Philip D'Arcy Hart

Philip Montagu D’Arcy Hart, CBE, (25 June 1900 – 30 July 2006) was a British medical researcher and pioneer in tuberculosis treatment. Grandson of Samuel Montagu, 1st Baron Swaythling, he became a consultant physician at University College Hospital at the age of 34. Three years later, he joined the Medical Research Council (MRC), and became involved with much of the MRC's early research into dust diseases in coal miners. He was a member of the MRC Streptomycin in Tuberculosis Trials Committee; their study evaluating the use of streptomycin in treating tuberculosis is generally accepted as the first randomized clinical trial. At the age of 71, Hart published a seminal paper in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, showing the intracellular pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis avoids destruction in the cell's lysosomes by circumventing these organelles altogether—a trick now known to be used by many other intracellular pathogens.

In 1941, Hart married Ruth Meyer, later a medical gynaecologist. They had a son, the economist Oliver Hart.

Philip D'Arcy Hart died at the age of 106 in 2006.

Further reading

Obituary by Dr Tilli Tansey. Held by James Lind Library. http://www.jameslindlibrary.org/illustrating/articles/philip-montagu-darcy-hart-1900-2006 Obituary by Philip Draper and John Skehel. The Guardian, Wednesday 30 August 2006. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2006/aug/30/guardianobituaries.mainsection