Frances Rix Ames was a South African neurologist, psychiatrist, and human rights activist, best known for leading the medical ethics inquiry into the death of anti-apartheid activist Steve Biko, who died from medical neglect after being tortured in police custody.
21 Facts About Frances Ames
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Frances Ames risked her personal safety and academic career in her pursuit of justice, taking the dispute to the South African Supreme Court, where she eventually won the case in 1985.
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Frances Ames studied the effects of cannabis on the brain and published several articles on the subject.
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Frances Ames headed the neurology department at Groote Schuur Hospital before retiring in 1985, but continued to lecture at Valkenberg and Alexandra Hospital.
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Frances Ames was born at Voortrekkerhoogte in Pretoria, South Africa, on 20 April 1920, to Frank and Georgina Frances Ames, the second of three daughters.
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Frances Ames's mother, who was raised in a Boer concentration camp by Ames' grandmother, a nurse in the Second Boer War, was a nurse.
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Frances Ames never knew her father, who abandoned his wife and three daughters.
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Steve Biko 8.
Frances Ames enrolled at the University of Cape Town medical school where she received her MBChB degree in 1942.
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In Cape Town, Frances Ames interned at Groote Schuur Hospital; she worked in the Transkei region as a general practitioner.
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Frances Ames earned her MD degree in 1964 from UCT, the first woman to do so.
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Frances Ames became head of the neurology department at Groote Schuur Hospital in 1976.
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Frances Ames retired in 1985, but continued to work part-time at both Valkenberg and Alexandra Hospital as a lecturer in the UCT Psychiatry and Mental Health departments.
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Frances Ames studied the effects of cannabis in 1958, publishing her work in The British Journal of Psychiatry as "A clinical and metabolic study of acute intoxication with Cannabis sativa and its role in the model psychoses".
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Frances Ames's work is cited extensively throughout the cannabis literature.
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Frances Ames observed first-hand how cannabis relieved spasm in MS patients and helped paraplegics in the spinal injuries ward of her hospital.
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Frances Ames continued to study the effects of cannabis in the 1990s, publishing several articles about cannabis-induced euphoria and the effects of cannabis on the brain.
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Frances Ames was married to editorial writer David Castle of the Cape Times and they had four sons.
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Frances Ames was 47 years old when her husband died unexpectedly in 1967.
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Frances Ames wrote about the experience in her memoir, Mothering in an Apartheid Society.
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Frances Ames was cremated, and according to her wishes, her ashes were combined with hemp seed and dispersed outside of Valkenberg Hospital where her memorial service was held.
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Frances Ames testified during the medical hearings at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1997.