Submitted by admin on April 22, 2009 - 22:27
SMIRK, Sir Frederick Horace, K.B.E.
(1902– ).
Research professor of medicine, University of Otago.
A new biography of Smirk, Frederick Horace appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.
Frederick Horace Smirk was born at Accrington, Lancashire, on 12 December 1902 and educated at Manchester University, taking the degrees of M.B., Ch.B., and M.D. In 1930 he was awarded a Beit memorial fellowship and a Dickenson travelling scholarship. He was appointed to the medical unit of University College, London, in 1932, and in 1935 accepted the post of professor of pharmacology at the Egyptian University, Cairo. During the Second World War he served on the Scientific Defence Council. From 1940 to 1961 he was professor of medicine at the University of Otago, Dunedin, and in the following year was appointed research professor of medicine. In addition to his academic duties he has held visiting professorships or lectureships at institutions in England, Scotland, Australia, and India. He was vice-president of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (1958–60), a member of the Psychiatric Committee (1957–60), and chairman of the Clinical Research Committee since 1942. From 1944 to 1960 he was a member of the Council of the Medical Research Council of New Zealand. He was also a member of the WHO Expert Committee on Hypertension and Ischaemic Heart Disease. His publications include Arterial Hypertension (1957), and he is joint author of Modern Trends in Geriatrics (1956), Current Therapy (1955), Annual Reviews of Medicine (1955), and Hypertensive Drugs (1956). Professor Smirk was created K.B.E. in 1958.