William D.M. Paton

William D.M. Paton
William D.M. Paton in 1984
Born	(1917-05-05)5 May 1917
Died	17 October 1993(1993-10-17)(aged 76)
Occupation	British pharmacologist
Awards	Cameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh(1956) Gairdner Foundation International Award(1959)

Sir William Drummond Macdonald PatonCBEFRS(5 May 1917 – 17 October 1993)was a Britishpharmacologistandvivisectionactivist.

Biography

Paton was born inHendonand educated atRepton SchoolandNew College, Oxford,where he was awarded a BA in animal physiology. In 1939 he enteredUniversity College Hospital(UCH) to study clinical medicine and was appointed house physician to the medical unit.

Unfit for military service he took the post of pathologist in a tuberculosis sanatorium, later moving to theNational Institute for Medical Research,then in Hampstead, London. He worked at NIMR for 8 years on the pharmacology ofacetylcholineand its benefits in the control ofhypertension.For this work he and his colleagueEleanor Zaimiswere amongst the recipients of the firstGairdner Foundation International Awardsin 1959.

In 1952 he returned to UCH as reader in applied pharmacology, and spent the next two years studying submarine physiology, developing the blend of oxygen, helium and nitrogen (Tri-mix) which enables divers to work at deeper depths.In 1956, he was awarded theCameron Prize for Therapeutics of the University of Edinburgh.

In 1954 he was appointed Professor of Pharmacology at theRoyal College of Surgeons,remaining there until 1959, when he was given the post of Professor of Pharmacology atOxford Universityand made aFellowofBalliol College.He was appointed aCBEin 1968 andknightedin 1979.He retired in 1984.

He died inOxford,aged 76.

Fellow of the Royal Society

He was elected aFellow of the Royal Societyin 1956.His nomination citation read:"Distinguished for his researches on histamine and methonium compounds. With MacIntosh he showed that many simple organic bases are histamine releasers and, later, he found that this property is shared by opium alkaloids and by a phenylethylamine derivative,compound 48/80,the most active known releaser. One of the outstanding recent contributions to pharmacology and therapeutics is his discovery, with Zaimis, of the actions of the methonium compounds -decamethoniuma potent neuromuscular, andhexamethoniuma potent ganglion blocking substance. His analysis of their mode of action has since become the model for such studies and led to the distinction between block by depolarisation and competition. Hexamethonium became the first effective drug in the treatment ofmalignant hypertensionand of great value in cranial and plastic surgery. During the war he worked for the Royal Naval Personnel Research Committee on submarine physiology. "

Views on animals

Paton was a vivisection activist and an opponent ofanimal rights.His 1984 bookMan and Mouse: Animals in Medical Researchwas a defence of the use ofanimals in medical research.It was revised in 1993.According to Paton, a distinction should be made between moral agents and moral objects. Humans are moral agents who can accept duties and claim rights whilst animals are moral objects who have no duties, cannot make claims and do not have rights.

Selected publications

• Vivisection, Morals, Medicine: Commentary from a Vivisecting Professor of Pharmacology(1983)
• Man and Mouse: Animals in Medical Research(1984, 1993)