John Seton Michael Pringle was educated at Castle Park School, Dublin, and Haileybury College. He graduated BA and MB BCh at Cambridge University and MB BCh BAO at Trinity College, Dublin, and became FRCSI in 1935 and FRCS in 1937. After some years as consulting surgeon to Mercer's Hospital he was appointed to the staff of the Royal City of Dublin Hospital and of the Rotunda and Drumcondra Hospitals. For many years he was consulting surgeon to the medical department of Arthur Guinness Son and Co. He held the Chair of Surgery at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland for several years before becoming Regius Professor of Surgery at Trinity College, Dublin. Failing health forced his complete retirement in 1972. Seton Pringle served in the RAMC with the rank of Major, acting for some time as surgeon in the liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth during their voyages as troopships. He landed in Normandy on the day after D-Day with a field surgical unit and was actively engaged during the Arnhem campaign. A modest man of simple tastes, he loved the country and was never happier than when out after snipe with his gun and dog or sailing in Dublin Bay. His loss of mobility was a sore trial, and to such an omnivorous reader progressive blindness was even worse, but he bore these and other burdens bravely and cheerfully. A devoted family man, he had two very happy marriages. His first wife died tragically of poliomyelitis in 1950, leaving him with two daughters and a son. In 1959 he married for the second time and when he died on 22 May 1975 he was survived by his wife Nancy, who nursed him devotedly during his years of illness.