Ian Donald

Ian Donald (27 December 1910 – 19 June 1987) was an English physician who pioneered the diagnostic use of ultrasound in obstetrics, enabling the visual discovery of abnormalities during pregnancy. Donald was born in Cornwall, England, to a Scottish family of physicians. He was educated in Scotland and South Africa before studying medicine at the University of London in 1930, and became the third generation of doctors in his family. At the start of World War II, Donald was drafted into the Royal Air Force as a medical officer, where he developed an interest in radar and sonar. In 1952, at St Thomas' Hospital, he used what he learned in the RAF to build a respirator for newborn babies with respiratory problems.

In 1952 Donald became a reader at Hammersmith Hospital. He developed a device called the Trip Spirometer, which measured the respiratory efficiency of a neonate. In 1953, he improved its design and made a positive-pressure respirator device that was known as the Puffer. In September 1954, Donald was promoted to Regius Professor of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Glasgow. While working at the Western Infirmary, he met Tom Brown, an industrial engineer who worked for Kelvin Hughes, which led to a series of collaborations between Western Infirmary clinicians and Kelvin Hughes' engineers. They designed and built a series of instruments that enabled the unborn to be examined with obstetric ultrasound, which allowed Donald to build the world's first obstetric ultrasound machine in 1963: the Diasonograph.

Donald also secured the construction of the Queen Mother's Maternity Hospital that was built next to the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow. Provided by Wikipedia