William Ewart Gye

William Ewart Gye FRS (born William Ewart Bullock, 11 August 1889, Breaston – 14 October 1952) was a British pathologist and cancer researcher.[1][2][3]

After a difficult financial struggle, Bullock matriculated at University College, Nottingham and, after studying chemistry under Kipping, graduated there B.Sc. Lond. in 1906. In 1911 Bulock married his first wife, Elsa Gye, who was a dedicated suffragette.[4] Bullock studied medicine at Edinburgh University and in 1912 graduated there M.B., B.Chir. Edin. At Edinburgh University in 1913 he received the higher degree Doctor of Medicine (M.D. Edin.) and won a gold medal for his medical thesis. In 1913 he joined the staff of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund,[2] which at that time was under the direction of Ernest Francis Bashford.[5] When WWI started, Bullock joined the Royal Army Medical Corps and served in France and then Italy in charge of a field ambulance unit.[6] He was reassigned to London as a hospital pathologistl and worked with William Cramer on gas gangrene.[7] After demobilization with the rank of captain, he joined the National Institute for Medical Research at Hampstead, where he worked with Edgar Hartley Kettle on silicosis.[8] In June 1919,[9] William Bullock's wife retook her maiden name, and William Ewart Bullock changed his surname to "Gye",[4] perhaps because he wanted to please his wife[4] and perhaps because he was irritated by having to often explain that he was not the bacteriologist William Bulloch — there is a theory that the name change was in gratitude to a benefactor (not Bullock's wife or father-in-law).[10]

With W. J. Purdy, Gye did experiments confirming Peyton Rous's claims concerning the Rous sarcoma virus.[11] Gye was the director of the Imperial Cancer Research Fund’s laboratories at Mill Hill from 1934 to 1949, when he resigned due to ill health. He was elected F.R.S. in 1938 and F.R.C.P. in 1940.

Gye's first wife, Elsa, bore him three sons and in 1943 died of cancer. On 30 December 1944[12] William Gye married the famous ophthalmologist Ida Mann and in 1949 they moved to Perth, Western Australia.[6]

References

  1. ↑ William Ewart Gye, Munks Roll Details, Lives of the fellows, Royal College of Physicians
  2. 1 2 Andrewes CH (1953). "William Ewart Gye. 1884-1952". Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society. 8 (22): 418–430. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1953.0008.
  3. ↑ Craigie, J. "Dr. W. E. Gye". Nature. 170 (4333): 825. PMID 13013220.
  4. 1 2 3 Crawford, Elizabeth (2003). "Gye, Elsa (1881–1943)". The Womens's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866–1928. Routledge. p. 254.
  5. ↑ "Obituary. Ernest Francis Bashford, O.B.E., M.D.". British Medical Journal. 2 (3271): 440. 8 September 1923. PMC 2316986Freely accessible.
  6. 1 2 "W. E. Gye. M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S,". British Medical Journal. 2 (4790): 945–946. 25 October 1952. PMC 2021835Freely accessible.
  7. ↑ Bullock WE; Cramer W (1919). "On a new factor in the mechanism of bacterial infection". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Containing Papers of a Biological Character. 90 (633): 513–529. JSTOR 80697.
  8. ↑ Gye WE; Kettle EH (1922). "Silicosis and miners' phthisis". British Journal of Experimental Pathology. 3 (5): 241–251. PMC 2047740Freely accessible.
  9. ↑ "William Ewart Gye" (PDF). The London Gazette. 15 July 1919. p. 9054.
  10. ↑ Vischer, Peter (October 1925). "A Romance of the Microscope". Popular Science: 13–14. This story by Peter Vischer alleges that Bullock changed his surname to "Gye" before 1919, but this allegation is false.
  11. ↑ Gye WE.; Purdy WJ (1930). "Rous Sarcoma No. 1: Influence of Mode of Extraction on the Potency of Filtrates". British Journal of Experimental Pathology. 11 (3): 211–216. PMC 2048160Freely accessible.
  12. ↑ Biography – Dame Ida Caroline Mann – Australian Dictionary of Biography, brief bio by Geraldine Byrne
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