He was an early proponent of the germ theory of disease and promoted the discoveries of Louis Pasteur, Robert Koch, and Joseph Lister in surgical literature of the time.

He gave his name to the Marcus Beck Library (previously Laboratory) at the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM).

Beck was educated at Queenwood College, Hampshire, Arthur Abbott's School, Hitchin and the University of Glasgow.

[1] Beck gained admission to the University of Glasgow in 1860 where he lived with Joseph Lister, his first cousin once removed.

[2] Distinguished surgeons who trained under Beck include William Meredith, Stanley Boyd, Victor Horsley, and Raymond Johnson.

The introduction of the antiseptic technique by Lister in the late 19th century was controversial and Beck was one of his greatest defenders.

[4] By 1888, Beck, in an attempt to bring Listerian surgery up to date, had skilfully included Lister's antiseptic techniques and the theories of Pasteur and Koch into the eighth and ninth editions of this book.

Supervised by Ross, research concentrated on measles and dysentery before being superseded by expanding London teaching hospital laboratories.

[6][7] Roger Beck gave permission to the Royal Society of Medicine's council to form an extension of the library from the laboratory in 1923.