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Graphic: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand 1966.

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This information was published in 1966 in An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock. It has not been corrected and will not be updated.

Up-to-date information can be found elsewhere in Te Ara.

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CHAMPTALOUP, Sydney Taylor

(1880–1921).

Professor of bacteriology and public health.

Champtaloup was born in Auckland on 10 August 1880, the son of Edward Champtaloup. He went to the Edinburgh University Medical School where he graduated in 1906 with first class honours and was second for the Ettles Scholarship, awarded to the most distinguished graduate of the year. He served as a house officer in the Edinburgh Infirmary and later in Manchester and Cardiff. He returned to Edinburgh and spent a year as an assistant to the professor of surgery. In 1908 he transferred his interests to public health and bacteriology, and spent a further year as assistant to Professor Hunter Stewart in his department, also in Edinburgh. In April 1910 he was appointed lecturer in bacteriology and public health in the Otago Medical School.

His contribution to these departments, and to the organisation and development of the Medical School, where he served for some years as sub-Dean to Sir Lindo Ferguson, was of such an order that in 1911 he was appointed to a full time chair in bacteriology and public health. In 1918 he was responsible for the diagnosis of an extensive outbreak of cerebro-spinal meningitis among New Zealand troops at Trentham, which saved many lives. In 1920 he returned to Edinburgh for post-graduate work, taking his M.D. and Doctorate of Science in Public Health. He returned to Dunedin in ill health and died prematurely on 11 December 1921. He was a man of most attractive personality, whose zeal and ability for teaching as well as for research and administration had a profound influence in the Medical School.

by Charles Ernest Hercus, KT., D.S.O., O.B.E., U.D., M.B. CH.B.(N.Z.), M.D., D.P.H., B.D.S., F.R.C.P., F.R.A.C.P., F.R.A.C.S., Emeritus Professor, University of Otago.

  • Annals of the University of Otago Medical School, Carmalt-Jones, D. W. (1945)
  • The Otago Medical School under the First Three Deans, Hercus, C. E., and Bell, G. (1964).

Co-creator

Charles Ernest Hercus, KT., D.S.O., O.B.E., U.D., M.B. CH.B.(N.Z.), M.D., D.P.H., B.D.S., F.R.C.P., F.R.A.C.P., F.R.A.C.S., Emeritus Professor, University of Otago.