Former consultant physician Liverpool Royal Infirmary and editor, Thorax (b 1919; q Liverpool 1943; MD, FRCP, MFOM), died from a heart attack on 22 June 2006.
To generations of Liverpool students, John Robertson was a conscientious physician and a formidable teacher. To colleagues, he was editor of Thorax, and the man who discovered why sputum goes green, reawakened an interest in Läennec and the aetiology of lung sounds, and elucidated the condition of tin refiners, stannosis. To friends and family, he was never still, physically or intellectually. His investigations of tin mining and refining took him round the world and were recorded in his Milroy lectures of 1964. Thereafter, especially in retirement, he travelled widely. He helped provide health services in Libya and Afghanistan, climbed in the Andes, and lived with the Inuit in northern Canada. He leaves five children. His wife, Elizabeth, died shortly after him.
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