In 1976, he re-joined the PHLS and as director of the CDSC, set up teaching courses for NHS epidemiologists, and improved surveillance programmes in infectious disease.
[1] He completed his early education at Tonbridge School, before gaining a place at London University to study medicine, and subsequently qualified in 1950 from Guy's Hospital.
[1] The following year, he was posted to Egypt, where he served as deputy assistant director of army health, based at the Suez Canal zone.
[1][2] In 1954, he gained the diploma in public health after completing studies at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
[1][2][a] During that time, he continued work on polio and BCG vaccines, and called for a centrally funded co-ordinated national epidemiological service, based on the American Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
[7] Administered by the Central Public Health Laboratory Service (PHLS), he chose the Broad Street pump as its logo.
[5][9] As director of the CDSC, he set up teaching courses for NHS epidemiologists, and improved surveillance programmes in infectious disease.
[7][10] On 9 May 1983, after reviewing literature revealing that 11 cases of AIDS in the United States, three in Spain, and one in Wales, were detected in people who had received American Factor VIII, Galbraith wrote to Ian Field of the UK Department of Health and Social Security, and suggested to withdraw products made in the US from blood donated after 1978:[13][14] I have reviewed the literature and come to the conclusion that all blood products made from blood donated in the USA after 1978 should be withdrawn from use until the risk of AIDS transmission by these products has been clarified.
[13][15]The paper Galbraith submitted on the matter was considered and rejected at a meeting of the biological sub-committee of the Committee on Safety of Medicines on 13 July 1983.