George Redmayne Murray

https://www.britannica.com/biography/George-Redmayne-Murray

George Redmayne Murray, (born June 20, 1865, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Northumberland, Eng.—died Sept. 21, 1939, Mobberley, Cheshire), English physician who pioneered in the treatment of endocrine disorders. He was one of the first to use extractions of animal thyroid to relieve myxedema (severe hypothyroidism) in humans.

George, the son of a prominent physician, William Murray, received clinical training at University College Hospital, London. He was awarded both his M.B. (1889) and M.D. (1896) by the University of Cambridge. Determined to pursue a career in experimental medicine, Murray in 1891 became pathologist to the Hospital for Sick Children in Newcastle. He also lectured in bacteriology and comparative anatomy at Durham University. From 1893 to 1908 he was Heath professor of comparative pathology at Durham. Appointed to the chair of medicine at Manchester University, he remained there to the end of his career.

In 1891 Murray published his most important research, a report in the British Medical Journal on the effectiveness of sheep thyroid extract in treating myxedema in humans. Thyroid deficiency had been recognized as the cause of myxedema in the 1880s, and several researchers had established that an animal could survive the usually fatal effects of thyroidectomy if part of the excised thyroid gland was transplanted to another body location. Sir Victor Horsley, a colleague of Murray’s, later suggested that part of a sheep’s thyroid could be transplanted into human patients to relieve myxedema.

Murray surmised, however, that a hypodermic injection of thyroid extract could more effectively be used to correct myxedema in humans, and he was completely successful in his first such attempt at treatment. Subsequent tests substantiated his approach.

George Murray was born at Newcastle, the son of William Murray, F.R.C.P. He was educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, being placed in the first class of the natural sciences tripos of 1886. He qualified in medicine at University College London, in 1888, receiving the Fellowes gold medal in the same year, and completed his training with visits to Berlin and Paris. He acted as house physician in University College Hospital before starting practice in his native city, where he was appointed in 1891 pathologist to the Hospital for Sick Children and lecturer on bacteriology at Durham University. In 1891, too, he made his reputation by being the first to treat myxoedema with thyroid extract given by injection. In 1893 he was made Heath professor of comparative pathology in the University and in 1898 physician to the Royal Victoria Hospital, Newcastle. He relinquished both appointments in 1908 when he was chosen to fill the chair of medicine at Manchester University, which carried with it the office of physician to the Manchester Royal Infirmary. In the 1914—1918 War he served with the 2nd Western General and 57th General Hospitals, and from 1918 to 1919 as consulting physician, with the rank of colonel, to the British forces in Italy. He was a member of the Medical Research Council from 1916 to 1918. He was a contributor to Quain’s Dictionary and Allbutt’s System of Medicine, and at the Royal College of Physicians delivered the Goulstonian Lectures in 1899 and the Bradshaw Lecture in 1905. He resigned his offices at Manchester in 1925, and in retirement lived at Mobberley in Cheshire. Murray was a man of high ability and unassuming friendliness — qualities which effectively dispelled the opposition to his appointment at Manchester in 1908. He married in 1892 Annie, daughter of Edward Robert Bickersteth of Liverpool, and had three sons and one daughter. He died at Mobberley.

G H Brown