Herbert Duthie

Sir Herbert Livingston Duthie KBE, LLD, FRCS, FRCSEd (9 October 1929 – 24 April 2015) was a British academic surgeon, widely known as Bert Duthie. His early research focussed on gastric acid output, large bowel motility and the pathophysiology of the anal sphincter. He was awarded a bursary to study medicine at the University of Glasgow qualifying MB ChB with honours in 1952. As an undergraduate he played football for the university team and for Scottish Universities team.

Career

After residency posts he was called up for National Service and was promoted captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps serving in Egypt from 1954 to 1956. Having decided on a career in surgery he obtained the fellowships of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh winning the gold medal as the best candidate in the examination. He went on to take the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. After surgical training posts at the Western Infirmary, Glasgow he took the degree of ChM in 1959. He was awarded a scholarship for surgical research at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, returning to a lecturer post in Glasgow in 1960. Here he worked under Professor Sir Charles Illingworth, joining the academic departmental programme of research into gastrointestinal physiology, studying in particular gastric acid secretion and large bowel motility. He was appointed senior lecturer then reader in surgery at the University of Leeds with Professor John Goligher and was awarded the degree of MD in 1962. He became professor of surgery at the University of Sheffield in 1964. Here he continued to develop research into surgery for peptic ulcer disease, large bowel motility, internal and external anal sphincter physiology and colorectal surgery. In 1979 he left clinical practice for an administrative post with his appointment as Provost of the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff (subsequently the Cardiff University School of Medicine). He was appointed a member of the General Medical Council serving as Chairman of its Professional Conduct Committee.

Later life and death After retiring in 1994 he moved to Cheltenham, England where he died in 2015.

Selected bibliography Stoddard, C., Smallwood, R., & Duthie, H. (1981). Electrical arrhythmias in the human stomach. Gut, 22, 705 - 712.

Taylor, I., Duthie, H., Smallwood, R., Linkens, D. (1975). Large bowel myoelectrical activity in man. Gut, 16, 808 - 814.

Taylor, I., & Duthie, H. (1976). Bran tablets and diverticular disease. British Medical Journal, 1, 988 - 990.