Sir Patrick Playfair Laidlaw FRS FRCP (26 September 1881 – 20 March 1940) was a Scottish virologist.
Biography
editLaidlaw was born in Glasgow, the son of Robert Laidlaw, M.D., at that time Superintendent of the Glasgow Medical Mission.[1] He was educated at Leys School, Cambridge and St. John’s College, Cambridge.
Around 1910, he and Henry H. Dale studied the properties of histamine (then called β-imidazolylethylamine) at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories after which he went to Guy's Hospital as a lecturer in experimental pathology. [2] 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.[3]
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.[4] 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.[5]
He died unmarried at the age of 58.
Notes
edit- ^ "Patrick Playfair Laidlaw, 1881 - 1940". Royal Society. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
- ^ Dale HH, Laidlaw PP (December 1910). "The physiological action of beta-iminazolylethylamine". The Journal of Physiology. 41 (5): 318–44. doi:10.1113/jphysiol.1910.sp001406. PMC 1512903. PMID 16993030.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Patrick Playfair (Sir) Laidlaw". Royal College of Physicians. Retrieved 18 July 2018.
- ^ Medical science Archived 2007-02-13 at the Wayback Machine at www.hero.ac.uk
- ^ "No. 34166". The London Gazette (Supplement). 31 May 1935. p. 3592.
Further reading
edit- Smith W, Andrewes CH, Laidlaw PP. A virus obtained from influenza patients. Lancet. 1933;2:66–8. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(00)78541-2
- Distemper and Influenza at Mill Hill by Rick Carver and John Skehel from Mill Hill Essays 2000