Commentary: Dr John Brownlee MA, MD, DSc, DPH (Cantab), FRFPS, FSS, FRMetS (1868-1927), public health officer, geneticist, epidemiologist and medical statistician

Abstract

In July 1914 Dr John Brownlee was appointed head of the Statistical Department of the newly established Medical Research Committee. He had qualified in mathematics, natural philosophy and medicine at the University of Glasgow, and by 1914 had established a reputation as a public health officer, an expert in infectious diseases, and as a proponent of the Pearsonian school of the application of statistics and mathematics to medicine: an ideal background for his new position. In celebration of the centenary anniversary of the Medical Research Council and as a tribute to John Brownlee's involvement at the start, the International Journal of Epidemiology is reprinting in this issue one of his early papers on genetics. We comment on this paper, as well as Brownlee's background, achievements, research and his somewhat enigmatic though likeable character.

Figure 1

The only known photograph of Dr John Brownlee, reproduced from his obituary with kind permission from the Lancet

Figure 2

An impression of Brownlee: pencil drawing sketched on the menu for his farewell dinner at Ruchill Hospital, Glasgow, 1914. On 31 July 1914 he was appointed Head of the Medical Research Committee’s Statistical Department. (From the papers of Dr Peter McKenzie held by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde Archives, ref. HB92/3/1)

Figure 3

Caricature of John Brownlee explaining the play, Hamlet, to Dr Chalmers. One of a series by Dr Osborne Henry Mavor (alias the playwright James Bridie). © University of Dundee Archive Services. Original digital image available