Professor Sir Martin Roth FRS in interview with Sir Gordon Wolstenholme

Professor Sir Martin Roth, the first president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (1971-75), and professor of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge (1977-85), begins the interview by discussing a Hungarian family background, medical studies at St Mary's Hospital, and early career appointments. There is reference to the St Mary's unit at Park Prewett Hospital, where he developed an interest in neurology, and the Maida Vale Hospital, where Russell Brain encouraged his move to psychiatry. He speaks of his appointment to the Maudsley Hospital and he acknowledges the influence of Aubrey Lewis and Eliot Slater. The discussion moves to his contribution to an influential textbook Clinical Psychiatry, first published in 1954, and written in collaboration with Eliot Slater and William Mayer-Gross, with whom he worked at the Crichton Royal Hospital, Dumfries. He then talks of the period as director of research at Graylingwell Hospital in the early fifties, his appointment as professor of psychological medicine at the University of Newcastle (1956-77), and his association with the MRC. In reviewing his career, he discusses his research interests in mental disorders of the elderly, depressive illness and anxiety states, and he pays tribute to David Kay, who was his colleague for twenty-seven years. There follows discussion of the Royal Medico Psychological Association receiving a supplemental charter in 1971 to become the Royal College of Psychiatrists, his election as the first president, and the move to Belgrave Square. In the final part of the interview, he considers the period as professor of psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, and he talks of a collaborative study with Leslie Iversen, who was director of the MRC Neurochemical Pharmacology Unit at Cambridge. The interview concludes with an outline of how the techniques of molecular biology are being used to investigate Alzheimer's disease