Alexander Falconer Sr Seamen's missionary in New Zealand, son Alexander Falconer medical superintendent for mentally ill, grandson Murray Falconer neurosurgeon.

Alexander Falconer Sr (1843-1915) came from Scotland to New Zealand. A practical Christian, he set up places of relaxation for miners, sailors and soldiers; he became the Seamen's Missionary. Son, Dr Alexander Falconer (1874-1955) trained at Otago University Medical School.

Professor David Poswillo CBE (1927-2003): Skilled oral and maxillofacial surgeon, influential scientist, teacher and adviser.

David Poswillo trained at Otago University Dental School, Dunedin, New Zealand (BDS) and the Royal College of Surgeons of England (FDSRCS). His great interest became the genesis and repair of cleft lip and palate and, in addition to clinical work, he undertook an experimental study of the embryology of cleft palate in pregnant rats exposed to three teratogenic agents. The microscopic work was carried out in his garden shed in Christchurch.

Rosemary Biggs MD FRCP (1912-2001) and Katharine Dormandy MD FRCP (1926-78): from laboratory to treatment and care of people with haemophilia.

In 1977 the Haemophilia Society presented the first RG Macfarlane Award to Katharine Dormandy for her outstanding contribution towards the social and physical wellbeing of people with haemophilia and related disorders. In 1978 Rosemary Biggs was the second recipient of the Award given for similarly outstanding personal contributions. Dr Biggs worked under Dr RG Macfarlane at Oxford and in 1952 devised a laboratory test that identified two forms of haemophilia.

Sir Edward Mellanby (1884-1955) GBE KCB FRCP FRS: nutrition scientist and medical research mandarin.

Edward Mellanby used the experimental method to investigate medical problems. In 1918, working at King's College for Women, London, he provided conclusive evidence that rickets is a dietary deficiency disease due to lack of a fat-soluble vitamin [D]. In Sheffield he demonstrated that cereals, in an unbalanced diet, produced rickets due to the phytic acid content reducing the availability of calcium.

Sir James Edward Smith (1759-1828) MD FRS, botanist, co-founder of the Linnean Society of London.

James Edward Smith's interest in botany led him to enter medicine at Edinburgh in 1781. Smith was continuing his medical studies in London when Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820) suggested to him that he should purchase the collection of the famous Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus that had just been offered to Banks. Smith bought the Linnean Collection and Library in 1784.

Sir Michael Foster MD FRS (1836-1907): the rise of the British school of physiology.

In 1867 William Sharpey (1802-80), Professor of General Anatomy and Physiology at University College, London, appointed Michael Foster to the unique post of Teacher of Practical Physiology; in Britain the study of experimental physiology was dormant. In 1870 Foster accepted a Praelectorship in Physiology at Trinity College, Cambridge, and soon established a school of physiology. He was the first Cambridge Professor of Physiology (1883-1903).

Alexandre Yersin (1863-1943): discoverer of the plague bacillus, explorer and agronomist.

Alexandre Yersin was born in French Switzerland and later took French nationality. While a medical student he worked in Paris with Emile Roux to discover the exotoxin produced by the diphtheria bacillus. Two years after graduation, he left Paris for French Indochina where he was the first European to explore and map the central highlands of Vietnam.

Albert Calmette (1863-1933) and Camille Guérin (1872-1961): the C and G of BCG vaccine.

Early in his medical career, Albert Calmette showed a remarkable aptitude for bacteriology and, in 1891, he opened the first daughter Pasteur Institute in Saigon, French Indochina at the request of Louis Pasteur. In 1894, at the Pasteur Institute in Paris, Calmette succeeded in developing an antiserum to cobra venom and so initiated antivenomous serotherapy. In 1895 Calmette was asked to found a second daughter, Pasteur Institute in Lille.

Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine, CIE (1860-1930): prophylactic vaccination against cholera and bubonic plague in British India.

Waldemar Mordecai Haffkine developed an anticholera vaccine at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, in 1892. From the results of field trials in India from 1893 to 1896, he has been credited as having carried out the first effective prophylactic vaccination for a bacterial disease in man. When the plague pandemic reached Bombay, Haffkine became bacteriologist to the Government of (British) India (1896-1915).

The marine biologist--Bob Endean.

Bob Endean was a dedicated marine biologist with an extensive knowledge of coral reef communities in the Great Barrier Reef and fauna in subtropical Queensland waters. He commenced a study of venomous and poisonous marine animals dangerous to man at a time when the field was new, employing a variety of techniques to investigate the venom apparatus, mode of delivery of venom or toxin, mode of toxic action on excitable tissues, and biochemistry of venom or toxin. Determination of the pharmacological properties of crude venom from Conus marine snails advanced characterization of conotoxins by later workers.

Professor Sir William Liley (1929-83): New Zealand perinatal physiologist.

William (Bill) Liley received his MB ChB from Otago University, Dunedin (New Zealand), in 1954. Under the guidance of the neurophysiologist Professor J C Eccles (1903-97), he carried out major research on neuromuscular transmission, both as an undergraduate at Otago University and as a postgraduate at the Australian National University at Canberra. In 1957 Bill Liley switched to research in obstetrics at the Women's National Hospital at Auckland in New Zealand.

Professor Bernardo Alberto Houssay, MD (1887-1971): Argentine physiologist and Nobel laureate.

Professor Bernardo A Houssay, Director of the Institute of Physiology at the University of Buenos Aires, was an outstanding physiologist who created the first school of medical research in Argentina and brought it to world attention. His research covered a wide range of physiological fields, but particularly concerned the hormonal control of metabolism and arterial hypertension. Houssay was dismissed from the university during the Perón era but was able to found and direct the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine in Buenos Aires.

Francesco Redi (1626-1697): Tuscan philosopher, physician and poet.

From 1660 to 1697 Francesco Redi was physician to two Grand Dukes of Tuscany as well as a natural philosopher and poet at the Medici court. Redi produced the first experimental evidence that insects do not spontaneously generate from decaying matter and that the poison of the viper resides in the yellow fluid in fang sheaths. He was also a pioneer parasitologist.

Professor Chen-Yuan Lee, MD (1915-2001), pharmacologist: snake venom research at the Institute of Pharmacology, National Taiwan University.

Professor Chen-Yuan Lee was born in Tainan, Taiwan. In 1940, he joined the staff of the Institute of Pharmacology of the university, now named National Taiwan University. Dr Lee began a study of Daboia russelli formosensis venom under the direction of Professor Tsungming Tu who, in the 1930s, initiated the pharmacological studies of Formosan snake venoms carried out at the Institute.

Karl Heinrich Slotta (1895-1987) biochemist: snakes, pregnancy and coffee.

In 1923 Karl H. Slotta obtained his PhD in chemistry from the University of Breslau, Germany, where he continued to work. At the instigation of the gynaecologist Ludwig Fraenkel, Slotta made the first isolation of progesterone in 1933.

Poul Agerholm Christensen MD (1912-1991): antivenom production at the South African Institute for Medical Research.

Dr Christensen arrived in Cape Town in June 1940 as ship's surgeon on a Danish cargo-liner. Denmark was under German control, and the ship came under command of the South African government for use in war operations. In October 1941, Christensen left the ship to become assistant to Dr Edmond Grasset of the South African Institute for Medical Research in Johannesburg.

Doctor Albert Calmette 1863-1933: founder of antivenomous serotherapy and of antituberculous BCG vaccination.

In 1891 in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City), Dr. Albert Calmette established the first daughter Pasteur Institute for the protection of the local population against rabies and smallpox. Inspired by the discovery of diphtheria antitoxin by Behring, Calmette studied ways of raising serum against cobra venom.

Hugh Alistair Reid OBE MD: investigation and treatment of snake bite.

Alistair Reid was an outstanding clinician, epidemiologist and scientist. At the Penang General Hospital, Malaya, his careful observation of sea snake poisoning revealed that sea snake venoms were myotoxic in man leading to generalized rhabdomyolysis, and were not neurotoxic as observed in animals. In 1961, Reid founded and became the first Honorary Director of the Penang Institute of Snake and Venom Research.

Maurício Rocha e Silva MD: snake venom, bradykinin and the rise of autopharmacology.

Maurício Rocha e Silva is well known as the discoverer of bradykinin, the powerful hypotensive and smooth muscle stimulating polypeptide which was first detected in plasma following the addition of Bothrops jararaca venom. The discovery in São Paulo, Brazil, in 1948 was the outcome of studies on proteolytic enzymes that Rocha e Silva started in 1939 at a time when circulatory shock was considered to be mediated by histamine. This line of research was prompted by the publications of Feldberg and Kellaway which identified the release of histamine and a slow-reacting substance (SRC-C) from isolated lungs perfused with Naja venom.

Sir Charles James Martin MB FRS: Australian serpents and Indian plague, one-hundred years ago.

In 1891 as Demonstrator in Physiology at the University of Sydney, Charles Martin began the first systematic study of the chemical and physiological properties of the venoms of the Australian elapid species, Pseudechis porphyriacus and Notechis scutatus. Two major constituents were detected: a large coagulable protein which was associated with intravascular clotting, and a small proteinaceous molecule, an albumose, associated with neurotoxicity. Martin designed and constructed a high-pressure gelatin membrane ultrafilter for fractionation of venom.

Sir Joseph Fayrer MD FRS (1824-1907) Indian Medical Service: snakebite and mortality in British India.

Whilst Professor of Surgery at the Calcutta Medical College, Dr Fayrer studied all aspects of snake poisoning. His work, The Thanatophidia of India being a Description of the Venomous Snakes of the Indian Peninsula, with an Account of the Influence of their Poison of Life; and a Series of Experiments was published in 1872. Collating information from official Government records of death due to snakebite, Fayrer recorded a mortality of 11,416 persons for the year 1869 in the Presidency of Bengal and estimated a mortality of more than 20,000 for all British India.

Abbé Felice Fontana (1730-1805): founder of modern toxinology.

One of the great experimentalists in toxinology, Felice Fontana, worked in Tuscany on the venom of the European viper; his classic text Traité sur le Vénin de la Vipère was published in 1781. Fontana identified fundamental questions which he proceeded to test experimentally using as quantitative an approach as possible within the technical confines of the mid to late eighteenth century. Amongst his findings are the discoveries that the constituents of viper venom can be precipitated by alcohol, that the action of the venom is myotoxic and that it produces not only coagulation of blood, but paradoxically, fluidity as well.

The life and viper of Dr Patrick Russell MD FRS (1727-1805): physician and naturalist.

It is nearly two hundred years since the publication in 1796 of An Account of Indian Serpents collected on the Coast of Coromandel by Patrick Russell. Within the folio is a drawing and description of the venomous snake called Katuka Rekula Poda in the local Telugu language, whose venom was shown experimentally by Dr Russell to be nearly as lethal as that of Cobra de Capello. The snake is now known as Vipera russelli or Russell's viper.