Born in Kincardine, Maclean qualified in medicine at Aberdeen , and then became interested in phospholipid biochemistry, and later in the role of albuminuria in renal disease, working as chemical pathologist at St. Thomas’s Hospital. When it became clear that renal disease was common among troops on the Western Front in World War One, the War Office sought out Maclean who went on to make seminal observations about ‘war nephritis’ (also known as ‘trench nephritis’)  in a remarkable study in France of over 10,000 soldiers. After the war Maclean developed a Veterans Renal Clinic for the Ministry of Pensions arguably the first ever  ‘one-stop’ renal clinic. Maclean  went on to   become Professor of Medicine at St. Thomas’s Hospital, but his career sadly was curtailed by depressive illness which afflicted him from his fifties until his death at the age of 78; a death attributed to uraemia.

Read Hugh Maclean’s obituary published by RCP Hugh MacLean | RCP Museum

Read a longer account by Lorna & Michael Almond of Hugh Maclean’s contributions to renal medicine  Almond_MacLean_History

Last Updated on October 24, 2026 by John Feehally