Letters recommending sodium cromoglicate for itchy eyes (14 April) are testament to a true drug discoverer of the late 60s who had an interesting earlier life. He was Roger Altounyan, born in Aleppo, Syria, and trained as a physician in Britain. Starting from khellin, a herbal remedy, he and his colleagues made and tested many variations, ultimately producing cromoglicate. Altounyan, as an asthmatic, tested these compounds on himself.
Before this, he had been a fighter pilot and then a flying instructor, but before that he had a place in children’s literature as Roger, the “ship’s boy” of the Swallow, in Swallows and Amazons. Arthur Ransome knew the Altounyan family in the Lake District and taught the children to sail.
Ian Skidmore
Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire
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