Pathology Professors (1931-1986)

The next fifty years in Pathology

Alexander Murray Drennan (1931 -1954)

Born in Glasgow in 1884, Alexander Murray Drennan graduated MB ChB from the University of Edinburgh in 1906. After a short period as a resident in the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh he joined the University of Edinburgh’s Department of Pathology as  assistant pathologist and later as  lecturer on practical pathology. In 1914 he was appointed the first full-time Professor of Clinical Pathology in the University of Otago in New Zealand but deferred taking up his post on joining the Royal Army Medical Corps as a pathologist.

Before being posted to military hospitals in Mudros (in Greece) and Alexandria  by the RAMC he took part in what was probably his greatest contribution to medicine. This was the development, with Professor James Lorrain Smith and Drs Theodore Rettie, and William Campbell (all of the Department of Pathology) of a mixture of calcium hypochlorite (bleaching powder) and boric acid as a non-toxic antiseptic for use as a first dressing to prevent sepsis and to treat infected wounds. This work was undertaken at the request of the Medical Research Committee (the forerunner of the Medical Research Council) as a response to the requirement to treat the contaminated wounds being sustained on the Western Front. The active component of their antiseptic is hypochlorous acid; this still plays a role in wound management today.  The antiseptic came in two forms, a powder, Eupad and a solution, Eusol, made by adding Eupad to water. Whilst the name Eusol is derived from Edinburgh University Solution the derivation of Eupad is not recorded. The results of their work were published in the BMJ in July 1915. Eupad and Eusol were rapidly and widely adopted and it was only in 2008 that NICE recommended that Eusol be no longer used in the management of wounds healing by secondary intention.

Murray Drennan was demobilised from the RAMC in 1916 to take up his post at the University of Otago. There he undertook the studies which led to his MD thesis of 1924, ‘Studies on goitre in New Zealand’. His conclusion was that the simple goitre endemic in the Dunedin area of New Zealand was a result of dietary iodine deficiency. In 1929 he took up the Chair of Pathology in Queen’s University, Belfast and in 1931 he returned to Edinburgh as Professor of Pathology.

Professor Drennan husbanded the Department in Edinburgh during the difficult years of the Second World War with a reduced staff and additional responsibilities. At one time there were secret caches of essential reagents for histological work hidden in the Pentland Hills in case the premises in Teviot Place had to be vacated as a result on enemy action. These had to be inspected regularly by the Professor and his technician, Mr Jimmy Waugh. By all accounts these were arduous expeditions.  Drennan also took charge, as temporary Lieutenant Commander, RNVR, of the Edinburgh University Naval Division. (He was a keen yachtsman, sailing on the west coast of Scotland before the war.) In addition he was also the Professor of Pathology in the Polish Medical School set up in Edinburgh to train expatriate Polish medical students serving with the Polish forces.

After the war the introduction of the NHS required much reorganisation and Professor Drennan was instrumental in starting the planning for the relocation of the Department into expanded premises that took place under his successor. He retired in 1954 to his cottage in the Trossachs where he indulged his love of fishing and the outdoors and making things in his well-equipped workshop. At the age of 99 he fractured his femur and died in 1984, six weeks after his hundredth birthday.

Apart from the paper on Eusol, Murray Drennan wrote a total of four short research papers and case reports, mainly on neuropathological topics, between 1915 and taking up his chair in Edinburgh. Subsequent to that he published, in 1935, the transcript of a lecture, ‘The Pathology of Osseous Tissue’ he gave on opening a discussion in the Section of Pathology and Bacteriology at the Annual Meeting of the British Medical Association in Melbourne.  Although not a prolific publisher he did have, however, a reputation for encouraging both research and teaching within his departments. His success in this is witnessed by the three textbooks written by members of those departments for which he wrote the forewords: JH Biggart’s Pathology of the Nervous System, a Student’s Introduction, (1936), W Blackwood’s Atlas of Neuropathology (1949), and RF Ogilvie’s Pathological Histology (1945). This latter was the first textbook of histopathology illustrated with colour photomicrographs. These were taken by the legendary micro-photographer, TC Dodds, Laboratory Supervisor in the Department in Edinburgh. In 1947 he was, along with Professor GH Percival, (Grant Professor of Dermatology, University of Edinburgh) and TC Dodds, an author of An Atlas of Histopathology of the Skin. Drennan was an innovative teacher and was one of the four authors of the fourth (1943) edition of Beattie and Dickson’s A Textbook of Pathology, General and Special for the Use of Students and Practitioners. The date of publication is notable given his increased workload during the Second World War.

Professor Drennan’s successor and obituarist, GL Montgomery, said that on taking over the Department, he, Montgomery, ‘soon appreciated the genuine warm affection that the department staff, professional and technical, had for their much loved chief. In time, I learnt also of the countless occasions on which he had extended true practical help when illness or misfortune struck his colleagues. The students, too, knew that they had a friend in Murray: he shared many of their interests in sport and in the naval division.’

George Lightbody Montgomery (1954-1971)

George Lightbody Montgomery was born in 1905 and graduated in Medicine from the University of Glasgow in 1928. He was assistant pathologist at Glasgow Royal Infirmary from 1929 until he became (1931) a lecturer in clinical pathology in Dundee Medical School. He submitted his PhD thesis on ‘Urea excretion in renal disease with particular reference to nephritis and the toxaemias of pregnancy’ to the University of St Andrews in 1935 and graduated two years later.  He returned in 1937 to Glasgow as Gardiner Lecturer in the Pathology of Diseases of Infancy and Childhood and as Pathologist to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children.

During the Second World War he served with the RAMC as Deputy Director of Pathology in the Central Mediterranean and then in South East Asia, reaching the rank of Brigadier. He organised the laboratory control of major infectious diseases including malaria, yellow fever, and parasitic infections and ensured the supply of plasma and saline for battle casualties. After returning to Glasgow on demobilisation he won the Bellahouston Medal with his MD thesis, ‘On the reaction of mammalian lung to trauma’ in 1946. Two years later he was appointed to the St Mungo-Notman Chair of Pathology in the University of Glasgow and Consultant Pathologist to Glasgow Royal Infirmary.

In 1954 he accepted the invitation to take up the Chair of Pathology in Edinburgh. He spent much energy on rationalising the provision of diagnostic pathology to the RIE and its associated hospitals. He oversaw the planning for the new laboratories on the south-west corner of the University Medical School site at Teviot Place. This was in a six-story mini-tower-block overlooking George Square, George Square Lane and Middle Meadow Walk. The ground floor became the (undergraduate) Medical Reading Room whilst the first and second floors were occupied by the Department of Physiology.  The basement housed the workshops where macroscopic pathology museum specimens were processed, items of laboratory equipment built or repaired and the electron microscope (and facilities for preparing material for examination in it) housed. The third floor was largely devoted to undergraduate teaching; NHS diagnostic work was done on the fourth floor whilst the fifth floor was occupied by research laboratories and offices (including the Professor’s own). The animal house, shared with Physiology, was housed on the sixth floor. Previously, the research facilities had been in the New Quadrangle of the Medical School whilst the diagnostic work for the NHS had been based in the Royal Infirmary in a building at the West Gate. Although on appointment Professor Montgomery had been designated ‘Pathologist-in-Charge to the Royal Infirmary’ the senior lecturers appointed to head the RIE laboratory (although University staff) tended to regard themselves as autonomous and not subordinate to the Professor’s authority. Bringing together the various parts of the Department into the new laboratories in 1965 required a considerable amount of diplomacy and tact. Autopsies, however, continued to be undertaken in the old 1879 building at the west gate where a discreet notice would appear slotted on to the door stating ’ Sectio cadaveris hodie’[1] to alert medical students that a demonstration of an autopsy was imminent.

During his time in Edinburgh Professor Montgomery’s research interest was cardio-vascular pathology. He laid a sound foundation for academic pathology in the Department of Pathology. At least seven members of his department went on to occupy chairs of pathology and 315 papers were published from the Department during his tenure of the Chair. He did not, however, neglect diagnostic pathology and he promoted the development of specialisation in diagnostic expertise, particularly in renal and lymphoreticular disease.

He was also a teacher who wrote a two volume Textbook of Pathology (1965) and Pathology for Students of Dentistry (1953). He also followed in his predecessor, A Murray Drennan’s, footsteps by becoming a co-author along with Percival and Dodds of an updated version of the Atlas of histopathology of the skin (1962).

Within Edinburgh he was Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in Edinburgh (1955-57), Chairman of the Edinburgh Postgraduate Board for Medicine (1966-71), and Curator of Patronage of the University. He was appointed CBE in 1960 for his services as Chairman of the Scottish Health Services Council (1954-59).

In the wider world of British pathology he played an influential role in the founding of the Royal College of Pathologists and served as its Vice-President.  He was also Secretary of the Pathological

Society of Great Britain and Ireland.

He retired in 1971 and died in 1993, at the age of 87.

Angus E Stuart said in his obituary of Montgomery that he, ‘always had the interests of undergraduates at heart. His department was run with a controlled laissez-faire which gave responsibility to his staff, who were trusted to do their best.’

Sir Alastair Robert Currie (1971-1986)

Alastair Currie was born on Islay in 1921 and graduated BSc (1941) and MB ChB (1944) from the University of Glasgow. After his house officer appointments he joined the University Department of Pathology in the Royal Infirmary of Glasgow as a lecturer in 1947, becoming senior lecturer (and honorary consultant pathologist to the Royal Infirmary of Glasgow) in 1954.  In 1951 and 1952 he published the first definitive accounts of the pathology of the lesions of familial multiple primary spontaneously-healing squamous carcinoma, a condition recognised by Dr J Ferguson Smith in several Glasgow families. He appreciated that the regression of these tumours must involve some form of cell deletion, a concept he developed later in Aberdeen. As a consequence of his work with Dr Tom Symington he became recognised as an expert on the anterior pituitary and the adrenal cortex, being one of the first to use (in the mid-1950s) fluorescent antibodies to localise antigens in histological sections. This was at a time when pathologists were firmly wedded to haematoxylin and eosin staining of a paraffin section as the definitive pathological technique.

In 1959 Alastair Currie left Glasgow to become the head of the Division of Pathology at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund Laboratories in London where he developed both models of endocrine dependent mammary gland tumours and his talent for strategic planning of research and facilities which he used later with such great effect in Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

In 1962 he was appointed to the Regius Chair of Pathology in Aberdeen where he promoted both the teaching and the research activities of his Department. Teaching was particularly dear to him.  It has been suggested that the reason that he moved from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund was that he missed contact with undergraduates. He developed the importance of pathology in the undergraduate curriculum introducing televised autopsy demonstrations and promoting the intercalated degree in pathology to the most able students. He also made a considerable contribution to the planning of both laboratory services in the NHS and of medical research in the UK, serving on the Medical Research Council and on the Central Advisory Committee for Science and Technology and as Chairman of the Standing Advisory Committee on Laboratory Services for the Scottish Home and Health Department.

It was in Aberdeen that, along with John F Kerr (visiting from Brisbane) and Andrew H Wyllie,  Alastair Currie developed the concept of a specific process of cell deletion as a counterbalance to mitosis in regulating cell populations. After consultation with the Professor of Greek in the University of Aberdeen, Professor James Cormack, this process was christened ‘apoptosis’ from the classical Greek for the falling of petals from a flower or of leaves from a tree. Although Kerr, Wyllie and Currie’s definitive paper was published in 1972 it was another fifteen years or so before apoptosis was recognised as a major process in the regulation of cell populations and not as a scientific curiosity of no real significance in biology.

In 1972 Alastair Currie moved to the Chair of Pathology in the University of Edinburgh. His influence was soon felt.  As at Aberdeen he emphasised to his students the importance of an understanding of pathology in the interpretation of clinical findings. His lectures to the undergaraduates kept them on their toes. His technique was to stride into the lecture theatre, apparently pick a student at random, address them by name and start to quiz them on their understanding of pathology. If they showed any difficulty in answering he would turn to another student and, again addressing them by name, would ask their opinion. Students were always very well prepared for his lectures as they thought he knew every one of them by name and they never knew who would be called upon next. Very few, if any, realised that, rather than memorising a couple of hundred names and faces, he had memorised half a dozen names and faces from the student record cards and the other students were safe, at least for that lecture.

Professor Currie also made the BSc in Pathology the most prestigious and sought after option for students who wished to take an intercalated degree. Only a handful of the most able students were taken each year and a research project, supervised by a senior academic, formed a large part of the course.

Many of the students who had taken the intercalated BSc returned to the Department later to train in pathology. Professor Currie took great care in recruiting trainee pathologists and in persuading those he wanted for his department to take up his offer of a job.  He saw his role as a professor of pathology as choosing the right talent and then giving them the environment in which to flourish. He had regular meetings with all his junior pathologists where progress was reviewed, plans made and the world put to rights. He was genuinely interested, not only in promoting the careers of his staff but in their lives, their families and their wider well-being. Professor Currie also broke with tradition by appointing the first non-medically qualified Senior Lecturer in Pathology, Dr Martin Hooper, an expert in embryonic stem cells who soon built up a research group that, along with Andrew Wyllie’s group on apoptosis, made the fifth floor of the Department a very productive centre of research.

Under Professor Currie’s guidance the Department continued to expand, occupying new teaching rooms on the ground floor of the building in space vacated by the Undergraduate Medical Reading Room in 1981 and into part of the sixth floor vacated by the animal house. The ground floor teaching suite was named after one of Professor Currie’s heroes and one of his predecessors, William Smith Greenfield.

Outside Edinburgh Alastair Currie was widely involved in the organisation of medical research in the UK and abroad. He was chair of the MRC’s Cell Biology and Disorders Board, the Joint MRC/CRC Committee for the Cancer Research Institute, the Cancer Research Campaign’s Scientific Advisory Committee,  the UK Co-ordinating Committee on Cancer Research, the Biomedical Research Committee of the Scottish Home and Health Department, and the Boards of Governors of the Beatson and Paterson Institutes for Cancer Research. Abroad he was a member of the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research and chairman of the Charles F Kettering Selection Committee of the Awards Assembly of the General Motors Cancer Research Foundation. His qualities were recognised with numerous visiting professorships and honorary degrees, including the rare distinction for a serving member of academic staff of a Doctorate honoris causa from the University of Edinburgh. A commission as a Kentucky Colonel, granted by the Governor of Kentucky for noteworthy accomplishment was hung in a prominent place in his office.

He was appointed a Knight Bachelor in the New Year’s Honours list of 1979.

Sir Alastair Currie retired in 1986 and became the first (and last) clinician to hold the post in the 20^th century.

He died in 1994, ironically of the disease to the understanding of the cell kinetics of which he had contributed so much. His obituary notice for the Royal Society of Edinburgh states, “Alastair Currie will be remembered by colleagues and friends as a kindly, thoughtful and considerate man. He was intensely sensitive to the feelings of others, generous in time to listen to their problems, and in giving encouragement and considered advice. He had a ready wit, a mischievous sense of humour and an infectious laugh. He had a truly remarkable memory for names, faces and details of one's professional and family life, and was able to communicate with ease with people from all classes of society. He bore his honours with dignity, but without pomp.”