William Wilton Douglas. 15 August 1922 – 2 July 1998

Abstract

Professor William Wilton Douglas was an outstanding scientist, known particularly for his seminal work on elucidating the mechanisms underlying secretion within the endocrine system. In 1967 he became the first recipient of the John Gaddum Memorial Award from the British Pharmacological Society. The second such award was given in 1968 to J.R. (later Sir John) Vane (F.R.S. 1974) who, at the time of a memorial celebration of Douglas's life in 1998, remarked that: ‘We had a running joke about him being number one and me number two’. In 1975 Douglas received the Harry van Dyke Memorial Award from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1983 he was elected a Fellow of The Royal Society. In honouring him, the Society specifically cited his seminal contributions to our knowledge of the physiology and pharmacology of the endocrine systems. He was a man of great insight and splendid humour and will be missed by all who knew him.