Roy Mackenzie Stewart (1889–1964) was a Scottish neurologist. After education at

Lord Williams's Grammar School Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority, control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom, or a ...

Thame Thame is a market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about east of the city of Oxford and southwest of Aylesbury. It derives its name from the River Thame which flows along the north side of the town and forms part of the county border wi ...

, Oxfordshire, Roy Mackenzie Stewart entered the

University of Edinburgh Medical School The University of Edinburgh Medical School (also known as Edinburgh Medical School) is the medical school of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland and the United Kingdom and part of the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine. It was esta ...

and graduated there MB ChB (Edin.) in 1911. After serving on the staff of the Lancashire County Asylum at Prestwich, he joined in May 1915 the

RAMC The Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) is a specialist corps in the British Army which provides medical services to all Army personnel and their families, in war and in peace. The RAMC, the Royal Army Veterinary Corps, the Royal Army Dental Corps a ...

and was sent to France, where the explosion of a heavy gun caused him to have

tinnitus Tinnitus is the perception of sound when no corresponding external sound is present. Nearly everyone experiences a faint "normal tinnitus" in a completely quiet room; but it is of concern only if it is bothersome, interferes with normal hearin ...

for the remainder of his life. He was then stationed as a neurologist at Moss Side Military Hospital at

Maghull Maghull ( ) is a town and civil parish in Sefton, Merseyside (historically a part of Lancashire). The town is north of Liverpool and west of Kirkby. The area also contains Ashworth Hospital. Maghull had a population of 20,444 at the 2011 Cens ...

(near Liverpool), from 1917 in 1918 in

Salonica Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

, and from May to November 1919 at the

Royal Victoria Hospital, Netley The Royal Victoria Hospital or Netley Hospital was a large military hospital in Netley, near Southampton, Hampshire, England. Construction started in 1856 at the suggestion of Queen Victoria but its design caused some controversy, chiefly from F ...

. He received in 1920 the M.D. degree from the University of Edinburgh Medical School. In 1920 he became deputy medical superintendent of

Whittingham Mental Hospital Whittingham Hospital was a psychiatric hospital in the parish of Whittingham, near Preston, Lancashire, England. The hospital opened in 1873 as the Fourth Lancashire County Asylum and grew to be the largest mental hospital in Britain, and pionee ...

. In 1922 Stewart became medical superintendent of Leavesden Mental Hospital. He introduced new standards of medical and nursing care and established regimens of training and treatment that were advanced for the era of the 1920s. The hospital housed about 2,600 patients (mostly severe subnormals with birth defects). He personally examined each patient and personally conducted post-mortem examinations with extensive histological studies. His clinical and necropsy reports were extremely thorough and detailed, so much so that his numerous published articles consisted largely of direct quotations from his routine hospital notes. Stewart was elected FRCPE in 1929 and FRCP in 1942. He was in 1942 president of the neurology section of the Royal Society of Medicine. He was from 1943 to 1946 chair of the Mental Deficiency Committee and in 1946–1947 chair of the Mental Deficiency Section of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association. He gave in 1947 the Morison lecture on ''Infantile Cerebral Hemiplegia'' to the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh.

Family

Roy M. Stewart's father was Surgeon Rear-Admiral William Henry Stewart, M.D., deputy inspector general of the Royal Naval Medical Service. In 1923 Roy M. Stewart married Agnes Maud Stirling (1900–1994), daughter of Royal Navy Commander Thomas Willing Stirling (1866–1930), O.B.E. Roy and Agnes Stewart had two daughters and two sons. Their elder son, Desmond Stirling Stewart (1924–1981), was a prolific writer on Middle Eastern history and culture – he wrote over a dozen books, including the Time-Life book ''Early Islam'' and a biography of T. E. Lawrence. Their younger son, Thomas H. M. Stewart (b. 1930), became a physician and professor of medicine at the School of Medicine of the University of Ottawa.

Selected publications

* *with W. R. Ashby: *with W. R. Ashby: * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stewart, Roy Mackenzie 1889 births 1964 deaths 20th-century British medical doctors British neurologists Royal Army Medical Corps officers Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians Fellows of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh People educated at Lord Williams's School Alumni of the University of Edinburgh Medical School