Gabriel Donald, MBE, medical illustration pioneer; born March 1, 1914, died May 29, 1997
GABRIEL DONALD, the first Director of Medical Illustration at Glasgow University, has died peacefully at Hunters Hill Hospice, Glasgow, after a short illness.
Gabriel Donald was a remarkable man. Based at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow, he was one of the post-war
pioneers of medical illustration, and in particular medical art, in the United Kingdom, being internationally respected in this unique and usually unsung branch of medicine.
He had the choice of entering medicine or art; he chose art but ended up working in the life sciences. And medicine itself!
After receiving the diploma in art for drawing and painting from the Glasgow Art School, where he was a contemporary of the great Scots-Canadian film animator, Norman McLaren, and Ralston Gudgeon, the celebrated wildlife artist, he undertook further studies, gaining the art teachers' diploma, and taught art at senior secondary school level in the city in two areas of social deprivation.
Called up for service in the Second World War he trained as a pilot officer and was
eventually a flight lieutenant with the illustrious Pathfinder Squadron, finally flying Mos-quitos deep into enemy territory. It was also during the last three months of the war that he was shot down over Germany, making a record-breaking freefall parachute descent. He was ultimately captured by the Germans, transported by train to a Prisoner of War camp, but subsequently escaped.
His interest in figure drawing at the School of Art and his obvious skill in anatomical illustration led him from teaching to medical art. In this he was following on in the tradition of those early pre-Christian artists who depicted the treatment of arrow wounds on Greek vases through to Leonardo da Vinci's highly detailed life sketches based on a firm understanding of anatomy and physiology.
He was asked to undertake a few drawings by Professor W J R B Riddell of the Tennant Institute of Ophthalmology and made such an impression with Riddell that he left school teaching and was appointed an assistant lecturer in ophthalmology at Glasgow University.
This led to his remarkable career in medical illustration and subsequently his appointdirector of medical illustration when the then Western Regional Hospital Board and Glasgow University decided to establish a separate department to cater for both NHS service requirements and the teaching needs of what was to become the largest medical school in the UK.
He illustrated the seminal textbook, The Fundus of the Eye by Ballantyne & Michaelson, and went on to have a long association with Professor Wallace Foulds of the Tennant Institute and with the university's regius department of surgery, working closely for many years with both Sir Charles Illingworth and Sir Andrew Watt Kay.
Gabriel Donald was not only a highly accomplished artist but was an award-winning
cinematographer and medical educationist. He collaborated with William Dunn of the Institute of Educational Studies at the university and Sir Edward Wayne of the Gairdner Institute of Medicine in the development of new and experimental methods of clinical teaching, including pioneer work on tape-slide teaching methods, and, in conjunction with Dr Gavin Shaw and the late Bill Brown of Scottish Television, broadcast continuing medical education programmes in Scotland.
He was chairman of the Medical Artists' Association of Great Britain for more than 20 years and was the founding
co-chairman, with Dr Peter Hansell, of Westminster Medical School and the University of London's Institute of Ophthalmology, of the Institute of Medical and Biological Illustration in 1968. He was appointed MBE in the New Year's Honours List in 1980.
An imposing figure and a first-class public speaker, Gabriel Donald showed great kindness to all and gave ready assistance to generations of medical staff and students and those in medical illustration itself furth of Glasgow and the West of Scotland.
He was an adviser to the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and outside work his interest lay in landscape painting and gardening and was a former Visitor of the Incorporation of Maltmen of the Trades House of Glasgow.
Gabriel Donald shared many happy years with his wife Jeanette, the late Jeanette Wright Gardner who died in 1988, and is survived by three sons, a daughter and many loving grandchildren.
Robert Loudon Brown
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