Henry Cohen was born in Birkenhead on February 21, 1900, the son of a draper and clothier, and was educated at the church school of St John when the fees were 2d a week. One of his school masters remembered him as a brilliant boy 'who showed signs of genius when most boys are only beginning to show signs of intelligence'. He won a scholarship to Birkenhead Institute and then captained the Cricket XI, was a champion gymnast and gained slight experience in theatricals. From the Institute he won a scholarship to Oxford, but on the grounds of expense transferred it to Liverpool though he remained so impecunious that he had to walk to and from the ferry every day. His original intention had been to study medicine in order to become a criminal lawyer, but as his studies continued he realised that medicine alone had enough to offer him. He graduated MB ChB in 1922 with first class honours and distinction in every subject in the curriculum, and obtained the MD with special merit in 1924 after further studies in the Universities of London and Paris. He was appointed assistant physician to the Liverpool Royal Infirmary in 1924 and remained on the staff for 41 years. Sheer ability, with an outstanding flair for diagnosis soon made him the most sought-after opinion in the city. In 1934 it was clear to his seniors that he had so far outstripped his colleagues that he was the obvious choice for the Chair of Medicine in the University of Liverpool. From the time when he was appointed to the end of the war he rose to eminence in the conventional ways, election to the FRCP in 1934 and later an examiner to the College, a member of Council 1943-1946, and all this time increasingly in demand as an orator. His lectures and orations were brilliant performances, showing originality, breadth of vision, erudition and wit. Towards the end of a long series of named lectures came the Harveian Oration at the Royal College of Physicians in 1970, on the motion of blood in the veins. Of the same standard as his great clinical ability and his oratory was his grasp of administration, particularly his chairmanship of committees. After the introduction of the NHS he became one of the principal outside experts and voluntary advisors to the Ministry. He was the first Vice-Chairman of the Central Health Services Council in 1949, and became Chairman in 1957. His great contribution was that he brought to the Ministry the professional knowledge of the active clinician so that the administration was kept closely in touch with the outside medical world. In recognition of his talents he received a knighthood in 1949 and it was as Sir Henry Cohen that he was elected President of the BMA in 1951. In 1952 he was seriously ill with a coronary thrombosis over which, after several anxious weeks, he triumphed. Unlike most doctors, he strictly adhered to the medical advice he was given, and on recovery gave up his vast private practice and dedicated himself to the national work of the organisation and advancement of British medicine. He presided over countless committees and was a household name to general practitioners, who had good reason to bless the Cohen categories as they struggled with the drugs to be used in the NHS. One of his most important scientific contributions arose by virtue of his chairmanship of the committee dealing with the organisation of poliomyelitis vaccination in this country. He also played a large part in the preparation of the reports on the medical care of epileptics and on staphylococcal infections in hospital, to mention just two among many. His remarkable memory and powers of exposition made him a formidable figure in the counsels of the Ministry of Health, and the debt owed to him by successive Ministers and departmental heads was immense. It was for these great administrative talents that he was created a peer in 1956 and he was the first physician from the provinces to be raised to the House of Lords. When he made his maiden speech on the subject of vivisection, Lord Silkin, deputy leader of the Opposition, said he never heard a more effective maiden speech in the House. It was appropriate that his great grasp of medicine and his legalistic bent were harnessed together when he became President of the General Medical Council in 1961, and anyone reading his summings-up cannot fail to appreciate his humanity. In 1958 he was elected President of the Royal Society of Health, and in 1975 he was re-elected for his fourth five-year term of office. Elected in 1961 President of the National Society for Clean Air, he was also appointed a member of the Clean Air Council. Among his many lectures at this time he delivered the Chadwick Lecture to the Royal Society of Health in 1961. He was invested as an associate Knight of the Order of St John that year and in November was elected President of the General Medical Council. In 1963 he received the Honorary FRCPS Glasgow, the Honorary FFARCS and the Honorary LLD London. In December he retired from the Chairmanship of the Central Health Services Council and of the Standing Medical Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Health. In March 1964 he was elected to Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists. He retired from the Chair of Medicine at Liverpool in 1965. In July 1966 he received the Honorary LLD of Hull University and the Honorary DSc of Sussex University. The following year the Gold Medal of the BMA was awarded to him in recognition of his outstanding services to the Association and to the medical profession. He had been a member of the BMA since 1923 and throughout his professional life played an active and important part in its affairs, President 1950-1951, he was elected Vice-President in 1953. Over the years he served on many of its committees. Two of these, of which he was chairman, published reports on the training of a doctor (1948) and on general practice and the training of the general practitioner (1950). The honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law was conferred on him by Oxford University in 1968, the following year he was elected Honorary FRCS and in 1970 he was elected Chancellor of Hull University. He was appointed Companion of Honour in 1974. Outside medicine his first love was the theatre and he took a very active part in the running of the Liverpool Playhouse. He personally helped to select the plays, and as he was a shrewd businessman the Liverpool Repertory Company was one of the few in the country to make money. His favourite theatre story was that when as a small boy he had taken the part of the first watchman in *Much ado about nothing* it had been reported in the local press that 'The first watchman had two lines to speak and both were inaudible'. His later distinction as an orator showed that the words of the critic had not fallen on stony ground. His other great love outside medicine was the collection of old silver, and when he was President of the Liverpool Medical Institution in 1954 his inaugural lecture on the subject delighted his medical and lay audience. He said that it satisfied the intellect as well as the aesthetic senses as a leisure occupation. He enjoyed his television sporting programmes and when talking to patients he always knew the results of the Reds and Blues football matches. His publications included *New pathways in medicine* (1935); *Nature, method and purpose of diagnosis* (1943); *Sherrington: physiologist, philosopher and poet* (1958) and *The evolution of modern medicine* (1958), beside numerous contributions to journals and medical books. Lord Cohen of Birkenhead was an orthodox Jew. He was a bachelor and devoted to his mother, who died some years before him.