Campbell, E. J. Moran (Edward James Moran)

Edward James Moran Campbell (better known as Moran) was a physician, scientist, and educator. His career spanned decades, and he was considered the foremost clinical respiratory physiologist of his generation, and directly influenced how respiratory medicine is taught in England and Canada.

E.J.M Campbell was born August 31, 1925, in Yorkshire, England, to father Edward Gordon Campbell, a general practitioner; and mother Clare Irene O’Callaghan. Campbell’s early education took place at Clifton High School, a private preparatory school in Harrogate and at King James’ Grammar School in Knaresborough. Campbell would later attend the Harrogate Technical College night school where he became a pathology technician. After working as a technician, Campbell attended Middlesex Hospital Medical School where he completed a BSc in 1949, his MD in 1951, and a PhD in 1954.

From 1953-1954 Campbell was the Registrar at the Middlesex Hospital and following that became the Comyns-Berkeley Fellow of the Middlesex Hospital and Gonville and Caius College in Cambridge, which he held at the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1955, Campbell would be appointed an assistant professor at the Post Graduate Medical School (later the Royal Postgraduate Medical School) while also being a practicing physician at the Hammersmith Hospital. In 1957 Campbell married Diana Mary Elizabeth Green (1931-2021), who was a nurse at Middlesex Hospital. The two would eventually have four children: Fiona, Susan, Robert, and Jessica.

Campbell would publish the book “The Respiratory Muscles and the Mechanisms of Breathing” in 1958 which was based on his PhD thesis on “The Muscular Control of Breathing in Man”, and in 1960 would submit a paper that would lead to the creation of the Venturi mask. The following decade would see Campbell become the Editor in Chief of the “Clinical Science” Journal and would go on to edit the “Clinical Physiology” textbook with John Dickinson. In 1965 Campbell would deliver a lecture (on “Respiratory Failure”) for the Goulstonian Lectures at the Royal College of Physicians, London; and in 1967 would be the youngest scientist to give the J. Burns Amberson Lecture of the American Thoracic Society.

In 1968 Campbell was approached by John Evans, the founding Dean of the McMaster University Medical School, to become a R.S. McLaughlin Professor of Medicine, and the founding Chair of the Department of Medicine at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. Realizing that he would rather create something new then staying in England, Campbell would accept the position and moved to Hamilton with his family that same year. From 1968-1975 Campbell would be the Chair of the Department of Medicine and was known as an incredible recruiter and resource for the department. After ending his seven-year run as Chair of the Department, Campbell would continue as Professor of Medicine. Campbell would become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1983 and would also publish a memoir in 1988 called “Not Always on the Level”, which detailed his life and work while living with bipolar disorder. In 1991 Campbell would retire from his position at McMaster University with his achievements being honored at the “International Breathlessness: Campbell Symposium”. From 1991-2004 Campbell would be designated as a Professor Emeritus of the university, and in 2001 was inducted as an Officer of the Order of Canada by then Governor General Adrienne Clarkson.

Campbell was an avid cyclist, picking up the hobby while moving to Hamilton, and was a vocal supporter of cycling tracks and lanes in the city. Throughout the span of his life, E.J.M Campbell would write a multitude of scholarly articles and had many of his opinion pieces published in various newspapers.

Campbell would die on April 12, 2004, from colon cancer.

Hamilton

Biographical sketch created August 2022 by Jackson Charbonneau

Campbell, E. J. M. (1988). Not Always on the Level. British Medical Journal.