Born: 18 May, 1911, in Swansea.
Died: 12 June, 2008, in Edinburgh, aged 97. DR NEIL MacLean, a much-loved and distinguished Edinburgh pathologist, had originally hoped to become a paediatrician. However, the war intervened
and during the assault on Anzio his hearing was seriously damaged. He therefore decided on laboratory medicine, and in 1952 accepted a lectureship in pathology at the University of Edinburgh.
His manual skills were outstanding, his reports models of how the microscope can explain clinical disease. Neil collaborated with RF Ogilvie in studies of the pancreas in diabetes and was valued for his knowledge of liver disorders.
In 1958 Neil moved to the Western General Hospital, where he became a consultant in 1963. He undertook original work in the emerging field of cytogenetics and published Lancet papers on sex chromosomal abnormalities in the newborn and in mental hospital patients. With Court Brown and others, he contributed a 1964 Medical Research Council memorandum, Abnormalities of the Sex Chromosome Complement in Man.
After his retirement, Neil gave freely of his time to the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. With Professor Eric Mekie and Sir James Fraser he was responsible for great numbers of the illustrations in A Colour Atlas of Demonstrations in Surgical Pathology (1983, 1986).
Kindness personified, Dr MacLean was modest, self-effacing and unassuming. For many years he shared a calm domestic life with his widely respected sister, Eva, a former headteacher of St Margaret's School, Edinburgh. Neil and Eva spent their summer months in Tiree and it is there that he is buried beside her.
The full article contains 267 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
