Edward Provan Cathcart

Norah Neilson Gray - Edward Provan Cathcart c. 1930

Prof Edward Provan Cathcart FRS FRSE CBE LLD (1877-1954) was a Scottish physician and physiologist of international fame. The Cathcart Chair in Biochemistry at Glasgow University is named after him. Together with John Boyd Orr he published influential papers on protein metabolism in man. He is also rembered as Chairman of the Scottish Health Board Committee 1933-1936 . The Cathcart Committee (named after him) was critical to the Scottish input to the foundation of the National Health Service after the Second World War.^[1] His obituary described his as a “life well spent in the service of mankind”.^[2]

Life

He was born in Ayr on 18 July 1877, the son of Edward Moore Cathcart, a merchant in the town. His father died when Cathcart was only nine, leaving his mother, Margaret Miller (from a family of rivet and bolt manufacturers), alone, to raise him and his younger brother and sister. He was educated at Ayr Academy, then attended Glasgow University graduating in 1900. He then travelled to Germany, both Munich and Berlin,^[3] to complete further studies in Bacteriology and Chemical Pathology (during which time he was heavily influenced by the work of Carl von Voit). From 1902 to 1905 he worked at the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine in London.

From 1905 to 1915 he served as the Grieve Lecturer in Physiological Chemistry at Glasgow University. In the First World War he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. He was then attached to the Anti-Gas Services section, rising to be Depute Director of that service. In 1917 he was transferred to the same role in relation to the Home Services. He rose to the level of Lt Col Director on the General Staff (Army Medical Services).^[4]

After the war he returned to Glasgow University as Professor of Physiological Chemistry. He served as Regius Professor of Physiology at Glasgow University from 1928 until retiral in 1947.^[5]

He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1920 and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1932. St Andrews University awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1928 and Glasgow University the same in 1947 (both LLD).^[6]

He died at home, 80 Oakfield Avenue in Glasgow, on 18 February 1954.^[7]

Publications

Nutrition (1911)^[8]
Physiology of Protein Metabolism (1912)
The Energy Expenditure of the Infantry Recruit in Training (1919)
Physique of Women in Industry (1927)
The Human Factor in Industry (1928)
Practical Physiology (1929)
Physique of Man in Industry (1935)

Positions of Note

Chairman of the Industrial Health Research Board
Member of the Medical Research Council
Member of the advisory board on nutrition to the Ministry of Health
Member of the Committee on Colonial Nutrition
Several committees linked to the League of Nations work on nutrition
Member of the Agricultural Research Council
Interim Director of the Hannah Dairy Research Unit
Chairman of the Scottish Health Services Committee
Representee for Glasgow University on the General Medical Council
Member of the War Cabinet Scientific Committee on Food Policy
Member of the Army Hygiene Advisory Committee
Member of the National Advisory Committee on Physical Training
Vice President of the Royal Society of Edinburgh 1948-51

Family

In 1913 he married Gertrude Dorman Bostock, a fellow physiology student, and only the third female science graduate in the history of Glasgow University.^[9]

Recognition

Cathcart was painted by Norah Neilson Gray in 1930.

References

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