The Harrison Lecture. The history and role of Mycoplasma genitalium in sexually transmitted diseases.

It is an honour to be invited by the officers of the Medical Society for the Study of Venereal Diseases (MSSVD) to give the eighth Harrison Lecture and, indeed, to follow in the footsteps of those who have been leaders and influential in the field. Lawrence Whittaker Harrison was such a man.' He was born just outside Blackburn, Lancashire, in 1876 and, clearly, he was a Blackburn Rover, moving away to be educated at Manchester Grammar School and then to Glasgow University to study medicine. Two years after qualification, Harrison joined the Army Medical Services and served in the South African war and then in India where his interest in venereal diseases was first aroused. In the First World War, working in France, he saw and managed many cases of venereal disease, all of which was to influence the path he took subsequently. Harrison was a great believer in laboratory experience as a guide to clinical judgement. This stemmed from the fact that he had such experience early in his career, working from 1910 to 1914 on the Wasserman reaction, such that the modification he made to this (the Harrison-Wyler method) was used for a considerable number of years thereafter. After the war he was offered a post in Edinburgh to lecture on venereal diseases and to set up a clinic there but, instead, became Advisor to the Ministry of Health in London, a position that also involved setting up a venereal disease clinic at St Thomas's Hospital. The practice of medicine and the principles of management that Harrison laid down in instituting that clinic so many years ago are those behind the running of genitourinary medicine (GUM) clinics today. He was a founder member and twice President of the MSSVD and was widely influential.