About: Robert James Valentine Pulvertaft

Robert James Valentine Pulvertaft OBE (14 February 1897—30 March 1990) was an English pathologist. Born in Cork, Ireland, Pulvertaft served in the First World War before undertaking a medical education at Trinity College, Cambridge and St. Thomas's Hospital, London. He became the laboratory director at Westminster Hospital in 1931 and earned a medical degree from Cambridge in 1933. He served in the Royal Army Medical Corps during the Second World War, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel and serving as pathologist to hospitals in Egypt. During his time abroad he developed methods for local production of penicillin and treated Winston Churchill during his illness in Tunisia. Pulvertaft was named an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1944. After his return to England, he became