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Obituary

Dr. George William Gregory BirdMarcela Contreras, London, UK

E-Mail karger karger.chFax +41 61 306 12 34http://www.karger.ch

1997 S.Karger AG, Basel

Dr. George William Gregory Bird, DSc, PhD, MB, BS,FRCPath. (born 1916), died of kidney failure on March 29,1997. He was considered the ‘King of Lectins and Polyag-glutination’ and was actively involved in blood transfusionand immunohaematology since World War II. He servedwith base transfusion units in the Middle East and in India.His duties included extensive participation in the training ofmedical officers and the diagnosis and management of trau-matic shock, dehydration, and the ill effects of heat. Afterthe war he founded and developed the Blood TransfusionService of the Indian Army and served as their advisor.

In 1966 he returned to the UK where he was appointedConsultant Pathologist and Director of the Regional BloodTransfusion Service in Birmingham until his retirement in1981. During this period he developed this large and veryactive service to become one of the most highly automatedand computerized transfusion services in the world. In viewof his academic interests, he was made Honorary SeniorClinical Lecturer, Department of Immunology, Universityof Birmingham.

When, in 1981, he retired from the Blood TransfusionService, he was appointed Honorary Consultant to the WestMidlands Regional Health Authority and became a SeniorResearch Fellow in Clinical Genetics at the University ofBirmingham. The head of the Department wrote of Dr. Bird,‘a distinguished senior colleague, unable by temperamentto retire, continues to produce a stream of high-quality stud-ies of the antigens of red blood cells’. In 1982 he was ap-pointed Consultant Advisor to the International BloodGroup Reference Laboratory, then at Oxford, England, andwas its Director 1986–1987, continuing later as its HonoraryConsultant.

During his career Dr. Bird’s special services in the fieldof blood transfusion included some noteworthy events. In1961 he was placed in personal charge of the medical ar-rangements for the visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth IIto India and Nepal and toured these countries with theQueen’s Party. Later in the same year he was responsible for

the blood transfusion treatment of India’s first Presidentduring his serious illness.

He served on many important committees, for example,the Haematology Expert Group of the Indian Council ofMedical Research, the UK Department of Health and SocialSecurity’s Advisory Committee of the National Blood Trans-fusion Service and its Advisory Committee on Hepatitis, theCouncil of Europe Select Committee of Experts on Automa-tion and Quality Control in Blood Transfusion Laboratories,the International Society of Blood Transfusion (ISBT) Work-ing Party on Automation and Data Processing, the ISBTWorking Party on the Terminology for Red Cell Surface An-tigens, and the ISBT Working Party on the Socioeconomicaspects of Blood Transfusion. He was also ISBT RegionalCounsellor (Western European Division) from 1980 until1984. He was elected President of the British Blood Trans-fusion Society 1985–1987 and was appointed President of theOliver Memorial Fund for Blood Transfusion in 1986.

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He published over 200 scientific papers as well as a num-ber of chapters in textbooks and reference manuals. His re-search interests for over 45 years spanned the anthropologi-cal, biochemical, clinical, genetic, immunohaematological,and oncological aspects of blood groups. His publicationswere numerous, mainly concerned with human red bloodcells and haemoglobin variants; blood groups and disease,particularly malignant disease; erythrocyte autoantibodies;drug-dependent antibodies; lectins; red blood cell mem-brane abnormalities, chiefly red blood cell cryptantigensand polyagglutinability; human blood group mosaics andchimaeras, and automation and computerization in theblood transfusion services.

Every doctor and scientist with an interest in transfusionmedicine and immunohaematology will be acquainted withthe prolific work of Dr. George Bird. His interest in seedsand the specific agglutinability of lectins obtained fromtheir extracts made him an international figure. It would bedifficult to find a publication on these topics without refer-ence to George Bird’s expert papers. His escalating fame inthe field started in 1951, whilst still in India, when he discov-ered the specific agglutinating activity for human group A1

red cells in extracts of Dolichos biflorus. A plethora of dis-coveries followed, with the important recognition of anti-T

(Arachis hypogea) in peanuts. In fact, Dr. Bird himselfstated in a paper: ‘It is a great source of satisfaction to methat most of the useful blood group specific lectins werefirst found in my laboratory, and that several of them nowhave an essential role in the elucidation of red cell polyag-glutination’. I am sure that Malcolm Beck and John Juddwill forgive me for quoting an extract from a foreword inone of their books: ‘It is a secret source of delight that some-body called Bird should be so interested in seeds and partic-ularly that his co-author, on so many occasions has the nameof Wingham!’

He was awarded the title Padma Shri by the Governmentof India in 1963 for services to blood transfusion in Indiaand, in 1964, the Indian Medical Council’s Silver JubileeAward and Gold Medal. In 1980 the American Associationof Blood Banks distinguished him with the Morten GroveRasmussen Memorial Award. Finally, in 1981, he wasawarded the Oliver Memorial Award for services to bloodtransfusion in Britain.

He enjoyed singing and poetry, he had a wonderful senseof humour, and was much sought after by blood transfusionsocieties, as an after-dinner speaker.

He leaves Ruby his wife and three daughters, Ann, Mar-garet, and Dorothy.