Peter Scheuer

Histopathologist who helped make London's Royal Free Hospital one of the world's leading centres for investigating liver disease

The 1940s and 1950s saw the emergence of liver biopsy as a major clinical investigative procedure. Peter Scheuer became one of the leading experts in the field, achieving world fame as a histopathologist and bringing distinction to himself, his medical school, and British pathology.

He was appointed lecturer in morbid anatomy at the Royal Free Hospital, London, in 1959, commencing his duties on the same day as the hepatologist Sheila Sherlock (obituary BMJ 2002;324: 174) took up her position as professor of medicine. Professor Sherlock had already established a reputation in hepatology at the Hammersmith Hospital, and Peter had an interest in hepatopathology developed under the supervision of Professor Kenneth Hill. Peter provided a superb diagnostic hepatopathology service for the medical unit, resulting in the establishment of the Royal Free as one of the world's leading centres for the investigation of clinical liver disease.

In 1968 Peter published the first edition …