Sir Paul Gordon Fildes was a British pathologist and microbiologist who worked on the development of chemical-biological weaponry at Porton Down during the Second World War.
10 Facts About Paul Fildes
2.
Fildes was born in Kensington, London, the son of the artist Sir Luke Fildes and great grandson of reformist Mary Fildes, Paul attended Winchester School and then studied surgery at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he obtained an MB BCh degree.
3.
Paul Fildes was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1934.
4.
Paul Fildes was a member of the scientific staff, Medical Research Council.
5.
Paul Fildes asserted that he assisted with Operation Anthropoid the assassination of top Nazi Reinhard Heydrich in Prague by providing the Czech agents of the Special Operations Executive with modified No 73 Grenades filled with botulin toxin.
6.
In 1940 Paul Fildes was put in charge of a newly created department, the Biology Department, Porton at Porton Down to study the defensive implications of a bacterial attack and there built up a team of microbiologists to study the use of biological weapons, including anthrax and botulinum toxin.
7.
Paul Fildes assisted with the anthrax strain tests on Gruinard Island, performing necropsies on the bodies of anthrax-exposed sheep, to determine if they had died as a direct result of anthrax poisoning.
8.
Paul Fildes was knighted in the 1946 New Year Honours.
9.
Paul Fildes received the Copley Medal in 1963 from the Royal Society.
10.
Paul Fildes was the author of works on haemophilia and syphilis.