Martin Allgöwer was chair and professor of surgery at the University of Basle, Switzerland. He was born in St Gallen, Switzerland, on 5 May 1917. He received his education at St Gallen and studied medicine at Geneva, Zürich and Basle. After qualifying, he was resident in the department of surgery at Basle under Carl Henschen and Otto Schürch, a distinguished orthopaedic surgeon who encouraged Allgöwer to set up a research institute of experimental surgery in Davos, where his first studies were on sulphonamide antagonists in tissue fluid, work carried out before penicillin was introduced. There he continued to work on tissue biology and wound healing, work which he continued as a visiting fellow in Galveston, Texas, under Pomerat and Blocker. He published the result of his research as *The cellular basis of wound repair* (Springfield, Illinois, Thomas) in 1956. In the same year he was appointed surgeon in chief in the Rätische Kantonsspital at Chur, Switzerland, later moving to be professor of surgery in Basle. He was the recipient of numerous honours, among which was the honorary fellowship of our College. He died on 27 October 2007 in Chur.