Robert Blowers

Short abstract

Medical microbiologist who became a pioneer of hospital infection control

Robert Blowers had a lifelong interest in Staphylococcus aureus and hospital infection. From the mid-1950s onwards he produced a succession of publications on the prevention of hospital infections, particularly those following surgery. These ranged across the design of operating theatres, isolation rooms, and surgical clothing, and the prevention of the airborne spread of infection and clinical protocols for wound management. He co-produced the seminal textbook Hospital Infection: Causes and Prevention, which became the “bible” on infection control for nearly 20 years.

In 1959 he was a key member of the Ministry of Health working group that produced a report on staphylococcal infections in hospitals. At a Department of Health workshop in December 2004, just a week before Robert's death, his major contribution was recalled by the department's inspector of microbiology and infection control, who had that week sent him a Christmas card with the message “you will be pleased to know that we are at last trying to implement your 1959 recommendations!”

Figure 1.

Robert Blowers was born in St Albans in 1915 and qualified at the Middlesex Hospital, London, where he did his house jobs before military service. He trained in blood transfusion before taking command of No 4 Field Transfusion Unit. On D Day he landed on the beach only a few minutes after the initial assault to treat the wounded in that first wave. He was one of the first medical officers to enter the concentration camps after their liberation.

After the second world war he trained in pathology in London before being appointed to the Staphylococcus Reference Laboratory at the Central Public Health Laboratory, Colindale. In 1951 he became director of the public health laboratory in Middlesbrough and consultant microbiologist to the Teesside Hospital Group and the Newcastle Regional Hospital Board.

He was appointed professor of medical microbiology at Makerere University College, Uganda, in 1967, returning to Britain in 1970 as head of the division of hospital infection at the Medical Research Council's newly established Clinical Research Centre at Northwick Park Hospital, London.

His wife, Geth, predeceased him.

Robert Blowers, former consultant medical microbiologist London (b St Albans 1915; q Middlesex Hospital, London, 1940; MD, FRCP, FRCPath), d 17 December 2004.