Stewart Douglas

Stewart Ranken Douglas FRS (12 February 1871, Caterham – 20 January 1936) was a British pathologist, bacteriologist and immunologist.

After education at Haileybury College, Douglas studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Hospital and received there in 1896 M.R.C.S., L.R.C.P. (Lond.). He joined the Indian Medical Service on 28 January 1898 with the rank of second-lieutenant. All Indian Medical Service officers at that time were required to complete a course in pathology at Netley Hospital under Dr (later Sir) Almroth Wright. In 1899 Wright requested that Douglas accompany him to India for the investigative research of the first Plague Commission. On 31 March 1899 Douglas and H. J. Walton (at that time a lieutenant) were sent to investigate plague in the Garhwal District and other areas of the Kumaon Division of the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Their investigation lasted about 5 months, during which Douglas suffered from recurring episodes of malaria. After completing this investigation, Douglas was sent in 1900 to China as part of the medical staff for the Gaselee Expedition in connection with the Boxer Rebellion. In China he was promoted to the rank of captain on 28 January 1901. However, in China he became infected with amoebic dysentery and developed a liver abscess. (From 1901 to the end of his life he suffered serious health problems.) He was given a medical discharge from the Indian Medical Service. Douglas returned to the UK and joined Almroth Wright at St Mary's Hospital to do research on vaccine therapy. For a pension from the Indian Medical Service, Douglas was put on temporary half pay on 15 September 1905 and was put on permanent half pay on 15 September 1907. In 1909 he was appointed a lecturer at St Mary's Hospital Medical School. As head of his department, Douglas organised the research of Laidlaw, Dobell, William E. Gye (who worked on the Rous sarcoma virus), Ian A. Galloway (who worked on foot-and-mouth disease) and other researchers. Much of the research dealt with immunology and virology, especially viruses that cause dysentery. Douglas worked on the extraction of bacteria by acetone. This extraction method led to Georges Dreyer's 'diaplyte' and Dreyer's synthetic medium for the growth of tubercle bacilli; Dreyer's advances lead to a more effective form of tuberculin skin test.

In Kensington in 1920 Douglas married Frances Miriam Clare Nias née Dayrell. She was born in 1872 and married in 1896 the physician Joseph Baldwin Nias (1856–1919), whose father was Admiral Sir Joseph Nias (1793–1879). By his marriage, S. R. Douglas acquired a step-daughter.

Awards and honours 1917 — Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Couronne de Belgique 1922 — Fellow of the Royal Society 1933 — Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians