Robert Campbell Garry

Prof Robert Campbell Garry DSc (1933) OBE FRSE LLD (1900–1993) was Professor of Medicine at both St Andrews University and Glasgow University. During the Second World War, as an expert on human physiology, he advised on human tolerance of extreme weather conditions and forces, as experienced by high altitude pilots.

Life

He was born in Glasgow on 21 April 1900 the son of Robert Garry and his wife Mary Campbell, both from the north-east of Scotland. His father was a biologist who was Head of Science at Glasgow High School for Girls. Robert junior was educated at Queens Park School in Glasgow. In 1917 he went to Glasgow University to study Medicine. He graduated MB ChB in 1922.[1] While working at the Western Infirmary of Glasgow, he was one of the first clinicians to apply the newly isolated compound, insulin, to a diabetic patient in Scotland.[2]

In 1933 he took a role as Head of Physiology working with John Boyd Orr at Aberdeen University. In the autumn of 1935 he became Professor of Physiology at University College, Dundee, which was then a part of the University of St Andrews.[3] At the suggestion of Robert Percival Cook the department was later renamed the Department of Physiology and Biochemistry.[4]

He was an active promoter of the Workers Educational association and was one of the first high-ranking scientists to talk on the radio (from 1936) on scientific matters, in an effort of raising scientific awareness to the masses.

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1937. His proposers were Alexander David Peacock, Percy Theodore Herring, David Rutherford Dow and Edward Thomas Copson. He served as Vice President to the Society from 1952 to 1955.[5] In the Second World War he made extensive physiological studies, especially on airmen, to assess the effects of g-forces, stress and high altitude. He contributed to the understanding of the gastrointestinal tract, and was the first to use the term 'guarding reflex'[6] with regards to feedback signals of the nervous system.

In 1947 he moved from Dundee to Glasgow University and remained there until retirement in 1970 whereupon he retired with his wife, Flora Garry, to the Perthshire village of Comrie.

In 1992 his former assistant, James Black, awarded him an honorary doctorate (LLD) in his capacity as Chancellor of the University of Dundee.

He died after a prolonged illness on 16 April 1993.

Publications
  • Dietary Requirements in Pregnancy and Lactation (1937)
  • Living and Learning: An Introduction to Plant Animal and Human Biology (1939) with Alexander David Peacock
  • Physiology and Biochemistry (1952)
  • Life in Physiology, edited by David Smith, published by the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Glasgow University, (1992)

Garry was editor of both the Journal of Nutrition and Journal of Physiology.[7]

Family

In 1928 he married Flora MacDonald Campbell, and had one son, Frank Campbell Garry, who followed in his father's footsteps and became a doctor of medicine.

References
  1. Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh: obituary: May 1993
  2. "A Final Grain of Truth", Jack Webster, Black and White Publishing, 2013. ISBN 9781845027100
  3. Southgate, Donald (1982). University Education in Dundee. A Centenary History. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 167.
  4. "UR-SF 34 Professor Robert Percival Cook, Lecturer in Biochemistry, University College, Dundee and Queen's College, Dundee; Professor of Biochemistry, University of Dundee". Archive Services Online Catalogue. University of Dundee. Retrieved 13 July 2018.
  5. Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002 (PDF). The Royal Society of Edinburgh. July 2006. ISBN 0-902-198-84-X.
    • "The Guarding Reflex Revisited", Park et al., 1997. British Journal of Urology, 80, pp940-945.
  7. Nature (magazine) 27 July 1947
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.