105-Years-Old: the World's Oldest Doctor?

when we met at his home in central London he tailed there his latest paper had just been published in a medical journal only this month I started by asking him if he thought he was 105 because of his genes or because he'd worked at it my old age is due to luck because the reason I haven't died is and I've been so near death but every time I've just missed it and I think that's the reason I am so lucky to be alive are you still practicing now me do see patients I'm not allowed to fish early to see patients but there is patients very grateful patients still come and I see them but there's always a doctor there and I'm only gossiping with them and you actually got to work for the last two years of his life with Alexander Fleming the discoverer of penicillin I had to see him every day Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday at 10 o'clock to talk about a ward that's technically he was in charge of but we he was completely uninterested in clinical medicine and we talked about all sorts of things I should have written a book about what we did talk about but I've never have built if you don't mind my saying so you were the oldest person I've ever spoken to and I'm wondering I mean you were born during just the build-up to the First World War can you remember anything from the First World War yes I can remember receiving postcards from my father from Egypt my father coming back from the war just before the war finished I remember great jollification my mother and all the curfuffle that went on because he he was back in and and he'd survive France and everything else but your own war took you to a point where you were a prisoner of war of the Japanese yes I was never there that was a second prisoner of war in Singapore on the 15th of every 1942 and remember that strangely although I was on the outskirts sort of Singapore not in secret board so I think there were three planes came over and dropped what would be now called I think small bombs but I remember it's the only time in my life that I went on to got onto my bed because I could hear this bomb swishing down were cross in our own times you actually met Saddam Hussein I never heard of the finiman but what was interesting about him of course and he was on desensitizing injections for his asthma and his allergy on all definitions of energy and all definitions of asthma he had neither but if he wasn't sleeping eating or praying he was smoking a cigarette so he was smoking over 40 cigarettes a day and that was what was wrong with him so I say and he was the most grateful patient I've ever had as far as I was concerned it was a very pleasant patient now you said that as a child you really played with nature there were no televisions no radios and mobile phones no computers nothing we entertained ourselves in fact I remember the first video ever I heard when I was aged 10 at the prep school and I thought this is marbles that you could send noises it were through there I think the main difference as I see it didn't now everyone is organized to do all sorts of things with all the modern technology and so on in my day when certainly when I was young we organize ourselves do you have a mobile phone no and do you do you watch television i watch a lot of television yes do you have a computer nope no no no gosh and how much longer do you think you want to live well I did never were I dealt with death so much myself the thought of death doesn't worry me would you still describe yourself as happy yes I'm very happy I didn't I never get depressed but had been miserable or 50 now if you hadn't came back here I decided I was going to start a new life and I never told my wife for one and my children came out anything about convolve although I just wouldn't mention it at all here is a bit of my life which wasn't very pleasant and I wasn't I wasn't going to think about it again dr. Franklin it's been a privilege to talk to you thank you very much Lee personal told me you

Channel: Channel 4 News

Views: 67,432

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Keywords: Channel 4 News, doctor, allergy, retirement age, centenarian, old doctors, healthcare, pollen count, william frankland

Id: ol4EUOji0as

Length: 5min 7sec (307 seconds)

Published: Fri May 12 2017