Chassar Moir

(John) Chassar Moir CBE (21 March 1900 – 24 November 1977) was Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at The University of Oxford.

"One whose contributions were so outstanding as to make Chassar Moir’s an immortal name in the history of Obstetrics and Gynaecology".

Moir was educated at Montrose Academy developing interests in botany, the sciences and German.

He visited hospitals in Vienna, Budapest, Leipzig and Berlin: during this time he became proficient in German, using medical libraries to research historical writings on a fungus of rye - Claviceps purpurea - that was known for its ability to produce strong contractions in the pregnant uterus.

With Dr. H. Ward Dudley, F.R.S., he researched the active agent(s) of a liquid extract of ergot which took almost four years’ work to isolate and for the chemistry to be described, resulting in the new drug ‘Ergometrine’.

The drug was found to be effective and constant in action, and its use to prevent postpartum haemorrhage became universal.

It has saved countless women's lives throughout the world and is ranked one of the greatest contributions to medical knowledge of the twentieth century.

Moir decreed that ‘Ergometrine’ was to have its method of preparation published in full, and that no patent or proprietary interests were to encumber it: it was to be free for any manufacturer to produce.

[2] At University College Hospital Moir met and married Theatre Sister Grace Hilda Bailey, of Strand-on-the-Green, 1933.They lived at 11 Chadlington Road in North Oxford from 1938 to 1957, and an Oxfordshire Blue Plaque was unveiled on this house in his memory on 6 July 2019.

[6] For relief of pain in childbirth, Moir devised an analgesic apparatus which could be used for self-administration by the woman and gave faster pain relief than the existing apparatus (25 seconds as opposed to 40 seconds), and that could be used for prolonged periods to no ill effect on mother or baby.

Important contributions made by Moir and his department included developing the use of X-rays to detect the placental site,[3] new methods of pelvimetry,[3] the use of pudendal block, research by Mostyn Embrey on prostaglandins, the research by C. Scott Russell on the effect of oxytocin on isolated uterine muscle strips, and a study of amniocentesis.

Moir’s outstanding contribution to gynaecological surgery was the repair of vesicovaginal fistulae and stress incontinence using the ‘gauze hammock’ method, resulting in an exceptionally high success rate.

[7] On retirement from the University of Oxford in 1967 he became Visiting Professor at the Postgraduate Medical School Hammersmith where he continued to lecture and to operate on patients, until shortly before his death, from cancer, in 1977.

‘Ergot: From ‘St Anthony’s Fire’ to the Isolation of its Active Principle Ergometrine (Ergonovine).’ Am.

Fellow American Association of Obstetrics and Gynaecology 1955 M.M.S.A., ‘Honoris Causa’, Society of Apothecaries of London 1955 Joseph Price Orator: Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore, U.S.A. 1960 The Eardley Holland Gold Medal, Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists 1961 Appointed C.B.E.