Dr Constance A.C. Ross, microbiologist

Letter to Dr Ross from Sir James Howie, 1991; transcript of war memoirs, 2001.

Constance Anne Cameron Ross graduated MB ChB from Glasgow University in 1942. Following graduation, she became a surgical house officer at the Southern General Hospital, Glasgow. After six months she became house physician at Falkirk Royal Infirmary, the first female there to hold a junior medical post, moving to Knightswood Hospital, Glasgow in 1944. In February 1945 she was drafted into the R.A.M.C. It was during this time that she completed her thesis for MD (1946) following which she became a physician at Catterick Military Hospital. After demobilisation she became a medical assistant at Stobhill Hospital before returning to Knightswood Hospital. In 1952 she moved to Birmingham for three years as a Research Fellow in coeliac disease and related diseases moving back to Scotland to take over the bacteriology department at the Vale of Leven Hospital at Alexandria. In 1958 she moved to the Regional Virus Laboratory at Ruchill Hospital, Glasgow bcoming a consultant virologist in 1965. In 1974 she became Consultant Microbiologist for Ayrshire and Arran, retiring in 1982. She wrote Fifty Years of Infection: A Personal Viewpoint in 1994, a copy of which is lodged in the College Library. “One Woman’s Medicine: During Second World War” is an unpublished account of her wartime experiences.

Sir James Howie was Director of the Public Health Laboratory Service from 1963-1972. He was educated at Robert Gordon’s College, Aberdeen and the University of Aberdeen (MB, ChB 1930). He served as a pathologist in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Second World War and afterwards became head of the department of pathology and bacteriology at the Rowett Research Institute, Aberdeen. He was professor of bacteriology at the University of Glasgow from 1951-1963 and was knighted in 1969.

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