Obituary: Arthur Mourant (1904-1994)

Human Biology, Apr 1997 by Roberts, Derek F

Arthur Mourant, who brought a new dimension to biological anthropology, died of a heart attack on August 29, 1994. Arthur Ernest Mourant was born on April 11, 1904, near La Hougue Bie, Jersey, United Kingdom. He attended the Jersey Modern School and Victoria College, receiving the King's Gold Medal for Modern Languages in 1921 and the King's Gold Medal for Mathematics in 1922. Also in 1922 Mourant was awarded the King Charles' I Scholarship, which took him from Jersey to Oxford. In Oxford he spent 10 years at Exeter College, obtaining his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1925, first class honors in chemistry in 1926, and a Doctor of Philosophy in geology in 1931. His dissertation was on the geology of the Channel Islands.

Unable to obtain a post in geology during the Depression, Mourant took a complementary course in medical chemistry, returned to Jersey, and set up a chemical pathology laboratory (1933-38). In 1939 Mourant returned to his studies, this time in medicine, at the age of 34. At St. Bartholomew's Medical College, London, he gained the degrees of Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery in 1943, and Doctor of Medicine in 1948. After house posts in London, Mourant became Medical Officer at the Galton Laboratory Serum Unit and in 1946 was the founder and first director of the Blood Group Reference Laboratory, London, a position that he held for 20 years.

Mourant's breadth of expertise made him a pioneer, the first hematologist to attack the problems of worldwide blood group distributions. Not only did Mourant collate and map the existing data on blood group gene frequencies, but he also contributed much to the genetic map of the world in his numerous investigations of blood groups in many populations. As knowledge of the newer polymorphisms grew, Mourant absorbed these data into his compendia and incorporated them into his anthropological interpretations. His first book, The Distribution of the Human Blood Groups, was published in 1954. The second edition, much enlarged and virtually a new book, The Distribution of the Human Blood Groups and Other Polymorphisms, was published in 1976. These books drew together practically everything on blood groups that had been published in the world by that date. In doing so, Mourant not only appraised and utilized material in available publications but also extracted from his enormous circle of friends and acquaintances their unpublished materials for inclusion.

Mourant's other books are The ABO Blood Groups (1958), Blood Groups and Disease (1978), The Genetics of the Jews (1978), and Blood Relations (1983). His numerous papers range far more widely than gene frequency studies in different populations and include reports of his discoveries of the new blood group antigens of the Lewis, Henshaw, Kell, and Rhesus systems, analyses of the associations of blood groups and various diseases, other aspects of the biological significance of polymorphisms, and nonhuman studies (e.g., the serological characterization of fish stocks and cattle breeds).

Mourant's work on blood groups and other polymorphisms provided the foundation for the new anthropology because it allowed for the separatingout of genetic evidence for biological relationship from other, not purely genetically determined characters previously used for that purpose. It provided the material against which the theories of population genetics could be examined. The impact of Mourant's work extended beyond the confines of anthropology. It affected medicine itself, correlations between genetics and some diseases, problems of transfusion, and public health.

Many of those about to undertake serological fieldwork in the years following the Second World War will remember the encouragement and enthusiastic support that they received from Mourant and his indefatigable scientific associates in the laboratory, Elizabeth Ikin and Don Tills, and at the calculating machine, Ada Kopec. In the human adaptability section of the International Biological Programme, Mourant played a key role by advising on the genetic component and participating in a number of surveys.

Mourant received many honors. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society, an honorary member of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, honorary adviser for the Nuffield Blood Group Centre in London, honorary member of the Sociedade de Patologia, and Membre d'Honneur de la Societe Jersiaise. He was awarded the Huxley Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, the Oliver Award for services to blood transfusion, the Order of Carlos Finlay of Cuba, the Landsteiner Memorial Award of the American Association of Blood Banks, and the Osler Memorial Medal of the University of Oxford. He was Director of the Serological Population Genetics Laboratory in London, Member of the Governing Body of the Medical College of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, London, Membre du Comite de Direction du Centre d'Hemotypologie de Toulouse, Citoyen d'Honneur of Toulouse, honorary member of the International Society of Blood Transfusion, honorary member of the British Society for Hematology, honorary member of the Society for the Study of Human Biology, and honorary member of the Human Biology Council.