| After passing his second MB he joined the RNVR, and from 1914 to 1917 served as a Surgeon-Probationer RNVR in torpedo boat destroyers and armoured cruisers. After qualifying at the London Hospital he elected in May 1919 to join the Medical Branch of the then embryonic Royal Air Force and proceeded to take the Diploma of Public Health followed by qualifications in ophthalmic medicine and surgery and the FRCS of Edinburgh. He was later elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of England. In 1929 he was posted to Iraq as General Surgeon in the RAF, and while there he gained wide experience at the Royal Baghdad Eye Hospital, at the same time learning to fly and gaining his Wings. He then began to study the effect of sunglare on flying personnel in Iraq. In 1934 he was appointed consultant in ophthalmology and he remained consultant until 1947. In 1937 he made a tour of medical establishments in Germany used for the selection of future German air force pilots. It was as a result of this visit that the then inferior flying equipment of the RAF was redesigned, and apparatus for evaluating the physiological needs of pilot and air crew was constructed. The 22-ft long low-pressure chamber, the human centrifuge, the depth perception and night vision apparatus, and the redesign of an RAF goggle are some examples of his drive and foresight. He regularly attended the Congresses of the Ophthalmological Society of the United Kingdom and gave some interesting papers, including 'Heterophoria in aviation, its significance and treatment' in 1941 and 'Ocular disturbances associated with malnutrition' in 1948. All this is admirably summed up in an appreciation which appeared in The Aeroplane: 'Livingston, who was a Specialist in Ophthalmology to the R.A.F. during the War, perhaps because of his
personal experience of a pilot's needs, was better able than most specialists to appreciate the limitations of the consulting room. His deep knowledge of human nature,
coupled with his ophthalmic skill and long acquaintance with aviation, allowed him in passing men for flying duties in the R.A.F. to offset optical infirmities by flying experience and courage. Many pilots, well below the accepted standards of vision, owe their successful flying
careers to Sir Philip's perspicacity.' He was appointed Deputy Director General of the Medical Services (RAF) in 1947 and was promoted to the post of Director General one year later. In the Second World War he was an opthalmologist. He was appointed as an Air Marshal RAF.He held this appointment until he retired in 1951. He was honorary surgeon to the King from 1948 to 1950. He won the Chadwick Prize and Gold Medal for research and he gave the Montgomery, Moynihan, and Chadwick lectures in 1942-5. On retirement he returned to Vancouver Island, where he continued to practise ophthalmology and where
he wrote an interesting autobiography "Fringe of the Clouds" (1962). |
