Former director of medicine, British Army;
Born March 1, 1917; Died March 19, 2011
Major-General Robert Goudie MacFarlane MBE, who died last month at the age of 94, enjoyed a long and distinguished career in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC). He served in both India and Burma during the Second World War and rose through the ranks to become not just the British Army’s Director of Medicine but also honorary physician to the Queen.
Robert MacFarlane was born in Glasgow, and educated at Hillhead High School, where he excelled in both academia and sport. He went on to study medicine at Glasgow University; on graduation in 1940, he became a house physician at the Glasgow Royal Hospital for Sick Children before moving to the Glasgow Western Infirmary as a house surgeon.
After joining the RAMC in 1941 he was posted to 154 Field Ambulance (154 FA), part of 29th Independent Infantry Brigade, which subsequently took part in the 1942 invasion of Vichy-French-controlled Madagascar. Following fierce fighting at the port of Diego Suarez, he helped establish a 50-bed field hospital, but conditions were tough; lacking suitable netting, for example, it proved a serious challenge to successfully treat hundreds of soldiers for malaria, dysentery and Dengue fever transmitted by island’s mosquitos.
Following the brigade’s move to India, Mr MacFarlane worked in the British Military Hospital (BMH), Delhi, before serving as Medical Officer at the Red Fort military base, also in the city. By the autumn of 1944 he rejoined 154 FA in Assam, as part of the Allied Forces’ pursuit of the retreating Japanese. It was during this time that he was accidentally shot through both calf muscles by a sten gun. Following field surgery, he recuperated at BMH, Secunderabad, before joining the 5th Indian Infantry Division at Pegu.
While the dropping of atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the war in Asia to an abrupt end, Mr MacFarlane’s military medical career would continue very successfully for a further 30 years. This included his appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1952, following his successful dealing with a poliomyelitis epidemic while posted to BMH Malta.
Further postings to Suez (BMH Canal Zone) and his home city of Glasgow (Cowglen Hospital) were followed, in 1960, by command of the Army Chest Centre in Hindhead, Surrey. Two years later, he became consultant physician at BMH Dhekelia, Cyprus and would later commanded the joint British and Canadian hospital at BMH Iserlohn, Germany, between 1968 and 1970. Following his appointment as Professor of Military Medicine at the Royal Army Medical College and the Royal College of Physicians in London, he was appointed consultant physician at the Headquarters of the British Army on the Rhine. His final promotion was to Director of Army Medicine, with which he attained the rank of major-general.
While he retired from the Army in 1975, his medical career continued; for a decade he was deputy secretary to the Scottish Council for Postgraduate Medical Education, before choosing to return to Germany for a final three year stint as a civilian medical practitioner. He subsequently returned to Scotland, living for several years in North Berwick. He died peacefully at the Astley Ainslie Hospital, Edinburgh.
He is survived by three sons, by his late wife Mary Campbell Martin, and his grandchildren.
First published by The Herald, 5 May 2011.
