Born in Ireland, he was educated at Monkton Combe School in Bath, and then studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin. Shortly after graduating, he entered the Royal Army Medical Corps at the outbreak of the Second World War, and served in the UK and in the Far East throughout the war. He was awarded the MBE in 1942 for his military work, and mentioned in despatches in 1945 for his service in Burma; after the war, he was given the honorary rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the RAMC.[2]
He then began to teach medicine, and was appointed to the post of Senior Lecturer at the University of Edinburgh in 1949, along with the position of honorary consulting physician at the Western General Hospital. In 1959 he was appointed as an honorary physician in the Medical Research Council Clinical and Population Cytogenetics Unit, and in 1966 was appointed to a Chair of Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. He retired from the latter two posts in 1980, at the age of 65, and was appointed Professor Emeritus the following year.[2]
In 1979 he was appointed President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, holding the position until 1982. Other medical work in his later career included sitting as a member of the Medicines Commission from 1976 to 1983, and as the chair of the Scottish Health Education Co-Ordinating Committee from 1986 to 1988.[2]
