John James Rickard Macleod was born in Cluny, near Dunkeld, Scotland, on September 6, 1876, the son of the Reverend Robert Macleod. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Abderdeen. Macleod attended Aberdeen Grammar School and Aberdeen University. He went on to study medicine at Marischal College, where he graduated with honors in 1898. With an Anderson traveling scholarship, Macleod continued his education at Leipzig's Physiology Institute where he studied biochemistry for a year. In 1900 he returned to London to become a demonstrator in physiology at the London Hospital Medical College, and the following year became a biochemistry lecturer there. The same year he was named a Mackinnon research scholar by the Royal Society. During this period, Macleod published his experiments on intracranial circulation and caisson's disease. In 1902 he attended Cambridge University and obtained a diploma in public health. He married Mary Watson in 1903, and journeyed to America to become...