| Description | McCallum was born in Ayrshire in 1920 and graduated from Guy's Hospital in 1943. His academic life was spent in Newcastle, where he became Professor of Occupational Medicine, building the link between occupational and general medicine. An exemplary occupational physician, he investigated workplace diseases, published widely and influenced preventive regulation. His list of publications stretches from 1945 until the year of his death.
He became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London in 1970 and of Edinburgh in 1985. He was also Dean of the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, President of the British Society of Occupational Hygiene, President of the Society of Occupational Medicine and editor of the British Journal of Occupational Medicine. He was appointed CBE [Commander of the British Empire] in 1987.
In 1985 he retired to Edinburgh and spent much time in the library of the College of Physicians, continuing his researches into the medical history of metals. In his scholarly book, Antimony in Medical History (1999), he described the history of the metal from the Ebers papyrus of 1550BC, through its use by Paracelsus and in tropical medicine, to the disputes about its role in cot death. Some of his later publications related to the scrolls of the alchemist, George Ripley, one of which is in the College library.
He died in February 2009.
[Source: www.rcpe.ac.uk/publications/obituaries]
Contents: Notebooks with notes on alchemical books read, 1983-2003; box files of research papers, 1994-2004; slides and photographs, 1976-2001 |