Herbert Wilberforce Perkins was doubly qualified in surgery and dental surgery. He was the third son of a silk weaver, William Perkins, and his wife Eleanor (Whitworth). Born in London on 29 January 1881 he was educated at Dame Owen's (Brewers' Company) School, London, and at the Middlesex and Royal Dental Hospitals. He became house surgeon, demonstrator and hospital tutor at the Royal Dental Hospital and then turned to microbiology and pathology. He was assistant in the bacteriological laboratory, the Middlesex Hospital (1905-1911) and then became pathologist to Paddington Green Children's Hospital, Hampstead General Hospital and the Maida Vale Hospital from 1911 to 1945, excepting his service in two world wars. In the first world war he served as Captain RAMC, 1916-1921, and was a member of the Diseases Investigation Committee in France. During the second world war, as Major RAMC, 1940-1945, he served in the emergency vaccine laboratory in Tidworth, being engaged in the manufacture of all vaccines (typhoid, cholera, plague etc) for the British Army. He made various communications to the *Quarterly journal of medicine* and the *Lancet*. He remained a bachelor and died sometime in 1978.