Malcolm Stewart Muir

FRSE Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (FRSE) is an award granted to individuals that the Royal Society of Edinburgh, Scotland's national academy of science and Literature, letters, judged to be "eminently distinguished in their subject". ...

(1930–1995) was a 20th-century British epidemiologist and "geographic pathologist". Friends and colleagues knew him as Calum Muir. Famed for his cancer research he was a joint founder of the Singapore Cancer Society and served as its Secretary 1964 to 1967.

Life

He was born in

Sorbie Sorbie () is a small village in Wigtownshire, Machars, within the administration area of Dumfries and Galloway Council, Scotland. It is located midway between Wigtown and Whithorn on the A714 road. Farming forms the principal local industry in ...

Wigtownshire Wigtownshire or the County of Wigtown (, ) is one of the Counties of Scotland, historic counties of Scotland, covering an area in the south-west of the country. Until 1975, Wigtownshire was an counties of Scotland, administrative county used for ...

on 23 April 1930 the son of the local school headmaster. The family moved to

Stirling Stirling (; ; ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in Central Belt, central Scotland, northeast of Glasgow and north-west of Edinburgh. The market town#Scotland, market town, surrounded by rich farmland, grew up connecting the roya ...

in central Scotland and he was educated at Stirling High School. He then studied Medicine at

Glasgow University The University of Glasgow (abbreviated as ''Glas.'' in post-nominals; ) is a public research university in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded by papal bull in , it is the fourth-oldest university in the English-speaking world and one of Scotland's four ...

graduating MB ChB in 1952. He received placements at the

Royal Victoria Infirmary The Royal Victoria Infirmary (RVI) is a 673-bed tertiary referral hospital and research centre in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, with strong links to Newcastle University. The hospital is part of the Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation T ...

in Newcastle and the

Glasgow Royal Infirmary The Glasgow Royal Infirmary (GRI) is a large teaching hospital. With a capacity of around 1,000 beds, the hospital campus covers an area of around , and straddles the Townhead and Dennistoun districts on the north-eastern fringe of the city cen ...

. He trained in

pathology Pathology is the study of disease. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatme ...

Neath Neath (; ) is a market town and Community (Wales), community situated in the Neath Port Talbot, Neath Port Talbot County Borough, Wales. The town had a population of 50,658 in 2011. The community of the parish of Neath had a population of 19,2 ...

General and the

Birmingham Accident Hospital Birmingham Accident Hospital, formerly known as Birmingham Accident Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre, was established in April 1941 as Birmingham's response to two reports, the British Medical Association's Committee on Fractures (1935) and t ...

. In 1955/56 he served 18 months

National Service National service is a system of compulsory or voluntary government service, usually military service. Conscription is mandatory national service. The term ''national service'' comes from the United Kingdom's National Service (Armed Forces) Act ...

in the

Royal Army Medical Corps The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) was a specialist corps in the British Army which provided medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. On 15 November 2024, the corps was amalgamated with the Royal Army De ...

serving in

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

and at the British Military Hospital in

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

. At the termination of his National Service he chose to stay in Singapore and obtained a post lecturing in Pathology at the

University of Malaya The Universiti Malaya (lit 'University of Malaya'; abbreviated UM) is a public university, public research university located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is the oldest Malaysian institution of higher education, and was the only university in ...

. There he gained a doctorate (PhD) and Masters in Pathology in 1963. In 1967 he left Singapore and resettled in France at the International Centre for Cancer Research in

Lyons Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

. In 1979 he became Head of Descriptive Epidemiology at the Centre and in 1986 became Depute Director of the Organisation. He left in 1991 to take on the role of Director of the

Scottish Cancer Registration Scottish usually refers to something of, from, or related to Scotland, including: *Scottish Gaelic, a Celtic Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family native to Scotland *Scottish English *Scottish national identity, the Scottish ide ...

body. In 1994 he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. His proposers were H. John Evans, Sir Alastair Currie, Sir

A. P. M. Forrest A is the first letter of the Latin and English alphabet. A may also refer to: Science and technology Quantities and units * ''a'', a measure for the attraction between particles in the Van der Waals equation * A value, ''A'' value, a measu ...

C. R. W. Edwards C. or c. may refer to: * Century, sometimes abbreviated as ''c.'' or ''C.'', a period of 100 years * Letter C, the third letter in the alphabet. * Cent (currency), abbreviated ''c.'' or ''¢'', a monetary unit that equals of the basic unit of man ...

J. A. Wyke J, or j, is the tenth letter of the English alphabet. J may also refer to: * Palatal approximant in the International Phonetic Alphabet * J, Cyrillic letter Je Astronomy * J, a provisional designation prefix for some objects discovered bet ...

, C. C. Bird and John S. Beck. He died of cancer on 21 June 1995.British Medical Journal. July 1995.

Publications

*''Cancer Incidence in Five Continents'' (major contributor) *''Human Cancer: Epidemiology and Environmental Causes'' (1992) with Higgindson and Munoz

Family

In 1956 he married Jessie McClymont Walker, whom he met at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. They had three sons: Lindsay, Ewan and Douglas.

References

1930 births 1995 deaths Alumni of the University of Glasgow Academic staff of the University of Malaya British pathologists British epidemiologists Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh {{UK-med-bio-stub