Alexander Falconer Sr Seamen's missionary in New Zealand, son Alexander Falconer medical superintendent for mentally ill, grandson Murray Falconer neurosurgeon.

Alexander Falconer Sr (1843-1915) came from Scotland to New Zealand. A practical Christian, he set up places of relaxation for miners, sailors and soldiers; he became the Seamen's Missionary. Son, Dr Alexander Falconer (1874-1955) trained at Otago University Medical School. As medical superintendent for the mentally ill, he urged the early introduction of psychotherapy. His son, Murray Falconer (1910-1977) was the first Nuffield Dominions Clinical Fellow, training in neurosurgery in Oxford. He was the first director of the Guy's-Maudsley Neurosurgical Unit in London and was internationally known for the surgical management of temporal lobe epilepsy in adults and children.

Professor David Poswillo CBE (1927-2003): Skilled oral and maxillofacial surgeon, influential scientist, teacher and adviser.

David Poswillo trained at Otago University Dental School, Dunedin, New Zealand (BDS) and the Royal College of Surgeons of England (FDSRCS). His great interest became the genesis and repair of cleft lip and palate and, in addition to clinical work, he undertook an experimental study of the embryology of cleft palate in pregnant rats exposed to three teratogenic agents. The microscopic work was carried out in his garden shed in Christchurch. His groundbreaking work on amniotic puncture at a critical period came to international notice and he was given the first Chair in Teratology of the Royal College of Surgeons. In experimental studies he showed that thalidomide induced focal haemorrhage in the developing embryo. Poswillo was also Consultant Oral Surgeon at Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead and his skills as surgeon and teacher attracted numerous trainee surgeons. He was Professor of Oral Surgery in Adelaide and then in London. Poswillo was Chairman of two advisory committees whose lucid reports on anaesthesia, sedation and resuscitation in dentistry (Poswillo Report) and on tobacco and health were far-reaching and influential. David Poswillo had immense energy and enthusiasm and is remembered by many for his personal interest and stimulating guidance.

Rosemary Biggs MD FRCP (1912-2001) and Katharine Dormandy MD FRCP (1926-78): from laboratory to treatment and care of people with haemophilia.

In 1977 the Haemophilia Society presented the first RG Macfarlane Award to Katharine Dormandy for her outstanding contribution towards the social and physical wellbeing of people with haemophilia and related disorders. In 1978 Rosemary Biggs was the second recipient of the Award given for similarly outstanding personal contributions. Dr Biggs worked under Dr RG Macfarlane at Oxford and in 1952 devised a laboratory test that identified two forms of haemophilia. Macfarlane realized the potential for replacement therapy which subsequently transformed the lives of haemophiliacs in the UK. Dr Biggs was director of the Oxford Haemophilia Centre (1967-77) and instrumental in documenting the increase in incidence of jaundice with the import of concentrates for infusion. Katharine Dormandy, Consultant Haematologist at the Royal Free Hospital in London, set up one of the country's foremost haemophilia centres, pioneered home treatment for haemophilic children and with Rosemary Biggs was involved in the social and educational welfare of affected families.

Sir Edward Mellanby (1884-1955) GBE KCB FRCP FRS: nutrition scientist and medical research mandarin.

Edward Mellanby used the experimental method to investigate medical problems. In 1918, working at King's College for Women, London, he provided conclusive evidence that rickets is a dietary deficiency disease due to lack of a fat-soluble vitamin [D]. In Sheffield he demonstrated that cereals, in an unbalanced diet, produced rickets due to the phytic acid content reducing the availability of calcium. Mellanby became Secretary of the Medical Research Council (1933-49) but continued his research by working at weekends. In the 1930s he campaigned for the results of nutritional research to be used for the benefit of public health. During World War II he acted as a scientific adviser to the War Cabinet and had a strong influence on the food policy which maintained successfully the nutrition of the population during the shipping blockade. Mellanby was a formidable person but with sagacity he promoted new research and guided the expansion of the organization.

Sir James Edward Smith (1759-1828) MD FRS, botanist, co-founder of the Linnean Society of London.

James Edward Smith's interest in botany led him to enter medicine at Edinburgh in 1781. Smith was continuing his medical studies in London when Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) suggested to him that he should purchase the collection of the famous Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus that had just been offered to Banks. Smith bought the Linnean Collection and Library in 1784. In 1786 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Medicine from Leiden. In 1788 Smith, with two associates, founded the Linnean Society of London and became President for life. Smith turned from medicine to natural history as a lecturer and writer. During his lifetime he produced numerous botanical works of high value, including The English Flora (1824-28), and he did much to popularize botany.

Sir Michael Foster MD FRS (1836-1907): the rise of the British school of physiology.

In 1867 William Sharpey (1802-80), Professor of General Anatomy and Physiology at University College, London, appointed Michael Foster to the unique post of Teacher of Practical Physiology; in Britain the study of experimental physiology was dormant. In 1870 Foster accepted a Praelectorship in Physiology at Trinity College, Cambridge, and soon established a school of physiology. He was the first Cambridge Professor of Physiology (1883-1903). Foster, a great teacher, had a remarkable ability to attract talented students and to inspire them to undertake research. He himself took inspiration from the scientific philosophy of Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-95) and of Claude Bernard (1813-78). Foster was active in the foundation of the Physiological Society (1876), and founded and edited the Journal of Physiology (1878). He was interested in the scientific training of medical students and wrote a highly lauded Text Book of Physiology (1877). Physiology became a profession in its own right and British physiologists were in the vanguard of research.

Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943): discoverer of the plague bacillus, explorer and agronomist.

Alexandre Yersin was born in French Switzerland and later took French nationality. While a medical student he worked in Paris with Emile Roux to discover the exotoxin produced by the diphtheria bacillus. Two years after graduation, he left Paris for French Indochina where he was the first European to explore and map the central highlands of Vietnam. As a member of the French Colonial Health Service he was sent to Hong Kong in 1894 to investigate the outbreak of bubonic plague. He isolated from buboes the causative bacillus that later was named Yersinia pestis in his honour. In Vietnam, Yersin established a Pasteur Institute at the coastal village of Nha Trang where he lived for the rest of his life. He developed vaccines and antisera for both men and animals and, as an agronomist, he introduced the Brazilian rubber tree and Peruvian cinchona tree (for quinine) into the country. In Vietnam, as in France, the name of Yersin continues to be venerated.

Albert Calmette (1863-1933) and Camille Guérin (1872-1961): the C and G of BCG vaccine.

Early in his medical career, Albert Calmette showed a remarkable aptitude for bacteriology and, in 1891, he opened the first daughter Pasteur Institute in Saigon, French Indochina at the request of Louis Pasteur. In 1894, at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, Calmette succeeded in developing an antiserum to cobra venom and so initiated antivenomous serotherapy. In 1895 Calmette was asked to found a second daughter, Pasteur Institute in Lille. Soon he was joined by the young veterinarian, Camille Guérin, and so began a unique partnership, the two men striving to free people from the dreadful scourge of tuberculosis. Investigating the intestinal route of tuberculous infection, Calmette and Guérin began to grow Mycobacterium tuberculosis bovis in a beef bile-glycerine medium. With continuous replanting of the culture in this medium (from 70 to 235 times), an attenuated bacillus of fixed properties was discovered; this Calmette called Bacille-Calmette-Guérin (BCG). Exhaustive testing of BCG showed its safety and effectiveness in protecting young animals against tuberculosis. In 1924 vaccination of newborn infants with BCG began in France and spread worldwide.

Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine, CIE (1860-1930): prophylactic vaccination against cholera and bubonic plague in British India.

Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine developed an anticholera vaccine at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, in 1892. From the results of field trials in India from 1893 to 1896, he has been credited as having carried out the first effective prophylactic vaccination for a bacterial disease in man. When the plague pandemic reached Bombay, Haffkine became bacteriologist to the Government of (British) India (1896-1915). He soon produced an effective antiplague vaccine and large inoculation schemes were commenced. In 1902 19 people in Mulkowal (Punjab) died from tetanus poisoning as a consequence of antiplague vaccination. Haffkine was blamed unjustly and exonerated only in 1907, following a campaign spear-headed by Ronald Ross. In India the stigma remained. In 1925 in tribute to the great bacteriologist, the Bombay Government renamed the laboratory as the Haffkine Institute. The Haffkine Biopharmaceutical Corporation Ltd and the Haffkine Institute for Training, Research and Testing in Mumbai continue to be important centres for public health.

The marine biologist--Bob Endean.

Bob Endean was a dedicated marine biologist with an extensive knowledge of coral reef communities in the Great Barrier Reef and fauna in subtropical Queensland waters. He commenced a study of venomous and poisonous marine animals dangerous to man at a time when the field was new, employing a variety of techniques to investigate the venom apparatus, mode of delivery of venom or toxin, mode of toxic action on excitable tissues, and biochemistry of venom or toxin. Determination of the pharmacological properties of crude venom from Conus marine snails advanced characterization of conotoxins by later workers. A study of four types of nematocysts from the box-jellyfish Chironex fleckeri provided information as to their structure, function, and mechanism of discharge; myotoxins T1 and T2 were isolated from microbasic mastigophores. Endean studied poisonous stonefish (Synanceia trachynis) and, with Ann Cameron, scorpionfish (Notesthes robusta); investigations of ciguatera and of paralytic shellfish poisoning were initiated. He organized the collection of Australian frogs which led to the isolation of caerulein by Erspamer in Italy. Endean highlighted the ecological danger of the population explosion of the crown-of-thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci) and provided the impetus for the creation of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Professor Sir William Liley (1929-83): New Zealand perinatal physiologist.

William (Bill) Liley received his MB ChB from Otago University, Dunedin (New Zealand), in 1954. Under the guidance of the neurophysiologist Professor J C Eccles (1903-97), he carried out major research on neuromuscular transmission, both as an undergraduate at Otago University and as a postgraduate at the Australian National University at Canberra. In 1957 Bill Liley switched to research in obstetrics at the Women's National Hospital at Auckland in New Zealand. He refined the diagnostic procedure for rhesus haemolytic disease of the newborn and was able to predict its severity. Liley developed the technique of intrauterine transfusion of rhesus-negative blood for severely affected fetuses and led the team that carried out the first successful fetal transfusions in the world. He was a passionate advocate of the medical and societal rights of the unborn child.

Professor Bernardo Alberto Houssay, MD (1887-1971): Argentine physiologist and Nobel laureate.

Professor Bernardo A Houssay, Director of the Institute of Physiology at the University of Buenos Aires, was an outstanding physiologist who created the first school of medical research in Argentina and brought it to world attention. His research covered a wide range of physiological fields, but particularly concerned the hormonal control of metabolism and arterial hypertension. Houssay was dismissed from the university during the Perón era but was able to found and direct the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine in Buenos Aires. He was joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1947 for his discovery of the role of the anterior pituitary in carbohydrate metabolism.

Francesco Redi (1626-1697): Tuscan philosopher, physician and poet.

From 1660 to 1697 Francesco Redi was physician to two Grand Dukes of Tuscany as well as a natural philosopher and poet at the Medici court. Redi produced the first experimental evidence that insects do not spontaneously generate from decaying matter and that the poison of the viper resides in the yellow fluid in fang sheaths. He was also a pioneer parasitologist. His bacchanalian poem in praise of Tuscan wines is still read in Italy today.

Professor Chen-Yuan Lee, MD (1915-2001), pharmacologist: snake venom research at the Institute of Pharmacology, National Taiwan University.

Professor Chen-Yuan Lee was born in Tainan, Taiwan. In 1940, he joined the staff of the Institute of Pharmacology of the university, now named National Taiwan University. Dr Lee began a study of Daboia russelli formosensis venom under the direction of Professor Tsungming Tu who, in the 1930s, initiated the pharmacological studies of Formosan snake venoms carried out at the Institute. Under Professor Lee's direction, the Institute became known internationally for its work on the isolation, composition and characterization of the pharmacological properties of neurotoxins isolated from Formosan elapid venoms. Sophisticated use of the latest techniques revealed the mode of action of postsynaptic -bungarotoxin and presynaptic -bungarotoxin from Bungarus multicinctus venom, postsynaptic cobrotoxin, cytotoxic cardiotoxin and phospholipase A2 from Naja naja atra venom. Through work undertaken with colleagues at the Institute and in foreign countries, Professor Lee made an important contribution to our understanding of the mode of action of snake neurotoxins, and to their use in the elucidation of neuromuscular transmission. In the past decade, C.-Y. Lee was a prominent campaigner for social and political justice in Taiwan.