Alexander Haddow
{{Short description|Scottish physician and pathologist}}
{{For|the Scottish entomologist|Alexander John Haddow}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2017}}
File:Alexander Haddow. Photograph by W. Churcher. Wellcome V0026496.jpg
Sir Alexander Haddow FRS FRSE (18 January 1907 – 21 January 1976) was a Scottish physician and pathologist at the forefront of cancer research in the 1940s. He served as Director of the Institute of Cancer Research from 1946 to 1969. He was also President of the Universal Union Against Cancer.
His most important discovery was the Haddow Effect, by which a carcinogenic compound can be used to arrest a cancer whose origin is an unrelated carcinogen.{{Cite web|url=http://archives.wellcome.ac.uk/DServe/dserve.exe?dsqIni=Dserve.ini&dsqApp=Archive&dsqCmd=Show.tcl&dsqDb=Catalog&dsqPos=0&dsqSearch=(AltRefNo=%27pp/had%27)|title=Wellcome Library Western Manuscripts and Archives catalogue|website=archives.wellcome.ac.uk|access-date=2019-08-24}}
Early life
Haddow was born on 18 January 1907 in Leven, Fife, Scotland to Margaret Docherty, daughter of a coachman, and William Haddow (d.1928) of Newharthill in Glasgow.{{cite web |url=http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk/Biography/Details/1955 |title=Alexander (Sir) Haddow |publisher=munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk |accessdate=December 30, 2018}} His father and grandfather were coal-miners. The family moved to Broxburn, West Lothian, where his father ran Green Tree Tavern, a small bar and hotel.
At age 10, Haddow fell ill with scarlet fever and remained frail and introverted. By age of 11, Haddow also suffered from appendicitis. He was much impressed by the family GP, Dr Alexander Scott, who treated him on both occasions and became his role model.{{cn|date=January 2023}} Dr Scott was known for his studies of skin cancers in the local mining population. Haddow attended Broxburn High School and then Broxburn Academy, winning the Dux Medal.{{cn|date=January 2023}}
Education
In 1929, Haddow graduated with an MB ChB from the University of Edinburgh.
Career
Haddow was an assistant to Professor Thomas Jones Mackie at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, also lecturing in bacteriology at the University of Edinburgh, where he became a full lecturer in 1932. The university awarded him with three doctorates (PhD 1937,{{Cite journal |last=Haddow |first=Alexander |date=1937 |title=G-type variation in bacteria |url=https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/34596 |language=en}} MD 1937 and DSc 1938{{Cite journal |last=Haddow |first=Alexander |date=1938 |title=Studies in the biology of cancer |url=https://era.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/34595 |language=en}}).
In 1936, he moved to London to join Ernest Kennaway's team at the Royal Cancer Hospital. In 1946, he succeeded Kennaway as Director of the Chester Beatty Research Institute, later renamed the Institute of Cancer Research.
In 1958, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London and, in 1961, was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, where his proposers included Alan William Greenwood, Robert Cruikshank, and Richard Swain. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1966.{{cite book|title=Biographical Index of Former Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1783–2002|date=July 2006|publisher=The Royal Society of Edinburgh|isbn=0-902-198-84-X|url=https://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|access-date=21 August 2016|archive-date=24 January 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130124115814/http://www.royalsoced.org.uk/cms/files/fellows/biographical_index/fells_indexp1.pdf|url-status=dead}}
In 1972, he retired to Chalfont St Giles. By this time he was almost totally blind due to diabetes, which also caused the loss of his limbs.{{Cite web|url=https://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/canres/37/5/1584.full.pdf|title=OBITUARY: Professor Sir Alexander Haddow|author=Boyland, E.|author2=Harris, R.J.C.|name-list-style=amp|date=1977|website=cancerres.aacrjournals.org|access-date=24 August 2019}}
Personal life
In 1932, Haddow married Lucia Lindsay Crosby Black (d. 1968), a medical practitioner. Their son, William George Haddow, was born in 1934.{{cite web |url=http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/37/5/1584.article-info |title=Cancer Research - Obituary - Professor Sir Alexander Haddow |publisher=aacrjournals.org |date=May 1977 |accessdate=30 December 2018}} After the death of his first wife, he remarried in 1970 to Mrs Feo Standing ({{nee}} Garner; died 30 January 2013), a scientific photographer, 22 years his junior. He gained two step-children by this second marriage.
Death
Haddow had diabetes and related blindness. On 21 January 1976, three days after his 69th birthday, Haddow died at Amersham General Hospital in Amersham, England. He was cremated.{{cn|date=January 2023}}
References
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [http://aacrjournals.org American Association for Cancer Research]
- [http://munksroll.rcplondon.ac.uk Royal College of Physicians - Lives of the Fellows]
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Category:Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Category:People from Leven, Fife
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society
Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh
Category:20th-century Scottish medical doctors
Category:British cancer researchers
Category:Scottish blind people
Category:Academics of the Institute of Cancer Research
Category:20th-century Scottish surgeons