Archie Cochrane’s experiences during the Spanish Civil War, where he served as a member of a British Ambulance Unit, and later during World War II as Medical Officer at a number of prisoner of war2 camps, had a profound and lasting effect on his future practice of medicine.
In 1960 he was appointed David Davies Professor of Tuberculosis and Chest Diseases at the Welsh National School of Medicine, now Cardiff University School of Medicine and nine years later became Director of the new Medical Research Council’s Epidemiology Research Unit at 4 Richmond Road, Cardiff.
His 1971 Rock Carling monograph Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections of Health Services3 was very influential. These ideas and his advocacy of randomized controlled trials eventually led to the development of the Cochrane Library database of systematic reviews, the establishment of the UK Cochrane Centre in Oxford and the international Cochrane Collaboration.
The Cochrane Archive 4 is held at Llandough Hospital, Penarth.
References
^ Cochrane, Archibald L; Blythe, Max (1989), One Man's Medicine: An autobiography of Professor Archie Cochrane, London: British Medical Journal, ISBN 0 7279 0277 6
^ Cochrane, A L (1984), "Sickness in Salonica: my first, worst, and most successful clinical trial", Br Med J (Clin Res Ed)289: 1726–1727
^ Cochrane, A L (1971), Effectiveness and Efficiency: Random Reflections of Health Services (2nd ed.), London: Nuffield Provincial Hospitals Trust (published 1989), ISBN 0 7279 0282 2
