Mary Pickford (physiologist)

Lillian Mary Pickford
240px Mary Pickford in 1990
Born	14 August 1902 Jabalpur, India
Died	Nether Wallop, Hampshire.
Nationality	British
Known for	Neuroendocrinology, Fellow of the Royal Society

Lillian Mary Pickford (14 August 1902 – 14 August 2002) was a pioneering neuroendocrinologist and Fellow of the Royal Society (1966). She was the first woman to be elected to the Pharmacological Society and the first woman appointed to a medical professorship at Edinburgh University.

Life and work

Pickford was born in Jubbulpore, India on 14 August 1902 and was sent to live with her aunt and uncle in Surrey, England at the age of five. A family friend, Sir Cooper Perry encouraged her to become a doctor but discouraged her from becoming a researcher, saying, 'Don't think of it. Women are no use at that kind of thing'. She was educated at Wycombe Abbey school. In 1925 she graduated from Bedford College, having read physiology, zoology, and chemistry. After graduation the scarcity of work for women scientists meant she had difficulty finding any, but she found part-time work teaching before being accepted as a research assistant at University College London. A legacy from her godmother of £120 a year meant she could study clinical medicine part-time at University College Hospital and she was admitted MRCS and LRCP in 1933. In 1936 Pickford was awarded a Beit Memorial Fellowship and in 1939 reported on the antidiuretic effect of injecting acetylcholine into the brain.

In 1939 she became lecturer in the department of physiology at Edinburgh University, where she remained until she retired in 1972. She graduated DSc in 1951, was promoted to Reader in 1952 and in 1966 became Professor of Physiology

In addition to over 60 full papers and 13 book chapters, Pickford published a popular book The Central Role of Hormones (1969).

Pickford received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 1991

Professor Pickford died on her hundredth birthday in 2002.