Tahrir El-Galiani was professor of surgery at Baghdad University. He was born in Hit, Iraq in 1926. His mother's name was Hidna Turky and his father, Ismail Ahmed El-Galiani was a land owner on the Euphratus. He was their seventh child and the fourth of their sons. After primary school in Hit, he attended secondary school in Ramadi and then the Preparatory Central School in Baghdad. At the Royal Iraqi Medical School he qualified MB, ChB in 1949 and won prizes in public health and medicolegal studies. Between 1950 and 1953 he was resident in surgery at the Royal Teaching Hospital in Baghdad before coming to the UK and taking up a post at the North Herts Hospital Hitchin in 1954 where he worked under W E M Wardell and J Shipman. In 1956 he went to Green Bank Hospital, Plymouth. He passed the College fellowship in 1958 and the Edinburgh fellowship the following year. Returning to Iraq he eventually became professor of surgery at the Medical College of Baghdad University. In 1967 he married Ms H Al-Saigh and they had a son and a daughter. His hobbies were photography, classical music and swimming. He died on 11 May 2009. Publications: Traumatic diaphragmatic hernia. *Brit j clin surg*20:12 1966 Gallstones and cholecystitis. *Int surg* 47:3 1967 Radical mastectomy in the treatment of cancer of the beast. *J Fac Med Baghdad* 8:1 1966 Vagotomy and gastrojejunestomy in the treatment of duodenal ulcer. *Ann Coll Med Mosul* 1:118 1966