The first (30 page) version of this History was abstracted from a variety of sources including some personal accounts of the experience of some retired members of the profession, which I had collected for the Information Committee of the Association of Clinical Biochemists (ACB) when I was Secretary/Treasurer of the Scottish Region. It was circulated to various members and friends at Christmas 1986 and many of them in turn have provided information that was incorporated into a revision that was circulated the following year. This has led to a cycle of revisions and limited circulations since and my thanks go to the many, many people who have contributed to this effort.
This is an on-going project. Where the important work of well-known people has been omitted, this reflects the incomplete nature of my sources and it is hoped that you will be able to help make good some of these deficiencies. All corrections, comments and contributions will be gratefully received, plagiarised and otherwise incorporated into further revisions.
In my introduction to the 1986 version, I compared this History to the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (D Adams, London: Pan, 1979). The Guide, which replaced the Encyclopaedia Galactica as the "standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom" was described as having "many omissions and containing much which is apocryphal, or least wildly inaccurate". It is my hope that, as the work gets bigger, it will have fewer omissions. It is my fear that, at the same time, it will contain more and more that is inaccurate, etc.
An abstract of this work was published in the Bulletin of the Royal College of Pathologists (number 59: June 1987; 4-7) under the title Clinical Biochemistry in Scotland - the early years. A short series of five articles was published in the News Sheet of the A.C.B. during the winter of 1987/88. An edited version was published with the title People who made Scottish Clinical Biochemistry, with the help of Boehringer Mannheim, in time for the ACB National Meeting FOCUS 95
In July 2002 this version was put on the internet and it has been revised at irregular intervals ever since. In April 2005, I added some photographs and in August 2005 the section about some of the ACB National Meetings held in Scotland.
I would be happy to hear from anyone with an interest in this topic. If you have any comments, corrections, etc please contact me by e-mail at elliottsimpson@hotmail.com
Elliott Simpson
February 2020
Notes about methods and equipment
The descriptions of the laboratories are grouped under the following headings:-
Aberdeen University Clinical Biochemistry Dept.
Royal Alexandra Infirmary and Hawkhead Hospital, Paisley
Crichton Royal - 1930s and 40s
Maryfield Hospital - equipment, etc
Maryfield Hospital - Associated Laboratories and Research Interests
Maryfield Hospital - Combined Department
Maryfield Hospital - Combined Department
Dundee Royal Infirmary (D.R.I.) 1940s and 50s
Dundee Royal Infirmary Surgery Department 1960 - 67
Edinburgh Royal College of Physicians Laboratory
Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh in the 1920s
Accommodation and Methods in the 1920s and 1930s
Photographs from the 1920s and 1930s
RIE - Endocrinology Research Unit
Royal Hospital for Sick Children - Edinburgh
Glasgow - Royal Hospital for Sick Children
Glasgow - Royal Infirmary - 1920s to mid 1960s
Glasgow - Royal Infirmary - mid 1960s to present
Glasgow Royal Infirmary - Endocrine Unit
Glasgow - Belvedere, Duke Street, Royal Mat., etc
Glasgow - Southern General Hospital / Queen Elizabeth University Hospital
Glasgow - Stobhill General Hospital
Glasgow - Western Infirmary & Gartnavel General Hospital
Lanarkshire - The First Laboratories
Lanarkshire - Law and Wishaw General Hospitals
Lanarkshire - Hairmyres Hospital