Janet Lane-Claypon

Who was Janet Lane-Claypon?

Janet Elizabeth Lane-Claypon was an English physician. She was one of the founders of the science of epidemiology, pioneering the use of so-called cohort studies and case-control studies.

Born into an affluent Lincolnshire family, she was privately educated and entered the London School of Medicine for Women in 1898. A brilliant student, she won various honours, fellowships and degrees, including both an MD and PhD. By 1910, Lane-Claypon had acquired student honors, distinctive fellowships, and a string of degrees, including a doctorate in physiology and an M.D. She first put these skills to work in the research lab, investigating the biochemistry of milk and aspects of reproductive physiology, including, importantly, the structure and function of the ovary and the hormonal control of lactation. In 1912, Lane-Claypon published a ground-breaking study of two cohorts of babies, fed cow's milk and breast milk respectively. Lane-Claypon found that those babies fed breast milk gained more weight, and she used statistical methods to show that the difference was unlikely to occur by fluke alone.