when other doctors thought it was a vitamin deficiency. Later, working in Malaya finding many babies dying, she advocated against the use of sweetened condensed milk and other artificial baby milks as substitutes for human breast milk. Whilst in Malaya during World War 2, the Japanese invaded and she was placed in a Prison Camp in 1942. At the end of the war in 1945 she was found near dead and nursed back to health. In 1948 she was made the first head of the World Health Organisation’s Maternal and Child Health organisation in Geneva. Her work in Jamaica on Vomiting Sickness between 1951 and 1953 led to identification of ackee poisoning as the cause. Dr. Williams continued to work as a lecturer, advisor and speaker until she was in her 90s. In 1968, Dr Williams was made a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) by Queen Elizabeth I and the Order of Merit by the Jamaican Government in 1972. She was awarded honorary doctorates of science from The University of the West Indies in 1969 and from The University of Ghana in and in 1986.
Dr. Cicely Delphine Williams
Medicine
Paediatrician & Researcher
Jamaica
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