Dunlop, Derrick Melville

Derrick Melville Dunlop was born in Edinburgh in 1902. The son of G H M Dunlop, MD, FRCPE, he was educated at Oxford and Edinburgh Universities. At the age of 34 he was appointed Christison Professor of Therapeutics and Clinical Medicine at the University of Edinburgh, in which post he remained until his retirement in 1962. He was knighted in 1960 and appointed physician to HM The Queen in Scotland in 1961. As Sim’s Commonwealth Travelling Fellow he visited Australia, New Zealand and Singapore. He was an inspiring orator, was Lumleian and Croonian lecturer, delivered a notable Harveian Oration and was greatly in demand as an after-dinner speaker. Besides his clinical and academic work, his numerous publications (notably Clinical Chemistry in Practical Medicine and Textbook of Medical Treatment) and reviews, he served on several committees including the Pharmacopoeia Commission (of which he was chairman, 1948-1958), Royal Medical Society, Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh Appeal Committee and the Medical Pilgrims Club.

He won international recognition for his work in connection with drug safety and control and from 1964 to 1969 he was chairman of the Committee on the Safety of Drugs. In this context he was able to secure a high degree of co-operation between the medical profession and the pharmaceutical industry. Considerable progress was made with the analysis of adverse reactions to drugs, clinical trials and the application of voluntary controls. Following the legislation enacted in 1968 (Medicines Act), Sir Derrick became the first chairman of the Medicines Commission, in which capacity he served until 1971. In the 1970s he was a board member of Winthrops and exerted considerable influence internationally in the pharmaceutical industry. At the same time he chaired many Wellcome Symposia on a variety of medical subjects and was on the boards of the publications Modern Medicine and Medicine. He received numerous honours in acknowledgement of his achievements: he was made an Honorary Fellow of Brasenose College, Oxford, Hon.FACP, Hon.FRCPE (he had much earlier received the ordinary fellowship of the College), Hon.FRCSE, and had honorary degrees conferred upon him by the Universities of Edinburgh, Birmingham, Eire and Bradford. He died aged 78 in Jun, 1980.