Ian MacGillivray, Emeritus Regius professor of obstetrics and gynaecology at the University of Aberdeen, has died aged 1o0.
He devoted a lifetime to the study of eclampsia in twin pregnancies and was appointed president of the International Society for the Study of Hypertension in Pregnancy in 1976.
Four years later, Professor MacGillivray was appointed president of the International Society for Twin Studies.
Royal Navy
During the war, Professor MacGillivray served with the Royal Navy as a surgeon on a troopship, mainly in the Indian Ocean.
Ian MacGillivray was born in Kirkintilloch, Dunbartonshire, in 1921.
He was educated at Vale of Leven Academy, Alexandria, and was then granted a Carnegie Scholarship to study medicine at Glasgow University.
After the war, while at the Royal Maternity and Women’s Hospital in Glasgow, Ian became fascinated by the high incidence of eclampsia in twin pregnancies leading to his lifelong study of the condition.
Bristol
He was appointed senior lecturer at Bristol University, and then in Aberdeen in 1955 before establishing the new London University department of obstetrics and gynaecology at St Mary’s Hospital.
When Sir Dugald Baird retired in 1965, Ian succeeded him until he retired in 1984. He served as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine between 1976 and 1979.
He was visiting professor to many universities in Britain, Ireland, Belgium, the United States, Canada, Malaysia, Australia, India, Nigeria, and South Africa.
Professor MacGillivray also spent time in centres in India on behalf of World Health Organisation.
On retiring he and his wife Edith spent six months in Cape Town analysing the obstetric records at the Groote Schur Hospital and published several papers with Professor Dennis Davey.
Study into twins
On return to Bristol he was made an honorary research fellow in the departments of obstetrics and child health and showed that cerebral palsy was more common in twins than singletons.
From 1991 until 1995 he was a consultant to a project on eclampsia in Jamaica. This involved interviewing patients, and analysing records and contributed to the fall in deaths from eclampsia.
Professor MacGillivray acted as an expert witness in cases of pre-eclampsia and cerebral palsy in the UK and in Australia until 2000.
Honoured
He was proud of his ancient clan and was delighted to have the MacGillivray Academic Centre At Aberdeen University named after him in 1999.
Professor MacGillivray was predeceased by his wife Edith Mary Margaret and is survived by a son, twin daughters, four grandchildren and twin great grandsons.
