John Boyd (bacteriologist)

Brigadier Sir John Smith Knox Boyd, OBE, FRS, FRCP (18 September 1891 – 10 June 1981)[1][2] was a Scottish bacteriologist and a senior officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC).[3]

Sir John Boyd

Biography

Boyd was born in Largs, Ayrshire,[4] to John Knox Boyd, a bank agent, and his wife Margaret Wilson Smith, the younger Boyd attended Largs Academy before studying medicine at Glasgow University under Sir Robert Muir and Carl Browning. He came top in his year, securing the Brunton Medal, when he graduated MB ChB in 1913 (he subsequently secured the Diploma in Public Health (DPH) from Cambridge in 1924 and the Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree from Glasgow in 1948) and joined the RAMC the following year, serving in France, Belgium and Salonika in the First World War. He remained with the RAMC until 1946, also seeing action in the Second World War in the Middle East and North West Europe; for the year 1945–46, he was Director of Pathology at the War Office.[3][5]

After retiring from the Army with the rank of Brigadier, he became Director of the Wellcome Laboratories of Tropical Medicine, remaining in office until 1955. He was knighted in 1958, appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1942, and a Fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal College of Physicians in 1951. He received honorary doctorates from the universities of Salford and Glasgow and the Manson Medal in 1968.[3][5]

He was married twice, firstly to Elizabeth Edgar from 1918 till her death in 1956, and secondly to Mary Murphy (daughter of D. H. Murphy) from 1957 until her death in 1968.[3][5]

The bacteria Shigella boydii is named after him.[6]

References
  1. "Boyd, Sir John Smith Knox (1891–1981), bacteriologist". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/30842. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
  2. "Boyd, Brig. Sir John (Smith Knox), (18 Sept. 1891–10 June 1981)". WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u162247. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
  3. The Times (London), 13 June 1981, p. 18.
  4. 1901 Scotland Census
  5. "Biography: Captain (Temporary Commission) John Smith Knox Boyd", University of Glasgow. Retrieved 8 January 2018.
  6. "Species: Shigella boydii". lpsn.dsmz.de. Retrieved 19 August 2022.

Further reading
  • P. O. Williams, "Boyd, Sir John Smith Knox (1891–1981)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2004).
  • L. G. Goodwin, "John Smith Knox Boyd", Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol. 28 (November 1982), pp. 27–57.
  • The College Courant, vol. 67, (1981), p. 37.
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