Leonard George Goodwin
CMG FRS (11 July 1915 – 25 November 2008) was a British protozoologist noted for his work on testing the effectiveness of chemical compounds in treating tropical diseases.
He was born in London to a shoe shop manager, and became interested in nature thanks to holidays spent with his grandfather, a gamekeeper, and his uncle, a pharmacist. He was educated at William Ellis School before being accepted into
University College London
, mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £143 million (2020)
, budget = ...
to study botany and zoology. After graduating he went to the
College of the Pharmaceutical Society and studied pharmacy, graduating in 1935. He became a demonstrator at the college under J H Burn and at his urging took further degrees in medicine and physiology.
The start of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
saw the College evacuated, leaving Goodwin to find a new job. He started work at the
Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research but was called up for military service with the
Royal Tank Regiment soon afterwards. After only a few days of training he was returned to Wellcome to work on tropical diseases, something considered 'vital war work' which excused him from military service.
One of the important problems he was dealing with at the time was trying to find a way of preventing troops being infected with
leishmaniasis, which was affecting large numbers of troops in Sicily at the time. The standard way of calculating the dosage of drug to give a person was the 'chemotherapeutic index', an index between the minimum dosage to cure an infection and the point at which the drug would kill the patient. Goodwin's attempt at refining the index by testing the drugs on European hamsters failed because they were already resistant to Leishmaniasis; instead he got a scientist in Jerusalem to send him some Syrian hamsters to test the drugs on.
The research showed that
Pentostam was the least toxic and most effective drug available to treat the disease, and it was issued to troops within a year. Goodwin later claimed that the Syrian hamsters used as pets in the United Kingdom were for the most part descended from the colony he had bred, and credited himself with introducing the
use of hamsters as pets.
He continued working at the Wellcome Bureau of Scientific Research until 1958, when he became director of the Wellcome Laboratories of Tropical Medicine. In 1964 he became head of the Nuffield Laboratories for Comparative Medicine, staying there until 1980. During this time he conducted research into
anticoagulants,
trypanosomiasis
Trypanosomiasis or trypanosomosis is the name of several diseases in vertebrates caused by parasitic protozoan trypanosomes of the genus ''Trypanosoma''. In humans this includes African trypanosomiasis and Chagas disease. A number of other diseas ...
(sleeping sickness) and
arteriosclerosis
Arteriosclerosis is the thickening, hardening, and loss of elasticity of the walls of arteries. This process gradually restricts the blood flow to one's organs and tissues and can lead to severe health risks brought on by atherosclerosis, which ...
. In 1976 he was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society
Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemat ...
,
and in the 1977
New Year Honours
The New Year Honours is a part of the British honours system, with New Year's Day, 1 January, being marked by naming new members of orders of chivalry and recipients of other official honours. A number of other Commonwealth realms also mark this ...
was appointed
Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) "for services to the study of tropical diseases".
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Goodwin, Leonard
1915 births
2008 deaths
Fellows of the Royal Society
20th-century British zoologists
Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George
People educated at William Ellis School
Alumni of University College London
Alumni of the UCL School of Pharmacy
Manson medal winners
British Army personnel of World War II
Royal Tank Regiment soldiers
Presidents of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene