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CARDIOVASCULAR JOURNAL OF AFRICA • Vol 24, No 2, March 2013
AFRICA
3
In Memoriam
Professor Andries Jacob Brink
29 August 1923 – 17 October 2012
It has been my privilege to have known the late Prof Andries
Brink for almost 50 years. We first met early on in my career,
and I had dinner with him only a few months before he died.
Andries’ career has been highly distinguished. Although of a
quiet and humble nature, his thinking and actions have always
been clear and direct. Born in 1923, he graduated from Medical
School at the University of Witwatersrand with a first-class
honours MB BCh degree in 1946. Thereafter he worked his way
up at Pretoria University to become senior lecturer in Internal
Medicine in 1953.
From 1956 to 1961 Andries was head of the Department of
Internal Medicine at the University of Stellenbosch and from
1956 to 1969 he was director of the Molecular and Cellular
Cardiac Research Unit at the University of Stellenbosch. He
was chief physician at the Karl Bremer Hospital from 1956 to
1973. Thereafter he became chief cardiologist at the Tygerberg
Hospital from 1973 to 1979. From 1970 to 1976 he was president
of the South African Medical Research Council, while from
1971 to 1983 he was dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences. He
was the personal cardiologist of John Vorster when Vorster was
the president of the Republic of South Africa.
In his lifetime, Andries received more than 30 major awards,
including the prestigious Havenga Prize for Medicine from the
South African Academy of Arts and Science. He also received
gold medals from the University of Stellenbosch, South African
Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust and South African
Heart Association.
Andries’ many publications are equally meritorious
but what caught my eye was a series of seven articles on
electrocardiographic studies, published in the
South African
Medical Journal
in 1959. He and I had a number of conjoint
studies on basic cardiac research, together withAmanda Lochner,
all published in top-ranking journals such the
Lancet
in 1964,
Clinical Science
in 1965 and
Circulation Research
in 1967. He
was founder and editor in chief of the
Cardiovascular Journal of
South Africa
, which later become the
Cardiovascular Journal of
Africa
, in keeping with his personal trans-Africa vision.
But how did I meet Andries and what influence did he have
on me? My first meeting with this remarkable man was in 1962,
over 40 years ago. I was a young research fellow at Harvard
Medical School, trained in basic heart research, and wanting to
return to South Africa. I was aiming to be a physician–scientist.
During a holiday in Cape Town, I went to sound out
the professors of Medicine at Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape
Town, and the Karl Bremer Hospital, run by the University of
Stellenbosch. Andries Brink was a cardiologist with a vision and
he encouraged me. ‘Heart metabolism’, he said ‘is the direction
of the future, and that is what you should do’. Accordingly, when
I eventually returned to South Africa, he welcomed me to his
laboratory at the Karl Bremer Hospital.
Andries had many remarkable talents. In addition to his job as
professor of Internal Medicine and head of the hospital medical
wards, he was completely at home with laboratory work. He
personally oversaw the development of the heart metabolism
laboratory and recruited Amanda Lochner, with whom I worked
closely for many years.
Apart from undertaking weekly ward rounds on a variety of
general medical patients (not just cardiology) and always giving
a concise summary and pertinent recommendation for the house
staff to carry out, he really loved laboratory work. When I went
to climb Kilimanjaro he lent me his rucksack and, what is more,
took over the job of perfusing hearts in the laboratory while I
was away.
Later, when I came back from further training in London
and Oxford, he offered me a job as head of both clinical
endocrinology and his heart research laboratory. That was a
big challenge. Soon Andries and I came to realise that to really
excel, I would need further training in biochemistry. I then went
to work with Nobel Prize winner, Sir Hans Krebs at Oxford.
Eventually, after the first Chris Barnard heart transplant, I
returned to the University of Cape Town Medical School. When
visiting the new Tygerberg Hospital, I had frequent contact with