Cedric Carter - CGS Founder

Biographical notes on Professor Cedric O Carter, MA, DM, FRCP
(1917-1984)

Professor Cedric Carter was director of the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Genetics Unit at the Institute of Child Health, London until his retirement in 1982. He died in 1984 at the age of 67.

It was Cedric Carter who started the Clinical Genetics Society in 1970 and as its first president guided it in the early years. On his retirement the Society honoured his contribution to clinical genetics by establishing The Carter Lecture, the first of which was given in 1984.

Cedric Carter was a private, modest person, greatly loved by those who worked with him and knew him, who had an enormous influence on clinical genetics. Not only did he train or influence many of those now practising or teaching clinical genetics in Britain but he was also largely responsible for the network of genetic clinics and centres with consultant posts and for the official recognition of clinical genetics as a separate specialty in the NHS. His influence extended abroad, and he helped to establish clinical genetics in many parts of the world and was awarded several honours.

Cedric Carter developed his interests as research fellow in congenital malformations at the Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street in 1948. In 1952, as part time research fellow in genetics, he joined Dr Fraser Roberts when he started the genetic clinic at the hospital. He became a member of the scientific staff of the Medical Research Council’s Genetic Unit when this was established in the Institute of Child Health in 1957. He was appointed consultant geneticist at the Hospital for Sick Children in 1958 and at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital in 1973.

In 1964 he took over from Dr Fraser Roberts as director of the MRC unit. He was the consultant advisor in genetics to the Department of Health and Social Security from 1972 and professor of clinical genetics in the University of London from 1975 until his retirement.

Professor Carter’s major scientific contributions concerned the common congenital malformations: not only did he contribute greatly to the understanding of genetic influences but he provided the data on which genetic advice is now based. If one traces back to the origin of the figures used for genetic counselling in many of the common congenital malformations, it will turn out to be one of his meticulous family studies. These studies, usually based on a consecutive series of cases presenting at the Hospital for Sick Children, provided reliable data on the incidence of the disorder in first, second and third degree relatives, and allowed him to consolidate the concept of multifactorial inheritance as applied to congenital malformations. A particularly important observation referred to by some as the Carter Effect is the higher incidence in relatives when the index case is the least commonly affected sex. This phenomenon was beautifully demonstrated in his study of pyloric stenosis, where the incidence is highest in the sons of affected women and lowest in daughters of affected men.

Human genetics was perhaps a more accurate description of his subject because he was deeply interested in the genetic contribution to normal variation, particularly intelligence.

He wrote over 70 papers reporting original work, over 100 review articles, and over 30 chapters in books, and 3 books.