Gladwin Buttle

Gladwin Albert Hurst Buttle, OBE, FRCP (11 April 1899 – 3 May 1983), nicknamed “B”, was a British pharmacologist, and served as an officer in the British Army in both the Royal Engineers and the Royal Army Medical Corps. In the latter he was key to the development of an effective blood transfusion service. He was also the first chairman of the Buttle Trust for Children (now known as Buttle UK).

Early life and education Gladwin Buttle was born in Woldingham, Surrey on 11 April 1899. He was the youngest of six children (five boys and one girl), his eldest brother being Frank Buttle. His parents were William Buttle, a solicitor, and Mary Wilby. He started his education at Miss Brown’s of Warlingham before going on to Whitgift School.

In 1915 he decided to become a regular officer in the Royal Engineers. He studied at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich and was commissioned into the Royal Engineers as a Second Lieutenant in September 1918.

In October 1919, having decided to study medicine, he resigned his commission and went up to St John’s College, Cambridge. on the value and safety of a low dose of the sulphone was overlooked for many years. Over time he came to recognise that, unlike air raid victims suffering from crush injuries, battle casualties needed transfusion with whole blood, rather than plasma, if they were to undergo effective early surgery under anaesthesia. Buttle adapted gin and whisky bottles from officers' messes in Cairo and procured other equipment locally to enable the transfusion service to meet the needs of the Army. Boyd’s view was that “it was much easier to give Buttle what he wanted straight away, than to be forced to do so a week or two later and have to apologise for the delay”. In 1941 Buttle was involved in saving Orde Wingate’s life by blood transfusion. Frank Ellis later wrote:We returned from dinner at the Turf Club to the fifteenth Scottish general hospital (his base) to be told that there was an unconscious man in the operating theatre. He had cut his throat in a hotel and had lost a lot of blood. Buttle said, "Give him some O blood, while I find out who he is." After nearly three pints the patient was coming round and getting restless. Buttle returned and said, "Catch your train back to Alexandria; I will take over." I asked, "Who is he?" He replied, "Orde Wingate”. At the end of 1943 Buttle was sent to Carthage to help treat Winston Churchill’s bronchial infection.

Post-war career In October 1945, Buttle was appointed Wellcome professor of pharmacology at the College of the Pharmaceutical Society, in Bloomsbury Square ('The Square') which in 1949 became the School of Pharmacy of the University of London. In 1950, Buttle was nominated, with Jacques and Thérèse Tréfouël, for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

After retiring he became professor emeritus of pharmacology of the University of London, in 1968 spent some time as consultant in the pre-clinical teaching of veterinary students in Mexico City on behalf of the Food and Agriculture Organization, and then was professor of pharmacology in Addis Ababa 1972-74 and in Riyadh 1974-78. On his return to the UK in 1978 he became a consultant at the Wellcome Laboratories, where he had started his career.

Personal Buttle married Eva Korella, a painter from Danzig, in 1936. They had one son, Richard. ). This fund was used to establish the Buttle Trust for Children. Buttle served as the first chairman of the Trust from 1953 until 1974.