Educated at Queen's College, Belfast and the Royal University of Ireland, Moore's early positions were in the field of physiology at Yale University, Connecticut, United States and Charing Cross Hospital, London.

Webster, he resolved the issue of potentially-fatal TNT poisoning in British shell factories, preventing further deaths.

The poisonings and method of prevention were censored by the War Office until 1921 for the sake of public morale.

Instead he developed a theory of "biotic energy" which he discussed in his books The Origin and Nature of Life (1913) and Biochemistry (1921).

Similar to the vitalists he claimed that there was an energy in living bodies which could not be described in terms of physics and chemistry.