Cecil Clifford Dobell FRS (22 February 1886,

Birkenhead Birkenhead (; cy, Penbedw) is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral, Merseyside, England; historically, it was part of Cheshire until 1974. The town is on the Wirral Peninsula, along the south bank of the River Mersey, opposite Liv ...

– 23 December 1949, London) was a

biologist A biologist is a scientist who conducts research in biology. Biologists are interested in studying life on Earth, whether it is an individual cell, a multicellular organism, or a community of interacting populations. They usually specialize ...

, specifically a protozoologist. He studied intestinal amoebae, and

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular micr ...

. He was a leading authority on the history of

protistology Protistology is a scientific discipline devoted to the study of protists, a highly diverse group of eukaryotic organisms. All eukaryotes apart from animals, plants and fungi are considered protists. Its field of study therefore overlaps with the ...

. 1910–1919: Assistant professor of protistology and cytology at the

Imperial College London Imperial College London (legally Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom. Its history began with Prince Albert, consort of Queen Victoria, who developed his vision for a cu ...

1915: Involved in war work, helping the military medical staff improve prevention and treatment of ailments associated with intestinal

protozoa Protozoa (singular: protozoan or protozoon; alternative plural: protozoans) are a group of single-celled eukaryotes, either free-living or parasitic, that feed on organic matter such as other microorganisms or organic tissues and debris. Histo ...

. "He was one of the first to demonstrate the existence and to appreciate the epidemiological significance of symptomless carriers of

Entamoeba histolytica ''Entamoeba histolytica'' is an anaerobic parasitic amoebozoan, part of the genus ''Entamoeba''. Predominantly infecting humans and other primates causing amoebiasis, ''E. histolytica'' is estimated to infect about 35-50 million people worldwid ...

, whose number among the inhabitants of Great Britain he estimated at 10%." 1918, age 32: Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. His candidature citation described him as: "''Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; Lecturer on Zoology at the Imperial College of Science and Technology. Walsingham Medallist, 1908. Rolleston Prizeman, 1908. Balfour Student, 1908–1909. Distinguished for the wide range of his researches on the Protista and for the skill he has shown in the investigations of their structure and life-histories (e.g., 'Copromonas subtilis', ' Chromidina', 'Entamoeba ranarum'). His researches have also thrown light upon the nucleus of the Bacteria, on the alleged sexual phenomena of the same group, and on the nature of the Spirochaets and Cyanophyceae. Author of numerous scientific memoirs, of which the following may be mentioned: – 'Observations on the Life-history of 'Adelea ovata', A Schn' (Proc Roy Soc, 1907); 'The Structure and Life-history of 'Copromonas subtilis' n g n sp' (ibid, 1908); 'Researches on the Intestinal Protozoa of Frogs and Toads' (ibid); 'Chromidia and the Binuclearity Hypotheses; a Review and a Criticism' (ibid); 'Contributions to the Life-History of 'Hoemocystidium simondi', Cast and Will' (Festschr fur R Hertwig, 1910); 'Contributions to the Cytology of the Bacteria' (Quart Journ Micros Sci, 1911); ''Paraspirillum Vejdovskii' n g n sp, a new Bacterial Form' (ibid); 'On the Systematic Position of the Spirochaets' (Proc Roy Soc, 1912); 'Researches on the Spirochaets and Related Organisms' (Archiv für Protistenkunde, 1911).''" 1919: Published monograph: ''The Amoebae Living in Man'' In 1932 he published the authoritative work on

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek ( ; ; 24 October 1632 – 26 August 1723) was a Dutch microbiologist and microscopist in the Golden Age of Dutch science and technology. A largely self-taught man in science, he is commonly known as " the ...

: "Antony van Leeuwenhoek an his "Little Animals"", which was reprinted in 1960 ().

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dobell, Clifford 1886 births 1949 deaths 20th-century British biologists Fellows of the Royal Society