John Guyett Scadding

(Credit: NICK SINCLAIR)

Emeritus professor of medicine University of London, honorary consulting physician Brompton and Hammersmith Hospitals (b 1907; q Middlesex 1930; MD, FRCP), d 10 November 1999. Guy Scadding was largely responsible for launching respiratory medicine as a specialty in the United Kingdom. At the age of 27 he was a consultant at Hammersmith Hospital and four years later at the Brompton. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the war, mainly in the Middle East, where he was a lieutenant colonel in charge of the medical division of a 3000 bed hospital. This gave him experience of tropical and infectious diseases, including plague and smallpox. In 1943 he was summoned urgently to Tunis to help care for Winston Churchill, who had developed pneumonia. After the war he became honorary consultant in chest diseases to the army. He returned to the Brompton Hospital Medical School as dean and director of studies, continuing as a clinical consultant at the Brompton and Hammersmith Hospitals. The Brompton medical school metamorphosed into the Institute of Diseases of the Chest and in 1962 he became professor of medicine at the institute. Scadding was the major influence for establishing the institute as a world class centre for teaching and research. Starting in a cubbyhole in outpatients with an empty ward as a lecture theatre, he gradually obtained buildings for laboratories, academic staff, and a library. He attracted outstanding academic staff, many of whom went on to senior posts elsewhere. He was one of the founders of the Thoracic Society, later becoming its president, and he was the first editor of Thorax. He was president of the British Tuberculosis Association and helped to bring the two societies together as the British Thoracic Society. He served on many committees, including the council of the Royal …