Lennox Johnston
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Lennox Johnston (15 May 1899 – 18 January 1986) was a Glaswegian GP and amateur scientist who pioneered research in the addictiveness of nicotine in the 1930s and campaigned against the harmful effects of smoking.[1] Although initially dismissed, he was fully justified and was honored by the Royal College of Physicians in 1976, where Sir Cyril Clarke likened his contribution to that of the work by Semmelweis on preventing sepsis.
Johnston was born in Loanhead, Scotland, just south of Edinburgh. Educated at Ayr Academy and Glasgow University, he graduated MB, ChB in 1921, having served as a medical student in Royal Navy minesweepers in the North Sea during the First World War. He started to smoke at the age of 16 and continued for 12 years. He was married to his wife, Frieda, for 55 years. They had a son, Ivor, and two daughters, Heather and Sandra.
