MB ChB Manch 1923, MD 1929; FRCP 1959.
Smith was a pioneer in the understanding of viruses and their mode of action. He gained his medical education at the University of Manchester and then spent two years in general practice in Blackburn before returning to the University to study bacteriology, gaining his diploma in 1927. Smith was a researcher at the National Institute for Medical Research, where he was involved with the developments in growing viruses. In 1939 Smith became professor of bacteriology at the University of Sheffield, where he did experimental work on penicillin. Smith left Sheffield in 1946 to take up the chair of bacteriology at University College Hospital. He retired in 1960 and took up a research position in the microbiological research establishment of the Government at Porton. Smith was elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1949 and of the Royal College of Physicians in 1959, and gained a number of other honours. Smith died circa 1966.