Murphy was educated at University College London, graduating in science and proceeding to the Master of Science degree in 1934, before qualifying with the Conjoint Diploma in 1935 and taking the London medical and surgical degrees in 1936. During the second world war he served as medical officer in the Parachute Regiment, taking the Fellowship in 1941. After a period as medical registrar at the Postgraduate Medical School at Hammersmith Hospital, he was appointed senior lecturer in physiology at the University of Birmingham. He then settled in practice at 102 Camberwell New Road, London SE5, living at Eastbourne. More than twenty years after his medical qualification he took, in 1957, the degree of Bachelor of Dental Surgery. Murphy published papers in the *Journal of physiology*, the cardiological journal *Clinical science*, and the *British medical journal*. He died on 6 July 1969 at 13 West Terrace, Eastbourne in his late fifties, and was survived by his son and two daughters.