Robert Lim

Lim was born in Singapore in 1897 the son of Dr Lim Boon Keng, who promoted social and educational reforms in Singapore and China.

The family moved to Edinburgh in Scotland when he was eight. Here he attended George Watson's College.[1] During the World War I, he volunteered for and served in the Indian army medical service. In 1916, he returned to Edinburgh for medical studies, and graduated in 1919 with a MB ChB in medicine from the University of Edinburgh, where he subsequently earned a PhD in 1921,[2] and a DSc in 1923. Aged 26, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, proposers were Sir Edward Albert Sharpey-Schafer, William White Taylor, Arthur Robertson Cushny, and George Barger.[3]

Lim was awarded a Rockefeller fellowship in 1924, and used this to travel to the United States. He worked in the department of physiology in the University of Chicago before he was appointed associate professor, then head of department at the Peking Union Medical College. He was the founder of the Chinese Physiological Society.[4]

In 1929, Lim became a trustee of the 'Nanyang Club' in Penang, appointed by Cheah Cheang Lim. Other trustees included Queen's scholars Dr Wu Lien-teh and Wu Lai Hsi, and Rockefeller Fellowship scholar and PUMC colleague, Dr Lim Chong Eang. The 'Nanyang Club' is an old house in Peiping, China and was used to provide convenient accommodation to overseas Chinese friends.[4]

After the Second Sino-Japanese war, Lim rebuilt China's medical education and medical research. He was a lieutenant general in the Army and surgeon general of the Republic of China. In 1947, Lim reorganized the National Defense Medical Center and served as its first president. He left for the United States in 1949.

Lim was elected as a foreign member of United States National Academy of Sciences in 1942, and was elected a member in 1956. He was granted American citizenship in 1955.[1]

Lim died of cancer on 8 July 1969.

Lim married Margaret Torrance in Scotland in 1920. Following Torrance's death, he married Helen Tsing-ying Tsang in Shanghai in 1946.[1]

• Robert Kho-Seng Lim, pages 280-307, Biographical Memoirs V.51 (1980), National Academy of Sciences (NAS)
• Robert Kho-Seng Lim, SJSU Virtual Museum