GREGORY,PHILIP,HERRIES - 1907-1986 - PIONEER AEROBIOLOGIST, VERSATILEMYCOLOGIST

Philip Gregory pioneered aerobiology as a topic for research, drawing together inputs from many disciplines to contribute to better understa nding of fungal spore dispersal, plant disease epidemiology, and aller gy. In childhood, he was interested in natural history and meteorology and frequently suffered from asthma. Initially, he worked with dermat ophytes in Winnipeg, where he was influenced by Buller. Returning to B ritain, he investigated the epidemiology first of flower bulb diseases and then of potato virus diseases, noting the occurrence of disease g radients in crops. He developed theories of spore dispersal during war time air-raid duties and published these in his classic paper of 1945. The remainder of his career was largely spent obtaining data in suppo rt of his theories of spore dispersal and disease gradients, on unders tanding splash dispersal, in identifying the cause of farmer's lung di sease, and in his retirement, in elucidating the epidemiology of black pod disease of cocoa in Nigeria.