Philip Montagu D'Arcy Hart, CBE (25 June 1900 – 30 July 2006) was a seminal British

medical research Medical research (or biomedical research), also known as health research, refers to the process of using scientific methods with the aim to produce knowledge about human diseases, the prevention and treatment of illness, and the promotion of ...

er and pioneer in tuberculosis treatment.

Personal life

Philip D'Arcy Hart was the grandson of Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling. He was educated at

Clifton College Clifton College is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in the city of Bristol in South West England, founded in 1862 and offering both boarding school, boarding and day school for pupils aged 13–18. In its early years, unlike mo ...

. 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 Lo ...

at the age of 34. Three years later, he joined the Medical Research Council (MRC). He was a pioneer of

evidence-based medicine Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is "the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients. It means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available exte ...

, 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 ...

s on patulin in 1943 and

streptomycin Streptomycin is an antibiotic medication used to treat a number of bacterial infections, including tuberculosis, Mycobacterium avium complex, ''Mycobacterium avium'' complex, endocarditis, brucellosis, Burkholderia infection, ''Burkholderia'' i ...

with Austin Bradford Hill. 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 ...

'', showing that the intracellular pathogen ''

Mycobacterium tuberculosis ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (M. tb), also known as Koch's bacillus, is a species of pathogenic bacteria in the family Mycobacteriaceae and the causative agent of tuberculosis. First discovered in 1882 by Robert Koch, ''M. tuberculosis'' ha ...

'' avoids destruction in the cell's

lysosome A lysosome () is a membrane-bound organelle that is found in all mammalian cells, with the exception of red blood cells (erythrocytes). There are normally hundreds of lysosomes in the cytosol, where they function as the cell’s degradation cent ...

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 British men centenarians 20th-century British Jews People educated at Clifton College Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Jewish centenarians {{UK-med-bio-stub