David Dick was born in Glasgow and attended Glasgow University before going to Balliol College, Oxford as a research student. In the late 1950s Dick was appointed Carlsberg Wellcome Research Fellow at the Carlsberg Laboratory in Copenhagen before returning to Oxford. In 1966 he took the post of Visiting Professor of Psychology at Duke University in the United States then, in 1968, was appointed Cox Professor of Anatomy at Dundee University. He was responsible for building up a distinguished Anatomy Department in the University's Medical Sciences Institute and was well respected both as a researcher and teacher. Illness forced him to take partial retirement in 1988 and he retired fully in 1991.
Dick was a keen church goer and also took an active interest in politics, becoming honorary vice-president of the local branch of the Liberal Democratic Party. He also stood as a candidate in local district council elections. His other interests included writing and he published a collection of poems entitled Physics of the Heart inspired by his struggle against heart disease. David Dick died in 1992 aged 65 and was survived by his wife Elizabeth and their children.
From the guide to the Professor D. A. T. Dick, Professor of Anatomy, University of Dundee, 1887-1994, (Repository Unknown)
