Royden McIntosh Muir and His Anesthetic Links Between South Africa, London, and the United States

Abstract New Zealand born, Dr. Royden McIntosh Muir, MBChB(Edin), DA(RCS&RCP), emigrated to Cape Town in 1921 having specialized in anesthesia in London after World War 1 and became one of South Africa's earliest and leading anesthesiologists. He was appointed honorary anesthetist and clinical teacher by the University of Cape Town at South Africa's first medical school in 1922, and lecturer in 1927. Aware of Cape Town's isolation at the southern tip of Africa, he undertook extensive tours studying anesthetic practice at major hospitals in London, the United States and Canada in 1933 and 1938. He became a lifelong friend of Ralph Waters in Madison, who coached him in the use of cyclopropane, and he subsequently introduced cyclopropane into England and South Africa. In the United States, he met Richard von Foregger, founder of the New York based Foregger Company, from whom he later commissioned a purpose-built anesthetic machine marketed by Foregger as “The Muir Midget.” Muir was a founder member of the South African Society of Anaesthetists in 1943 and was elected as its second president the following year. Based on what he had seen in academic hospitals in the United States and England, he fought until his retirement for the improved recognition of the specialty in South Africa and the establishment of adequately staffed departments of anesthesia at teaching hospitals in that country.