Physiology at Charing Cross Hospital Medical School: Prof. William Burns

Abstract

Prof. W. Burns, recently appointed to the chair of physiology at Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, London, is a graduate in science and medicine of the University of Aberdeen. He received his early education at the Mackie Academy, Stonehaven, whence he entered the University in 1930. Having graduated B.Sc. in 1932 and M.B., Ch.B. in 1935, he was appointed to an assistantship in the Department of Physiology, and in 1938 became senior lecturer. As a teacher and demonstrator, Burns brought to an orderliness of thought and expression the valuable gift of artistic skill in illustration. Prof. Burns' first interest in research work centred around the problems of carbohydrate and cardiac metabolism, but it soon became manifest that his chief interests lay in the realm of the biophysical. Until 1942 he was engaged in investigating activity in afferent nerves associated with the viscera. The results of this work were incorporated in a thesis for which he was awarded the D.Sc. degree.