William Burnett was born in London on 14 March 1906 and received his medical education at University College Hospital. As a student he won exhibitions in pathology and biology. After qualification in 1929 he took resident appointments at Portsmouth Hospital, and then settled in general practice at R

Ian Alexander McDonald was born in Perth, Western Australia, on 1 April 1922, the son of Neil McDonald, a Presbyterian Minister, who at one stage was Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Western Australia. His paternal grandfather had emigrated from the Western Isles, and his grandmother Munroe,