23 Facts About Richard Doll

Richard Doll was a pioneer in research linking smoking to health problems.

Richard Doll carried out pioneering work on the relationship between radiation and leukaemia as well as that between asbestos and lung cancer, and alcohol and breast cancer.

Richard Doll was offered an exhibition instead, but refused to take it up.

Richard Doll chose instead to follow his parents' wishes and study medicine at St Thomas's Hospital Medical School from where he graduated in 1937.

Richard Doll was a socialist, and one of the significant figures in the Socialist Medical Association whose campaign helped lead to the creation of Britain's postwar National Health Service.

Richard Doll joined the Royal College of Physicians after the outbreak of World War II and served for much of the war as a part of the Royal Army Medical Corps on a hospital ship as a medical specialist.

Over a 21-year career in the unit, Richard Doll rose to become its director.

Richard Doll himself stopped smoking as a result of his findings, published in the British Medical Journal in 1950, which concluded:.

In 1955, Richard Doll reported a case-controlled study that firmly established the relationship between asbestos and lung cancer.

In 1969, Richard Doll moved to Oxford University, to sit as the Regius Professor of Medicine, succeeding the clinical researcher Sir George Pickering.

Richard Doll was the primary agent behind the creation of Green College, which was founded in 1979.

Richard Doll was appointed the first Warden of Green College, whence he retired in 1983.

Richard Doll helped found the National Blood Service, and was key in avoiding a system of paying donors for their blood, as had been adopted in the United States.

Richard Doll's continued work into carcinogens at the Imperial Cancer Research Centre at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, working as part of the Clinical Trial Service Unit, notably including a study undertaken with Richard Peto, in which it was estimated that tobacco, along with infections and diet, caused three-quarters of all cancers, which was the basis of any of the World Health Organization's conclusions on environmental pollution and cancer.

Richard Doll was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1966, knighted in 1971, and awarded the Edward Jenner Medal of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1981.

Also in 1981, Richard Doll became a founding member of the World Cultural Council.

Richard Doll was a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters from 1976.

Richard Doll was awarded honorary degrees by thirteen different universities.

Richard Doll was a supporter of the Liberal Democrats at the 2005 general election.

Richard Doll died on 24 July 2005, at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford after a short illness.

The Richard Doll Building in Headington, east Oxford, designed by Nicholas Hare Architects in 2006, was named in his honour and opened shortly before his death.

Peto said that Richard Doll gave all his fees from such work to Green College, Oxford, which he had founded.

Richard Doll withdrew it on advice from Sir Harold Himsworth, Secretary of the MRC, who in turn was advised by the Atomic Energy Authority not to publish because it would be contrary to their interests.