Vaughan, Janet (1899–1993)

English pathologist, administrator and radiobiologist. Name variations: Dame Janet Vaughan. Born Janet Maria Vaughan, Oct 18, 1899, in Clifton, Bristol, England; died Jan 9, 1993; dau. of William Wyamar Vaughan (headmaster at Rugby) and Margaret Madge Symonds Vaughan (author and friend of Virginia Woolf); Somerville College, Oxford, BSc, 1922; m. David Gourlay (Wayfarers' Travel Association founder), 1930; children: 2.

Received medical training at University College Hospital (1922–24); studied hematology and the application of statistical techniques with Cecil Price-Jones at University College Hospital; worked with George Minoti on pernicious anemia treatments at Boston Memorial Hospital; collaborated with H. M. Turnball and Donald Hunter on blood and bone diseases; studied celiac disease (a chronic nutritional disorder); during WWII, played an important role in establishing blood transfusion depots in London; with Rosalind Pitt-Rivers and Charles Dent, sent to Europe after the war to assess value of concentrated protein solutions in treating starvation; served as principal of Somerville College (1945–67); worked for Medical Research Council Unit for Bone-seeking Isotopes, Churchill Hospital, Oxford (1947–67); elected fellow of Royal Society (1979); wrote The Anaemias (1934), The Physiology of Bone (1971) and The Effects of Irradiation on the Skeleton (1973). Made Officer of the Order of the British Empire (1944) and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (1957).