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George Macdonald was born in Sheffield in 1903, the son of J Smyth Macdonald, Professor of Physiology. George Macdonald graduated MB, Ch.B. at Liverpool in 1924, and adding the DPH in the same year; research assistant at the Sir Alfred Lewis Jones Laboratories in Freetown, Sierra Leone, 1925-1929, followed by 2 years as research officer to the Malaria Survey of India. He returned to England in 1931 to take his MD (Liverpool) and the DPH (London) in 1932; he then moved back to India as Principal Medical Officer to the tea estates of the Mariani Medical Association in Assam. His work there caught the attention of Sir Malcolm Watson, who recruited him as Assistant Director of the Ross Institute in 1937, an appointment which involved serving in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) as malariologist to the Malaria Control Scheme of the tea and rubber estates. He undertook a tour of Malaya with Watson to inspect anti-malaria measures there.
At the outbreak of war in 1939 his commission in the Royal Army Medical Corps led to command of the 1st Malaria Field Laboratory in the Middle East. Later he was advisor to Montgomery during the Allied armies' advance through North Africa and Sicily into Italy. In 1945 he returned to teach tropical hygiene at the Ross Institute, where in 1947 he succeeded Watson (who had retired in 1942) as Director. At the same time he was appointed the first Professor of Tropical Hygiene (University of London) at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He was made Honorary Consultant in Malaria to the Army and in 1955 he was awarded the Darling prize for Malaria.
A member of the World Health Organization expert panel on malaria, Macdonald's strong character and convictions made him an uncompromising opponent in scientific discussion, and he had his enemies within the School; but he was internationally respected and commanded affection as well as loyalty from his own staff. Even during his last year of advancing illness he carried on with research and teaching until his death in December 1967.
Publications: Epidemiology and Control of Malaria (Oxford University Press, London, 1957)