Patrick Laidlaw

Sir Patrick Playfair Laidlaw, FRS, FRCP (28 September 1881 – 19 March 1940) was a British virologist.

Biography

He was born in Glasgow, the son of Robert Laidlaw, M.D., at that time Superintendent of the Glasgow Medical Mission,[1] and was educated at Leys School, Cambridge and St. John’s College, Cambridge.

From 1920-23 he studied the properties of histamine at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories after which he went to Guy's Hospital as a lecturer in experimental pathology. As a virologist at the Medical Research Council in 1922 his researches on dog-distemper led to two ways of immunisation against it, which achievement earned him the award of a Royal Medal by the Royal Society in 1933. In 1927 he had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society.[2]

He was one of the scientists working at the Medical Research Council (NIMR Farm Laboratories) at Mill Hill who first isolated influenza virus from humans.[3] This happened when ferrets they were working on to develop a distemper vaccine caught influenza from one of the scientists in the laboratory.

He was knighted in the 1935 Birthday Honours for distinguished service to medical science.[4]

He died unmarried at the age of 58.

Notes

  1. ↑ "Patrick Playfair Laidlaw, 1881 - 1940". Royal Society. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
  2. ↑ "Patrick Playfair (Sir) Laidlaw". Royal College of Physicians. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
  3. ↑ Medical science Archived 2007-02-13 at the Wayback Machine. at www.hero.ac.uk
  4. ↑ "No. 34166". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 May 1935. p. 3592.

Further reading

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