[2] At the age of 18, he joined the order of monks at the Benedictine college of Ampleforth, but after two months it became clear that this was not the vocation for him and he returned to Liverpool to pursue medicine,[3] qualifying in 1937.
[5] This became known as the 'Liverpool technique', based on the triad of unconsciousness, analgesia and muscle relaxation, with a markedly lower complication rate than deep inhalational anaesthesia.
[4] Cecil Gray made a great contribution to postgraduate education, organising the first "day-release" course in Britain for junior anaesthetists preparing for their examinations.
He was President of the Section of Anaesthetics of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1955 and the first anaesthetist to be awarded the Sir Arthur Sims Commonwealth Travelling Fellowship by the RCS (England).
In 1959, he was awarded a personal chair in anaesthesia at the University of Liverpool and was made Dean of the Faculty of Medicine in 1970, retiring in 1976, but continued to give occasional lectures.