John Brereton Barlow

John Brereton Barlow (24 October 1924 – 10 December 2008) was a world-renowned South African cardiologist. He qualified as a doctor in 1951, gained experience as a registrar in Hammersmith Hospital and the Royal Postgraduate Medical School in London. In the late 1950s he returned to South Africa to Johannesburg Hospital where he became Professor of Cardiology in the research unit and carried out significant studies on cardiac disorders as well as discovering the cause of a well known mitral valve disorder.

He gives his name to Barlow's Syndrome.

Professional life Barlow commenced medical studies at the University of the Witwatersrand. However, shortly afterwards, in 1940 when South Africa became involved in World War II he enlisted in the military and spent time attached to British forces in North Africa and later the Fifth US Army in Italy. He returned to medical school in 1946 and graduated with MBBCh. in November 1951. So significant was this paper that it became one of the most commonly cited papers in the AHJ and in 1983 was designated by the Institute for Scientific Information as a citation classic.