Professor Dame Sheila Sherlock

Sheila Patricia Violet Sherlock, hepatologist: born Dublin 18 March 1918; Physician and Lecturer in Medicine, Postgraduate Medical School of London 1948-59; Professor of Medicine, Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine 1959-83; DBE 1978; FRS 2001; married 1951 Dr Geraint James (two daughters); died London 30 December 2001.

Sheila Sherlock was the world's most famous liver doctor.

Born in Dublin in 1918, she was brought up in Folkestone and attended its County School for Girls. She decided to study medicine and went to Edinburgh University in 1936. She described her student days in My Medical School (1978), a collection of reminiscences edited by Dannie Abse. Dependent on grants and scholarships, she spent her holidays working – as a waitress and as a tutor in a "crammer". She graduated MB BCh (summa cum laude) in 1941 and, as top of the class, was the Ettles Scholar.

Even so, as a woman, she could not receive one of the plum house jobs at the Royal Infirmary. Instead she became clinical assistant to James (later Sir James) Rögnvald Learmonth, Professor of Surgery, who taught her the rudiments of medical research. She called him "Poppa"; years later, when she got engaged, he travelled to London overnight, inspected (and approved) her fiancé at breakfast, then returned to Edinburgh.

In 1942 she was house physician to Professor John McMichael (later Sir John, another Ettles scholar) at Hammersmith Hospital and the Postgraduate Medical School, in London. He taught her liver biopsy and, in 1943, with the pathologist John Dible, they published a paper on the pathology of acute hepatitis – the subject of her thesis for an Edinburgh MD (and gold medal) in 1945. This, as in the old song, was "the start of something big".

Funded by the Medical Research Council, then the Beit Memorial Fund, she studied the biochemistry of the liver and its disorders, although biochemistry was never her forte. For a short time she investigated the effects on the liver of the malnutrition suffered in German concentration camps. She was awarded a Rockefeller travelling fellowship to the Department of Physiological Chemistry at Yale in 1947. She returned to Hammersmith a year later as Lecturer and Honorary Consultant Physician. She was only 30.

Within a few years her new Liver Unit was famous – and so was she. Research fellows came from far and wide, particularly the United States and the Commonwealth. The research output was prodigious, with publications on many aspects of liver disease. In 1950 she was a founder member of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, and subsequently a founder and president of the International and European Associations for the Study of the Liver. In 1951 she became the youngest woman elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, later the first woman to be Senior Censor and Vice-President; in 1983 she was narrowly defeated in the presidential election.

The first edition of her Diseases of the Liver and Biliary System appeared in 1955; it is still a classic, translated into at least six other languages. (Last month James Dooley, her co-author since 1993, presented her with a rushed copy of the 11th edition.)

In 1959 she was the first woman appointed to the Chair of a British department of medicine, taking the newly created post at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, in London, which pioneered medical education of women in Britain. For 15 years her main unit (offices and laboratories) was at the hospital in Gray's Inn Road – housed in a rooftop wooden hut reachable only via steep ladders. Patients took their life in their hands to consult her there.

Despite this rickety and crowded accommodation excellent work was produced. The unit grew; other huts were erected – at Gray's Inn Road, and at the Lawn Road branch of the hospital in Hampstead. In 1974 the hospital and medical school moved to the new Royal Free at Hampstead; the Sherlock team moved into relatively palatial, purpose-built accommodation that she helped to design – its offices, laboratories and wards occupied most of the 10th floor.

Her contributions to hepatology over the years (although she always gave the credit to her co-workers) are too numerous to list; two or three examples must suffice – the role of the hepatitis B virus in the development of cirrhosis and liver cancer, autoimmunity as the cause of primary biliary cirrhosis (work done with Deborah Doniach at the Middlesex), and the great benefit of corticosteroid therapy for autoimmune hepatitis.

She had an immense impact on the hospital and the medical school over and above that resulting from the research done in her unit. Leading clinicians and basic scientists from all over the world visited regularly, and participated in the department's educational programme. Her juniors, and other colleagues, interacted with them and were encouraged to meet them socially, either over sherry after a lecture or over lunch or dinner. She influenced new appointments at the Royal Free, insisting that the successful applicant had a strong academic background.

Other departments started to specialise in liver disease. Peter Scheuer became a leading liver histopathologist; radiologists, such as Bob Dick, were soon experts at imaging the liver. She revitalised the hospital's library, supported the medical illustration department, and took a great interest in many aspects of school and hospital life, including the sporting activities of the students. Each Christmas she gave presents to groups providing key services – the telephonists, post room, porters and medical records staff.

Sheila Sherlock received honorary degrees, prizes and medals from many universities and academic organisations. She was President of the British Society of Gastroenterology, and edited its journal, Gut; she was the founding editor of the European Journal of Hepatology. The two awards that pleased her most were her appointment as DBE in 1978, and her somewhat belated election as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 2001.

She "retired" in 1983. This simply meant that she moved her office and her loyal secretary, Aileen Duggan, to the Department of Surgery and went on working. In great demand as a speaker at medical conferences, she continued to travel the world until a few months ago, although these trips began to take their toll.

Her home life was a rich one. She married Gerry James, also a distinguished physician, in 1951; she later described him as "a perfect consort for an academic wife". It was a wonderful marriage; they celebrated their golden wedding some two weeks before she died with their two daughters, Mandy and Auriole, and two granddaughters, Alice and Emily. Sheila liked the theatre, opera and literature. But she loved sport. She played tennis for her university; later, with the best male player, she regularly won her unit's annual tennis tournament. A life member of the Kent County Cricket Club, she could, when asked, name the team. Married to a Welshman, she understood rugby, but her loyalty in the winter was to Arsenal.

The love and loyalty she inspired in those who worked with her were obvious to everyone. She was a mother figure; she maintained discipline but protected her young from the criticisms of others. She nurtured them, feeding a healthy intellectual diet. She and Gerry invited them home – initially at Willesden, later at Regent's Park and their house at Hythe – to dine with friends and overseas visitors. She helped when the offspring left "home" – to run and work at liver units all over the world. And they were always welcomed back at the Free as part of her extended family. For years a large, informal group, nicknamed the "Sherlock Society", has held a dinner to honour her at the annual American liver meeting. Its members are already e-mailing each other to express their collective loss. The dinners, I am sure, will continue.

She will long be remembered at the Royal Free, where there is a Sheila Sherlock Postgraduate Centre, and a Sheila Sherlock Professor of Medicine. Her portrait, by Ruskin Spear, commissioned by fellows and friends, hangs in the postgraduate centre; there is a bust of her in the library; and her spirit still pervades the building.

Neil McIntyre