Sir Roger Bannister Interview (page: 9 / 9) Track and Field Legend	Print Interview

Without making a false analogy between sports and scientific research, did you find yourself applying some of the athletic mentality to the pursuit of your goals as a medical scientist?

Sir Roger Bannister: Well, sport is simple. It's black and white. It's very limited.

Medicine is complex. Indescribably difficult. It involves collaboration. There aren't lonely peaks. I mean, there are Nobel Laureates who work on one particular subject in isolation and are so clever that they are able to perceive what others cannot. And I was, of course, not that kind of a scientist, and clinical medicine is not like that, and I knew this. I knew it, and I chose it, because I felt that the capacity to apply yourself to be alert to new developments, and to be prepared to spend the time writing papers, would lead to a fascinating life in which a reputation would be created for hard work, for -- one hopes -- kindness and effectiveness in dealing with patients and clinical problems, and then ultimately the kind of problems of organizing medical committees and having a responsibility thrust upon one by colleagues who wished one to undertake particular duties of this kind.
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Gradually, administration begins to come into the equation, but after a car accident when I was 45 -- which I had quite severe injuries -- it wasn't my fault, but there we are. I was badly injured and I had a time to rethink. And I was then getting too busy in too many directions. I was being asked to see more private patients and so on, and I made the conscious decision then that I wouldn't do any more private practice and there was already an area of research, the autonomic nervous system, which was relatively neglected. It was between cardiology and neurology, and these areas in between are often the province of neither specialty, and so can lag behind. And that was the area I chose and this changed the second half of my life, if you like, because I then set up a laboratory.
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At that stage there were no methods of testing for diseases of the autonomic nervous system. We saw all kinds of patients who might have these kinds of diseases and created a battery of tests. At the same time, the method of assaying chemicals like noradrenaline that are released by nerve endings were being developed, so one had a direct biochemical way of measuring the activity of this system. I developed it with colleagues in London at the same time that NIH in Bethesda were also doing it. I was near the leading edge, and set up Autonomic Research Society. Now there are similar research societies in the United State and other countries.

At this time I was traveling very widely and speaking at medical conferences on these areas, and I wrote the first textbook on diseases of the autonomic nervous system. It's now in its fourth edition.

You returned to Oxford as Master of Pembroke College. Were you at Pembroke as an undergraduate?

Sir Roger Bannister: No I hadn't, but if you've been in Oxford you understand the place. There are 30 different colleges and they all work in rather similar ways. They have their points of interest and fame; Pembroke College happened to be the college of Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Could you tell us about your activity with the Sports Council?

Sir Roger Bannister: In Britain the government have always been interested in the public's attention to recreation, going back 50 or 60 years. It's thought to be part of a full life. And yet the general population have not had the opportunity to take part in sport. There are very few swimming pools and sport centers. So a Sports Council was set up in 1964, and I was a member of that original council to remedy these defects. I became the chairman when it was given independence like our Arts Council. This is a kind of public involvement which does not exist in the United States. After I served my term as chairman, I chaired some committees to look at problems like whether university students had the opportunity to take part in sports. We started a campaign called Sport for All. That was a slogan but it drew attention to the fact that sports should not be the province of any small group and we weren't concerned as much with Olympic gold medals as with the opportunities for all. That has continued to be a very important part of my life. In a way it may be of more long-term significance than anything else.

If everyone has a chance, then those who have particular skills, may be more likely to burst their way through, through their ambition and hard work. I remembered this from my own youth. This process has continued. We have just had the Olympic Games in Sydney and for a small country we have been surprisingly successful. It's not being jingoistic to want your country to do well.

There is another aspect that I am very worried about: the corruption which has followed professionalism and the abuse of drugs. When I was chairman of this Sports Council we set up the first testing program for anabolic steroids, still the testing that's used, but there are other drugs that have come along. The International Olympic Committee and other world bodies have not been as diligent as they should have been in trying to keep the testing up-to-date. It has been bad news for them and for their organizations and their sponsorships. I feel strongly about that.

Sir Roger, thank you very much for speaking with us.

You're welcome.

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