[1] While working at the Western Infirmary in Glasgow, he was one of the first clinicians to apply the newly isolated compound, insulin, to a diabetic patient in Scotland.
[2] In 1933, he took a role as Head of Physiology working with John Boyd Orr at the University of Aberdeen.
[5] In World War II he made extensive physiological studies, especially on air crews, to assess the effects of g-forces, stress and high altitude.
He contributed to the understanding of the gastrointestinal tract, and was the first to use the term 'guarding reflex'[6] with regards to feedback signals of the nervous system.
In 1992, his former assistant, James Black, awarded him an honorary doctorate (LLD) in his capacity as Chancellor of the University of Dundee.