Oxford pays tribute to Sir Richard Doll

25 July 2005

Professor Sir Richard Doll, the eminent epidemiologist whose research established the causative association between smoking and lung cancer, died on Sunday 24 July, aged 92, at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford after a short illness.

In 1951 Sir Richard and Austin Bradford Hill started a study that would eventually last for 50 years, asking all the doctors in Britain what they themselves smoked, and then tracking them over the years to see what they died from. The early results confirmed that smokers were much more likely to die of lung cancer than were non-smokers, and the 10-year results showed that smoking killed far more people from other diseases than from lung cancer.

This research moved to Oxford University when Sir Richard was appointed Regius Professor of Medicine in 1969. The 20, 40, and 50-year results, published in collaboration with Professor Sir Richard Peto, showed that half of all persistent smokers were eventually killed by their habit, but that stopping smoking cut the risks. As a result, tens of millions of people stopped smoking, and millions of premature deaths have been avoided. As well as confirming the link between tobacco and lung cancer, he showed that smoking could also cause many other types of cancer, as well as heart disease, respiratory disease and peptic ulcer.

During his 10 years as Regius Professor, the most senior medical post in the University, he helped develop one of the top medical schools in the world, with particular strengths in population-based studies of disease. He held this position until 1979 when he became the first Warden of Green College, and also Director of the Cancer Epidemiology Unit.

Sir Richard retired from administrative work in 1983, but he continued his research within the University's Clinical Trial Service Unit, co-directed by Professor Sir Richard Peto and Professor Rory Collins. The 50-year follow-up of the British Doctors' Study was published with striking new findings when he was 91 years old, on the exact 50th anniversary of the first publication from the study www.mrc.ac.uk/public-22_June_2004.

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford, Dr John Hood, said: 'Sir Richard's enormous contribution to medicine globally, and within Oxford, cannot be overstated. His pioneering epidemiological work on the link between smoking and cancer, cardiovascular disease and many other disorders, has led to the dramatic reduction in smoking rates in Britain over the past 50 years, especially among men. This research has saved many millions of lives.

'But Sir Richard will also be remembered as an inspiration and mentor to generations of scientists, a community in which he loved to spend his time long into what for most of us would have been retirement. It is fitting therefore that the University will shortly be opening the Richard Doll Building, where work on population studies, influenced by his visionary approach to the discipline, will continue to establish reliable assessments of the causes, prevention and treatment of cancers, heart attacks, strokes and other major diseases.

'Our thoughts, at this sad time, are with his family and many friends.'

Professor Sir Richard Peto, his close colleague for more than 30 years, said: 'Richard Doll's work has prevented millions of premature deaths in the 20th century, and will prevent tens of millions of premature deaths in the present century. He was unique in medical history.'

The Medical Research Council (MRC) Chief Executive, Professor Colin Blakemore, added: 'We have lost a great scientific mind. Professor Sir Richard Doll was one of the most important medical scientists of the 20th century. His proof of the link between smoking and cancer has done as much to save lives as the discovery of penicillin or the development of polio vaccine. The profound implications for health policy resonate to this day.

'He will be greatly missed by his colleagues at Oxford and all around the world, for whom he was an inspiring leader and a wonderful friend.'

The University will officially open the Richard Doll Building later this year, bringing together the Clinical Trial Service Unit, Cancer Epidemiology Unit, and other units.