James Steel Scott (18 April 1924 – 17 September 2006) was a Scottish obstetrician and gynaecologist who was a pioneer in the field of reproductive immunology.
[2] At the completion of his national service in 1949,[2] Scott returned to Britain to train in obstetrics and gynaecology, first at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London and then at Birmingham.
[1] It was at Liverpool that Scott developed an interest in immunology; here he met Cyril Clarke and Ronald Finn, who discovered that rhesus disease in newborns could be prevented by giving anti-D immunoglobulin to pregnant mothers.
At Leeds he continued to focus on reproductive immunology and was among the first to demonstrate that certain transient diseases in newborns were caused by the passage of antibodies from the mother to the foetus via the placenta.
He hypothesised that it was caused by an immunological mismatch between mother and foetus and although he found supportive anecdotal evidence for this theory, he was unable to prove it.