Loswel Braun - Los, as he became known - was born in Ottosdal in the Western Transvaal, where his father, Joseph Braun, was a farmer. He was educated at the South African College High School and College in Cape Town where he took the first two years of his medical course before moving to England in 1913 to study at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital. Immediately after gaining his Conjoint qualification, Braun went to serve with a field unit of the RAMC in Mesopotamia and the North West Frontier of India. In 1919 he returned on demobilization to Bart’s where successively he was clinical clerk, house physician and chief assistant to J.E. Drysdale. He then became chief clinical assistant to Arnold W Stott at the Westminster, and also studied pathology under F.W. Andrews and Sir Bernard Spilsbury, and paediatrics with Hugh Thursfield, before returning to South Africa in 1922.
Braun was appointed as Assistant Physician, then Physician, and later Honorary Consulting Physician to the Johannesburg Hospital, where he served until his death. He was ultimately involved in the development of the Medical School of the University of the Witwatersrand; services recognized by the award of an honorary LLD by that University in 1952.
During the second world war Braun first took charge of a Casualty Clearing Station in Mombasa and then, with the rank of Colonel, commanded 106 S.A. General Hospital in Egypt. Subsequently he was Commanding Officer of Baragwanath Military Hospital in Johannesburg. He was mentioned in despatches and awarded the OBE.
Braun played a particularly active role in the Medical Association of South Africa, and was twice President of the Southern Transvaal Branch, in 1940 and 1946. He was a member of the Federal Council from 1939 to 1952, Vice-President of the Association in 1951 and President in 1952. He was awarded the Gold Medal in 1956 for his distinguished services to the Association.
Braun was also elected member of the South African Medical and Dental Council from 1949 to 1958.
In 1922 Braun married Freda Myers, the daughter of a Johannesburg stockbroker, and there were three daughters of the marriage.
He was a very keen golfer and was Amateur Champion of the Transvaal in 1932 and a semi-finalist in the South African Amateur championship in 1934.
He retired from private consultancy practice in 1964 and devoted much time in his last three years to the successful running of a poultry and turkey farm some 20 miles outside Johannesburg.
Los Braun had a dynamic personality. He was a brilliant and popular teacher of clinical medicine, had a keen sense of humour, was an enthusiast in flower gardening, and a fine sportsman.
LS Robertson
Sir Gordon Wolstenholme
[Brit.med.J., 1968, 2, 307; Cape Times, Capetown, 17 Dec 1968; S.A.Medical Journal, 10 Feb 1968, 142]