Scientific Legacy

From humble beginnings in Ilawe-Ekiti (rural southern Nigeria), Kayode Osuntokun became a dominant and inspirational figure on the global neuroscientific stage.

Early years

Kayode had his primary and secondary education at Holy Trinity School, Ilawe-Ekiti, Emmanuel School and finally Christ School, Ado Ekiti.

Kayode (middle of back row) pictured in Christ School’s football team

In 1961, he graduated (MBBS) with distinctions in Pathology and Obstetrics & Gynaecology from University College, Ibadan.

Kayode and his wife, Olabopo, whom he met at medical school at University College, Ibadan. They were two of the three students who graduated with distinction in 1961, he in Pathology and Obstetrics & Gynaecology and she in Surgery.

Researcher par excellence

Shortly after graduating, Kayode was invited by Professor Harold Scarborough to spend a year at the Welsh National School of Medicine in Cardiff, where he worked as a Senior House Officer. In 1965, he was awarded the Smith and Nephew fellowship and went on to study under Professors Henry Miller and John Walton, in Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK and the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queens Square, London.

On his return to Nigeria, he started a career spanning three decades at the University of Ibadan and University College Hospital, Ibadan, and other institutions, dedicated to neuro-epidemiology and clinical and investigative neurology. This culminated in the mid-1990s in the groundbreaking trans-cultural neuro epidemiological study of dementias in collaboration with National Institute of Health, Bethesda, and the Indiana University Medical Center, Indianapolis.

He was a world authority on the biochemistry of tropical ataxic neuropathy through his epidemiological research on the neuropathic effects of the dietary habits of people in Southern Nigeria. Known locally as “rase rase”, the clinical features of the neuropathy became known in medical publications and lectures as the “Osuntokun sign”.

Kayode as a young doctor attending to a patient

His other main research interests include:

Cerebrovascular diseases
The epilepsies
The neurology of infective diseases
Biological psychiatry
Medical education

A prolific author and firm believer in the sharing of scientific knowledge, during his tragically curtailed life he was published 321 times in Nigerian, African and international journals; attended 275 scientific conferences at which he issued a total of 168 communications; and delivered 58 guest lectures.

Kayode pictured at some of the scientific conferences and gatherings to which he made an enormous contribution

Academic, clinician and medical educationist

Kayode was awarded numerous postgraduate degrees and appointed to the fellowship of prestigious medical colleges. Some highlights:

1969: Ph. D (Ibadan)
1971: M.D. (Lond.)
1974: Fellow, Royal College of Physicians
1976: Fellow, West Africa College of Physicians
1977: D.Sc. (Lond.)

His appointments and experience included:

1966: Consultant Physician in Neurology and Medicine, University College Hospital
1968-1970: Senior Lecturer in Neurology and Medicine, University of Ibadan
1970: Professor of Medicine, University of Ibadan
1972-1974: Head, Department of Medicine, University of Ibadan
1974-1978: Dean, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ibadan
1978-1979: Consultant Physician (Neurologist) and Commonwealth Professorship in Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital
1983-1985: Chief Executive, Medical Director and Provost, WHO Collaborating Centre for Research and Training and Aro Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Aro
1985-1990: Chief Medical Director/Chief Executive, University College Hospital, Ibadan
1987-1990: Chairman, WHO’s Global Advisory Committee on Health Research
1989: First Chairman, Nigerian National Advisory Committee on Health Research
1989-1990: Visiting Professor of Neurology, Department of Psychiatry, University of Indiana
1991: Wellcome Trust Overseas Fellow, Cambridge University School of Clinical Medicine, Addenbrooke’s Hospital

In addition, Kayode served as an adviser to and member of panels set up by the World Health Organisation on over one hundred occasions.

Kayode’s brilliant career garnered him myriad academic prizes and awards, including:

1956-1961: College Scholarship, University College, Ibadan
1961: Sir Kofo Abayomi’s Prize for the highest marks in Medicine and Pathology at the final MB. BS. Examination, University College, Ibadan
1971: Sir Langley Memorial Prize, School of Tropical Medicine, University of London
1977: Frederick Murgatroyd Prize of the Royal College of Physicians, London for “important contribution to the Science and Practice of Medicine in the Tropics”
1989: Dr Charles R Drew World Medical Prize, Howard University, Washington DC

National honours

His achievements were also recognized nationally in Nigeria where in 1984, he was conferred with the title of Officer of the Federal Republic. In 1984, he was the sole recipient of the Nigerian National Merit Award, which is the highest national honour for distinguished contribution at national and international levels in the Sciences, Medicine, Literature Arts and Culture.

His impact

The impact Kayode’s work had on the national and international neuroscientific community was best expressed in the obituaries published after his death.

In a piece titled “The Marco Polo of Africa Neurology”, Kayode’s colleagues at the University of Ibadan, Professors Adeoye Lambo, Oladipo Akinkugbe and Kayode Oyediran wrote that:

“In the mid-1960 he set out to put African Neurology on the global map, describing first the natural history of a number of neurological disorders such as Neuropathies, Epilepsy, Diabetes, Headache and migraine, Cerebrovascular disorders, one by one producing for each, a classic treatise with a tropical flavor in some of the world’s leading clinical and neurological journals, addressing the simmering conflict in our understanding “

In the obituary of Kayode, published in The Independent newspaper in the UK, two colleagues with whom he had spent his young, formative years, Sir Professor Keith Peters and Professor Eldred Parry wrote:

“When the history of medicine in the post-colonial era in West Africa is written, the name B.O. Osuntokun will figure large, as a man of great talent, of prodigious application and as a tireless advocate of the study of neurology in the tropics… Those of us who knew Osuntokun from the early student days at Ibadan, where he was as alert and able on the tennis court as in the clinic, through his time in Cardiff to the final chapter in Cambridge, will remember a man of great warmth and humor, a true friend and an exemplary ambassador - for Ado-Ekiti, for the University of Ibadan and for Nigeria…In the early years, he came to Britain to learn, later it was our turn to learn from him"

Main building of the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan, Kayode’s alma mater and his base for much of his career