John Soothill

Short abstract

Paediatric immunologist who investigated the causes of childhood allergies

John Soothill or Sooty, as he was known—an inescapable nickname for a paediatrician—was for 20 years the professor of immunology at Great Ormond Street children's hospital. One of his main achievements there was the classification of the different forms of severe combined immune deficiency (SCID)—a disease that he named—and he was still there at the time of the first bone marrow replacement treatments. The molecular genetics of SCID came after he retired.

He always insisted that his work should consider not only those children who were very ill, but the ordinary illnesses of children. Thus it was that his other achievement was his development of the theory that childhood eczema was the result of exposure to allergens in the first six months of life. He pioneered the concept of exclusion diets in eczema treatment. More controversially, he extended this allergy work into hyperactivity and migraine.

Although he ended his career as a paediatric immunologist, he started it as a renal physician working on immunology. He published more than 200 papers over 50 years, on subjects ranging from nephrotic syndrome to childhood allergy, and was the coauthor of the textbook Paediatric Immunology.

Figure 1.

John Farrar Soothill was born in London. After studying at Christ's College, Cambridge, he did his clinical training at Guy's and Lewisham hospitals. This was interrupted from 1950 to 1952 by his national service.

In 1956 he went to Birmingham's department of experimental pathology, returning to London in 1965, having been headhunted to be the first Hugh Greenwood professor of immunology at the Institute of Child Health and the Hospital for Sick Children in Great Ormond Street.

His dyslexia—the bane of his life—meant that he found writing difficult, and he preferred giving papers at meetings.

John Soothill loved music and had a fine singing voice.

He leaves a wife, Brenda, and four children.

John Farrar Soothill, professor of immunology Institute of Child Health 1968-85 (b 1925; q Cambridge/Guy's Hospital 1949; MA, FRCP, FRCPath), died from bacterial endocarditis with resulting multiple strokes on 23 September 2004.