1. Dawson Williams gave up his medical practice to edit the BMJ and published influential studies into "mental healing" and bogus medications that exposed numerous preparations as "valueless" and containing only minute quantities of what was claimed.
Dawson Williams retired in 1928 after thirty years of editorship.
Dawson Williams was born in Ulleskelf, Yorkshire, on 17 July 1854 to the reverend John Mack Williams, previously the rector of Burnby and of Irish and Welsh descent, and his wife Ellen Monsarrat, of Spanish and Huguenot descent.
Dawson Williams stayed on at UCL to study medicine, graduating in 1878, and then taking up junior posts at UCL, the Victoria Hospital for Children and the Brompton Hospital.
Dawson Williams met his lifelong friend, Herbert R Spencer at UCL, which consequently established a close tie between UCL and the BMJ.
Dawson Williams wrote several articles including contributions to Clifford Allbutt's System of Medicine, and in 1898, he published Medical Diseases of Infancy and Childhood.
Dawson Williams was closely connected with the British Medical Journal throughout his career, being first a reporter, then principal sub-editor, and then assistant editor in 1895.
Dawson Williams succeeded the editor, Ernest Hart, in 1898, following which he gave up much of his clinical practice, ultimately leaving it completely from 1902 to dedicate his whole time to the journal's editorship which he held for thirty years.
In 1904, Dawson Williams commissioned Edward Harrison, a renowned pharmacist, to analyse the contents of a variety of proprietary drugs.
Dawson Williams died on 27 February 1928, at his home near Bourne End, Buckinghamshire.