HX12 Dr John Ferguson Smith 1888–1978: a famous Glasgow dermatologist and his self-healing epitheliomas

Abstract

Given that the annual scientific meeting of the BAD has returned to the city it seems appropriate to celebrate the life and works of one of Glasgow’s most celebrated dermatologists, a founder member of our organization and a former President in 1958–1959. Although John Ferguson Smith was born in East Ham, the son of a church curate from Edinburgh, his parents relocated to Glasgow in 1894. There, he attended the High School before entering university and graduating with an MA in 1907 and MB ChB in 1911, fulfilling a childhood ambition to become a doctor. After qualification, he did a year in general practice before returning to the Western Infirmary, first as house physician and then working in casualty and the skin wards. He then signed on as a ship’s doctor for the Blue Funnel Line on the China run. The outbreak of the Great War curtailed his research work as he immediately volunteered and was sent to France. After setting up a base hospital in Northern France, he served at the battles of Loos, Somme and Messines and then joined the 26th General Hospital at Étaples and volunteered to look after 180 skin beds, taking cases from the entire British Army. On his return to civilian life in 1919, he initially worked in general practice in Partick while also being assistant to Dr George McIntyre, who oversaw the Skin Department at Glasgow Royal Infirmary. With McIntyre’s death in 1922, Ferguson Smith was invited to replace him. This meant selling his practice, and he then moved into a house that was once the home of another famous Glasgow doctor, Lord Lister. He became lecturer in dermatology to Glasgow University until his retirement in 1948. He is best remembered beyond Glasgow for his publications on familial multiple self-healing epithelioma. These started with an article in the British Journal of Dermatology in 1934 reporting the case of a 23-year-old miner, who from age 16 years had developed lesions at numerous sites that developed into ulcerated nodules before regressing spontaneously to leave pitted scars. In spite of histology demonstrating that these lesions were definitely squamous cell carcinomas (epitheliomas) some were initially sceptical, but the daughter of the original patient went on to develop the same disorder in her teens and there have been reports from around the world of similar lineages. In later years, much of the work to delineate the genetic basis for Ferguson Smith Disease, as it is often known, has been done by his son, Malcolm, a Professor of Genetics in – where else – Glasgow University.