William Boog Leishman, Scottish Pathologist

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William Boog Leishman (1865-1926) was a Scottish pathologist and British Army medical officer. He was Director-General of Army Medical Services from 1923 to 1926. In 1900 he described a method of staining blood for malaria and other parasites using a compound of Methylene Blue and eosin, which became known as Leishman's stain. In 1901, while examining pathologic specimens of a spleen from a patient who had died of kala azar (second-largest parasitic killer in the world), he observed oval bodies and published his account in 1903. Charles Donovan of the Indian Medical Service found such bodies in other kala azar patients, and they are now known as Leishman-Donovan bodies, and recognized as the protozoan which causes kala azar, Leishmania donovani. After a remarkable career and died in London, aged 60.

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