Derrick Dunlop

Sir Derrick Melville Dunlop FRSE FRCP FRCPE FRCSE FDS LLD QHP (1902-1980) was a senior Scottish physician and pharmacologist at the forefront of British medical administration and policy-making in the late 20th century. He created the Dunlop Committee which investigates the side-effects of all new drugs in the UK.

He was born in Edinburgh on 3 April 1902 the son of Dr George Henry (Harry) Melville Dunlop of 20 Abercromby Place (an expert in child health and physician at the Edinburgh Sick Children’s Hospital) and his wife, Margaret Boog Scott. Derrick attended Edinburgh Academy 1909-1919. He attended Brasenose College at Oxford University and then Edinburgh University gaining an MB ChB in 1926.

He worked briefly in London before returning to Edinburgh to work under Sir Robert Philip on pioneering work regarding the treatment of tuberculosis before taking up the Christison Chair in Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology aged 34, and also concurrently being Senior Physician at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

In 1937 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers were Sir Robert William Philip, Arthur Logan Turner, Edwin Bramwell, and Sir Sydney Alfred Smith.

He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1960. In 1961 he was made official Physician to the Queen in Scotland, a post he held until 1965.

He retired from his professorship in 1962. He lived most of his adult life at Bavelaw Castle near Balerno, to the south-west of Edinburgh, just south of Threipmuir Reservoir. In 1963 the British Government asked him to set up and chair a Committee following the thalidomide tragedy. This was called the Committee on the Safety of Medicines. In 1968 he became the first Chairman of the newly created Medicines Commission.

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