Paul Wilson Brand, (17 July 1914 – 8 July 2003) was a pioneer in developing tendon transfer techniques for use in the hands of those with leprosy. He was the first physician to appreciate that leprosy is not a disease of the tissue but of the nerves: it is the loss of the sensation of pain which makes sufferers susceptible to injury and leads to tissue rotting away, especially in the extremities. Brand contributed extensively to the fields of hand surgery and hand therapy through his publications and lectures, and wrote popular autobiographical books about his childhood, his parents' missionary work, and his philosophy about the valuable properties of pain. One of his best-known books, co-written with Christian writer Philip Yancey, is Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants (1993), republished in 1997 as The Gift of Pain.
Early and personal life
He was born to missionary parents (Jesse and Evelyn "Granny" Brand) and grew up in the Kolli Hills of Tamil Nadu, India, until he was sent to the United Kingdom in 1923 for education. In his books he gives vivid descriptions of his time as a boy in India with regular bouts of dysentery and malaria in the area known as "Kolli Malai". His father died in 1929 of blackwater fever, when Brand was 15. Brand trained carpentry and then studied medicine at University College Hospital during the Second World War, later gaining his surgical qualifications whilst working as a casualty surgeon in the London Blitz. In 1944 he was appointed as a surgical officer at Great Ormond Street Hospital. He met his wife, Margaret, in medical school where she was a surgeon, specialising in ophthalmology.
Career
In 1946, he was invited to join the staff of the Christian Medical College & Hospital in Vellore, India. After a visit to the Leprosy Sanatorium at Chingleput, a government institution that was at the time under church management, Brand was motivated to explore the reasons for the deformities developed in those with Hansen's disease. After careful observation and research, he came to understand that most injuries in Hansen's disease patients were a result of the pain insensitivity they experienced, and not directly caused by the Hansen's disease bacilli. He pioneered the use of dapsone as treatment for the disease. In 1950, with a donation from a missionary woman, Brand established the New Life Center, Vellore, as a model rehabilitation center for Hansen's disease patients. The center was a village environment in the residential area of the Christian Medical College & Hospital campus. This helped dispel the stigma that was so prevalent even among medical professionals.
In 1964 the Brands returned to London where he worked with the Leprosy Mission;
A biography was written on him, Ten Fingers for God by Dorothy Clarke Wilson.
His appreciation of the importance and value of pain is well described in his 1993 book with Philip Yancey, Pain: The Gift Nobody Wants. He saw pain as vital for the preservation of healthy tissue in anyone leading a normal life and he gives horrifying descriptions of the results of insensitivity in those with Hansen's disease or congenital absence of pain. He goes on to question the pursuit of pleasure in Western society and offers practical ways to ameliorate the effects of pain. The book contains a foreword by Surgeon General C. Everett Koop.
Family
Brand was married to Margaret and they had six children.