Early Life and Education
Black was born on 14 June 1924 in Uddingston, Lanarkshire, the fourth of five sons of a Baptist family which traced its origins to Balquhidder, Perthshire. His father was a mining engineer. He was brought up in Fife, educated at Beath High School, Cowdenbeath, and, at the age of 15, won a scholarship to the University of St Andrews, where he studied medicine. His family had been too poor to send him to university and he had been persuaded to sit the St Andrews entrance exam by his maths teacher at Beath.
Before 1967, including his time as a student, all of St Andrews' clinical medical activity took place at University College, Dundee, which would eventually become the University of Dundee, of which Black later became Chancellor. He matriculated at University College in 1943 and graduated in 1946.
After graduating he joined the Physiology department at University College as an Assistant Lecturer before taking a lecturer position at the University of Malaya. Black had decided against a career as a medical practitioner as he objected to what he perceived as the insensitive treatment of patients at the time.
Read more about this topic: James Black (pharmacologist)
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