My colleague and friend John Corrie, who died at the age of 92, was a pioneering epidemiologist and professor of public health medicine at the University of Bristol.
Born in Bath, John was the son of Alice (née Nuttall), a nurse, and Richard Collie, an ophthalmologist. From Kingswood School he went on to medical school at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, graduating in 1955. He was one of his in a cohort that expanded epidemiology in the early postwar period to give it a more dynamic clinical relevance. Their new measures of physical and mental functioning for use in population studies will allow studies to understand how disease and disease risk develop over time, and how aging occurs. I was able to show
Honorary Consultant in Clinical Epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (1964-76) and Great Ormond Street Hospital (1971-76) John showed that exposure to air pollution in childhood puts people at risk of developing chronic respiratory disease in adulthood. He is a consultant to the European Commission, world health organization On air pollution and respiratory diseases in children.
As a professor at the University of Bristol (1976-93), John expanded the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health with a renewed focus on public health medicine. He made it his NHS scientific resource in the South West and redesigned his teachings to emphasize the essence of evidence-based medicine. In addition, he developed and encouraged new research. This included assuming for his five years as honorary director of the National Research Council of the Medical Research Council. health Development, a birth cohort study initiated in 1946, has become a resource for research on aging. That research is still ongoing.
John was a very conscientious, rigorous medical scientist and an inspiring colleague. He was editor of his Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (1985-92) and a visiting examiner for other medical schools.
Appointed to a professorship in Bristol, John was home near where he grew up in Bath and where his father practiced. John met his medical secretary, Leslie Fort, at the Bath Tennis Club. They got married in 1965.
When he retired, the family to which he was devoted was tirelessly running a small farm. It included a herd of sheep, 36 breeding ewes, ponies, foals, and 5 dogs. He loved sailing, listening to classical music and reading. He was also a talented artist. In 2004 the family moved to Little Hempston. Devonwhere he put his boat in Dart and traveled to Dartmouth with his grandson and dog.
John is survived by Leslie, daughters Sarah and Charlotte, and granddaughters Jasmine, Chloe, and Imogen.
