Dr John Dickson Dow

The following is an interim description which may change when detailed cataloguing takes place in future:

Notebooks and other papers, films, and angiograms.

1950s-1980s

Uncatalogued: 17 transfer boxes and 21 archive boxes

John Dickson Dow was born in Glasgow in 1916. He volunteered for military service early on in the Second World War, having just qualified in medicine. He was posted to North Africa, Italy and India, receiving the Military Cross for his work treating badly wounded men under heavy mortar and machine gun fire at Guiriat El Atach in April 1943.

After the war Dow trained in radiology, and was appointed as consultant to Guy's Hospital in 1953. At Guy's he built up a service in diagnostic angiocardiography for patients with congenital heart disease. He was instrumental in Guy's becoming a renowned centre of cardiovascular expertise in the 1960s, through his work on vascular recanalization and selective coronary arteriograms.

Dow was heavily involved in setting up the imaging department at Guy's in the late 1960s, and became director of the unit in 1974. He retained this post until his retirement in 1979, although he continued to work in private practice after this date.

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