Philip George Houthem Gell

Philip Gell was one of a small but outstanding group of immunologists who led Britain during the postwar years to a leading role in this increasingly important biomedical discipline. He pioneered in those studies that helped to change the field from an earlier, narrowly chemical approach to one with much broader biological and medical implications. He helped to train and guide an entire generation of scientists, both domestic and foreign, and did all of this with a most becoming modesty. But he was more than just a narrowly oriented scientist; his interest in horticulture, in poetry, in philosophy and in the interrelationship of art and science was mediated by the interplay of a keen mind with a broad fund of general knowledge.