Epidemiology pioneer, peace advocate and art patron dies

The pioneer of epidemiology in Australasia and passionate peace and environmental advocate and supporter of the arts, Ian Prior, has died. He was 85.
Dr Prior, who died at his Wellington home on February 17, was born in Masterton and began his academic education at the newly-opened Hadlow Preparatory School before going on to the then Wairarapa High School in 1936.
Ian was the second son of Dr Norman Prior with the family name now having served Wairarapa medicine for a hundred years through the children and grandchildren of youngest brother, Dr Owen Prior, who took over the practice from their father before in turn passing on the mantle to his son, Dr Simon Prior.
According to a eulogy Owen presented at the funeral service for his older brother at Old St Paul's Church yesterday, Ian was an enthusiastic and successful athlete during his teenage years, who after shifting south to study medicine at Otago University in 1940, went on to captain the varsity A team and South Island Rugby Team from his position as Number 8.
In 1943, Ian met Elespie Forsyth, whom he married three years later during his first three months as a junior house surgeon at Silverstream Geriatric Hospital. After spending two years at the Wellington hospital, he went on to work as medical registrar at hospitals in New Plymouth and Dunedin before deciding to become a physician specialising in cardiology.
The ambition to work in cardiology took the young couple to England in 1950, where Ian took the role of registrar at Leeds Hospital.
After obtaining his MRCP, he shifted to London to study at the National Heart Hospital before returning to New Zealand to serve as senior medical registrar and assistant physician at Wellington and winning a Fulbright Scholarship to study for six months at the Peter Brent Brigham Hospital in Boston. After returning to Wellington in 1959, he was made the first director of the Academic Medical Unit with similar units also established consequent to his appointment at each of the main centre hospitals in New Zealand.
"In subsequent years he realised that there was a lot of essential basic research needing to be done in the field of epidemiology, and moved the medical unit in to this form of study and became recognised as the father of epidemiology in Australasia."
Epidemiology is the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations and Ian's achievements through the unit have been "modestly but very well set out" in the book he wrote in 2006, Elespie and Ian Memoir of a Marriage, published four years after the death of his beloved wife.
His younger brother said the move toward epidemiology "was done at just the right time" with transportation improvements allowing access to once isolated communities in New Zealand and the South Pacific.
Ian's focus on epidemiology was sparked in the wake of a health report published in 1960, his brother said.
"The report showed that based on mortality Maori were severely disadvantaged in terms of coronary disease, hypertension, and diabetes but nothing had been done to date examining populations in the field.
"Ian decided this was what he would do."
He first studied Maori people living in Whakatane with the help of Tuhoe leader John Rangihau "once Ian made assurances it would help them", with similar studies later conducted in Carterton among Europeans, Tikitiki in Gisborne, and in Tokalau and the Cook Islands.
Ian's love of art blossomed after his marriage to Elespie, who came from a family of art and book collectors, with their donated collection now housed permanently at Aratoi in Masterton though included in tour circuits throughout New Zealand.
Over the years the couple befriended and financially supported several renowned and emerging painters, printers, sculptors, musicians, dancers and singers.
They also donated more than 40 artworks including oil paintings, watercolours, prints and sculptures to Aratoi through Ian's father's bequest (known as the Norman Prior Bequest) and the family trust set up by Elespie's family (the Willi Fels Memorial Trust).
The value of their donations has been estimated to stretch into the "tens of thousands" and include works by leading New Zealand artists such as Melvin Day, Doris Lusk, Colin McCahon, Gary Tricker, M.T. Woollaston, John Drawbridge, Pat Hanly, John Baxter, Denis O'Connor and Olivia Spencer Bower.
The couple also supported and led environmental and social protests including the fight through the 1960s to save Lake Manapouri, battles to prevent milling at Pureora and Whirinaki, and both husband and wife "actually laying down with others on the Wellington airport runway" during the 80s to stop the Springbok tour plane from landing.
He also led a campaign internationally alongside Dr Bernard Lown in Boston and Russian cardiologist Dr Chazov to establish the International Physicians for the prevention of nuclear war; an extant organisation that successfully outlawed nuclear weapons at the International Court.
Owen said his brother's health had been deteriorating over the past two years and that he is survived by three children and grandchildren.