Physician and lecturer;
Born: February 18, 1915; Died December 15, 2012.
Dr John Strong, who has died aged 97, was an eminent physician and lecturer who held various international medical posts. He served as Professor of Medicine at Edinburgh University and as President of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh and was awarded a military MBE and mentioned in dispatches during the Second World War for his dedication to duty while under severe conditions.
John Anderson Strong was born in Ireland and educated at Monkton Coombe School in Bath. He studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, and joined the Royal Army Medical Corps on the outbreak of the Second World War. He served in the UK and the Far East. During intense fighting in Assam, Dr Strong created two field hospitals and commanded a casualty clearing station. He was demobbed with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel.
Dr Strong decided to pursue an academic career rather than practice and was appointed senior lecturer at Edinburgh University in 1949, also holding the post of honorary consulting physician at the city's Western General Hospital. He held various posts in medical administration during the 1960s – notably chairman of the Scottish Health Education Co-ordinating Committee and with the Medical Research Council. In 1966 he was appointed to the chair of medicine at the University of Edinburgh and served as secretary to the Clinical Endocrinology Research Council.
He wrote extensively in textbooks on subjects ranging from the hormonal control of cancer to obesity. When he retired in 1980 he was appointed Professor Emeritus.
In the medical profession in Scotland he is respected for the years he served on the Lothian Health Board and as President of the Royal Society in its tercentenary year in 1981. He hosted a visit by the Queen to mark the occasion and demonstrated a keen foresight in campaigning for the Queen Mother Conference Centre which was opened in the mid-1990s.
Throughout his life he was a keen athlete. At school he rowed and became a keen angler and stalker in Invernessshire. He was also a member of Muirfield.
Apart from his presidency of the Royal College in Edinburgh, Dr Strong, a distinguished and courteous man, was a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
He married Moira Heaney, who predeceased him. He is survived by one son and two daughters.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article