Dudgeon , Leonard Stanley , 1876- 1938 , pathologist

Leonard Stanley Dudgeon was born in London, 7 Oct 1876, the son of John Hepburn Dudgeon of Haddington, East Lothian, and his wife Catherine Pond. He was educated at University College London, and St Thomas's Hospital, and qualified in 1899.
Close association with Louis Leopold Jenner and S G Shattock led him to become one of the earliest workers in pathology and bacteriology as specialized subjects. After acting for a short period as a pathologist at the West London Hospital, he returned in 1903 to St. Thomas's Hospital, where he spent the rest of his life, and became superintendent of the Louis Jenner Clinical Laboratory. His collaboration was constantly sought over obscure cases in the wards, and under his direction the clinical laboratory became one of the most important departments of the hospital. He was appointed Director of the Pathological Laboratory and Bacteriologist (1905), Professor of Pathology in the University of London (1919), Curator of the Shattock Museum (1927), and Dean of the Medical School (1928).
During World War One Dudgeon served in the Near East as a Temporary Col, Army Medical Services, and carried out valuable investigations of infectious diseases prevalent among the troops. For his war services he was thrice mentioned in dispatches and was appointed CMG in 1918 and CBE in 1919, and awarded the Order of St Sava of Serbia.
During his term of office as Dean the medical school was largely rebuilt and modernized. He was for many years honorary secretary of the Voluntary Hospitals Committee, chairman of the Deans' Committee, and a member of the senate of London University. He was an active member of the Sankey commission on voluntary hospitals which reported in 1937. In these positions he exerted considerable influence on the course of medical education and hospital policy, and in particular took a leading part in securing co-operation for teaching purposes between the voluntary and the London County Council hospitals.
During the latter years of his life he developed a technique by means of smears for the rapid diagnosis of tumours and for the detection of malignant cells in bodily secretions, which has found wide application. At the Royal College of Physicians, of which he was elected a fellow in 1908, he was Horace Dobell lecturer (1908) and Croonian lecturer (1912). He gave the Erasmus Wilson lecture at the Royal College of Surgeons in 1905 and 1908, and was president of the section of tropical diseases of the Royal Society of Medicine (1923-1925).
He married in 1909 Norah Orpen, of Kenmare, co. Kerry. He died in London 22 October 1938.
Publications: with Percy William George Sargent, Bacteriology of Peritonitis, Archibald Constable & Co.: London, 1905; Bacterial Vaccines and their Position in therapeutics, Constable & Co.: London 1927; edited - Studies of Bacillary Dysentery occurring in the British Forces in Macedonia, London, 1919; Articles on Malaria and Blackwater Fever; Bacillus Coli infection of Urinary Tract; on Intestinal Infection, 1924; and numerous other scientific contributions to medical literature.