David John Dyson Perrins was an expert in the use of hyperbaric oxygen and a former MRC research fellow at Churchill Hospital, Oxford. Born in 1924, he studied medicine at Jesus College, Cambridge, and rowed for the university in the 1946 Boat Race. He completed his clinical studies at St Thomas's, where he was a house surgeon. After National Service in the Royal Navy, he trained in plastic surgery, gaining experience in the use of hyperbaric oxygen treatment. He completed his MD thesis in 1972 on hyperbaric oxygen and wound healing, and spent ten years at the Churchill Hospital, Oxford, studying the use of oxygen as a radiosensitiser. He also undertook experimental work with W S Bullough at London University on chalones, the mitotic inhibitors in skin. He then moved to Stockholm for two years, to work with Per Oluf Barr on the use of hyperbaric oxygen to prevent amputation in patients with diabetic vascular disease. On his return to the UK he was an honorary adviser to the Federation of Multiple Sclerosis Treatment Centres, researching into the use of hyperbaric oxygen to slow the progress of the disease. He was a former vice president of the International Society of Hyperbaric Medicine. David Perrins died on 2 November 2005.