Lt Col Anderson Gray McKendrick DSc FRSE (8 September 1876 – 30 May 1943) was a Scottish military physician and epidemiologist who pioneered the use of mathematical methods in epidemiology. Irwin (see below) commented on the quality of his work, "Although an amateur, he was a brilliant mathematician, with a far greater insight than many professionals."
He later worked with Ronald Ross and eventually would continue his work on mathematical epidemiology. His primary interest was in research and he was director of the Pasteur InstituteatKasauli in the Punjab 1914–1920.[2] He was invalided home to Britain in 1920 and settled in Edinburgh where he became Superintendent of the Laboratory of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. He held this post for the rest of his life.
Some of this paper's other results for stochastic models of epidemics and population growth were rediscovered by William Feller in 1939. Feller remarks in his An Introduction to Probability Theory and Its Applications (3rd edition p. 450), "It is unfortunate that this remarkable paper passed practically unnoticed." In 1927 McKendrick began a collaboration with William Ogilvy Kermack (1898–1970) which produced a notable series of papers on the Kermack–McKendrick theory, a general theory of infectious disease transmission.
W. M. Hirsch gives this picture of the man: "McKendrick was a truly Christian gentleman, a tall and handsome man, brilliant in mind, kind and modest in person, a skilful counsellor and administrator who gave of himself and knew how to enable others."
A. G. McKendrick Applications of mathematics to medical problems Kapil Proceedings of the Edinburgh Mathematical Society, vol 44, (1925–6), pp. 1–34. Reprinted with commentary in S. Kotz & N. L. Johnson (Editors) (1997) Breakthroughs in Statistics: Volume III New York Springer.
W. O. Kermack; A. G. McKendrick “Contributions to the Mathematical Theory of Epidemics. II. The Problem of Endemicity,” Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Vol. 138, (1932) pp. 55–83.
