My friend Alex Paton, who has died aged 91, was a distinguished physician who never sought high office in medicine but did good quietly, mentoring junior doctors, influencing the profession, and using his knowledge of liver disease to improve alcoholism treatment. When still a medical student, he spent May 1945 assisting in the liberation of Belsen.
He was born in India to an army colonel, Alex, and his wife, Sybil (nee Mears). He attended Canford school, Dorset, and entered St Thomas’ hospital medical school during the blitz. In 1945 he and others volunteered to go to the Netherlands to help with famine relief, briefed by Richard Doll, who went on to show the link between smoking and cancer. At the last minute they were diverted to Germany as Belsen had been discovered a few days earlier.
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