Laidlaw was born in Glasgow, the son of Robert Laidlaw, M.D., at that time Superintendent of the Glasgow Medical Mission.^[1] He was educated at Leys School, Cambridge and St. John’s College, Cambridge.

Around 1910, he and Henry H. Dale studied the properties of histamine (then called β-imidazolylethylamine) at the Wellcome Physiological Research Laboratories after which he went to Guy's Hospital as a lecturer in experimental pathology. ^[2] As a virologist at the Medical Research Council in 1922 his researches on dog-distemper led to two ways of immunisation against it, which achievement earned him the award of a Royal Medal by the Royal Society in 1933. In 1927 he had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society.^[3]

He was one of the scientists working at the Medical Research Council (NIMR Farm Laboratories) at Mill Hill who first isolated influenza virus from humans.^[4] This happened when ferrets they were working on to develop a distemper vaccine caught influenza from one of the scientists in the laboratory.

He was knighted in the 1935 Birthday Honours for distinguished service to medical science.^[5]

He died unmarried at the age of 58.

Biography

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