Philip Montagu D'Arcy Hart,

CBE The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(25 June 1900 – 30 July 2006) was a seminal British medical researcher and pioneer in tuberculosis treatment.

Personal life

Philip D'Arcy Hart was the grandson of

Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling (21 December 1832 – 12 January 1911), was a British banker who founded the bank of Samuel Montagu & Co. He was a philanthropist and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician who sat in the House of Commons of ...

. He was educated at

Clifton College ''The spirit nourishes within'' , established = 160 years ago , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent boarding and day school , religion = Christian , president = , head_label = Head of College , hea ...

. In 1941, he married Ruth Meyer (1913–2007), later a medical gynaecologist. They had a son, the economist Oliver Hart. Philip D'Arcy Hart died at the age of 106 in 2006.

Career

D'Arcy Hart became a consultant physician at

University College Hospital University College Hospital (UCH) is a teaching hospital in the Fitzrovia area of the London Borough of Camden, England. The hospital, which was founded as the North London Hospital in 1834, is closely associated with University College Lond ...

at the age of 34. Three years later, he joined the Medical Research Council (MRC). He was a pioneer of evidence-based medicine, conducting some of the earliest

randomized controlled trial A randomized controlled trial (or randomized control trial; RCT) is a form of scientific experiment used to control factors not under direct experimental control. Examples of RCTs are clinical trials that compare the effects of drugs, surgical te ...

s on

patulin Patulin is an organic compound classified as a polyketide. It is a white powder soluble in acidic water and in organic solvents. It is a lactone that is heat-stable, so it is not destroyed by pasteurization or thermal denaturation.http://www.s ...

in 1943 and

streptomycin Streptomycin is an antibiotic medication used to treat a number of bacterial infections, including tuberculosis, ''Mycobacterium avium'' complex, endocarditis, brucellosis, ''Burkholderia'' infection, plague, tularemia, and rat bite fever. F ...

with

Austin Bradford Hill Sir Austin Bradford Hill (8 July 1897 – 18 April 1991) was an English epidemiologist and statistician, pioneered the randomised clinical trial and, together with Richard Doll, demonstrated the connection between cigarette smoking and lung ...

. D'Arcy Hart became involved with much of the MRC's early research into dust diseases in coal miners. He was a member of the MRC Streptomycin in Tuberculosis Trials Committee, which is generally accepted as the first randomized clinical trial. At the age of 71, D'Arcy Hart published a seminal paper in the ''

Journal of Experimental Medicine ''Journal of Experimental Medicine'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal published by Rockefeller University Press that publishes research papers and commentaries on the physiological, pathological, and molecular mechanisms that encompass th ...

'', showing that the intracellular pathogen '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' avoids destruction in the cell's

lysosome A lysosome () is a membrane-bound organelle found in many animal cells. They are spherical vesicles that contain hydrolytic enzymes that can break down many kinds of biomolecules. A lysosome has a specific composition, of both its membrane pr ...

s by circumventing these organelles altogether—a trick now known to be used by many other intracellular pathogens. He was a member of the Committee for the Study of Social Medicine set up in 1939, and later the Sigerist Society, which discussed the theoretical and social aspects of medicine from a Marxist point of view.

References

External links

* Tansey, Tilli
Obituary
James Lind Library. * Draper, Philip; Skehel, John
Obituary
''The Guardian'', 30 August 2006. * Armstrong, J. A.; Hart, P. D'Arcy. Response of Cultured Macrophages to Mycobacterium tuberculosis, with observations on fusion of lysosomes with phagosomes. J Exp Med. 1971 Sep 1; 134(3): 713–74

1900 births 2006 deaths British public health doctors 20th-century English medical doctors English centenarians Men centenarians English Jews People educated at Clifton College Commanders of the Order of the British Empire {{UK-med-bio-stub