J.M Tanner

James Mourilyan Tanner
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James Mourilyan Tanner
Born August 1, 1920
Camberley, Surrey, United Kingdom
Died August 11, 2010(aged 90)
Cause of death stroke and prostate cancer
Occupation paediatric endocrinologist
Known for Tanner Staging
Children Helen Phillips

James Mourilyan Tanner (1 August 1920 – 11 August2010) was a British paediatric endocrinologist who was best known for his development of the Tanner scale, which measures the stages of sexual development during puberty. He was a professor emeritus ofthe Institute of Child Health at the University of London.[1]
Biography

Tanner was born on 1 August 1920 in Camberley, Surrey, United Kingdom and was educated at Marlborough College and UniversityCollege of the South West of England. His family travelled widely while he was his a youth as his father, a soldier in the British Army, was stationed in various locations. Tanner was a top-rankedhurdler who might well have participated in the 1940 Summer Olympics which were to be held in London, but were cancelled after the outbreak of World War II. He decided to become a doctor and not followhis father into the military after his brother was killed early in the war.[2] He attended St Mary's Hospital, London, under a scholarship in which he instructed fellow students in physicaleducation.[3] He came to the United States to complete his medical studies as part of a group of British students brought over by a grant by the Rockefeller Foundation.[3] He met his first wife, fellow physicianBernice Alture, while at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and performed his internship at Johns Hopkins Hospital.[2]

Tanner oversaw a study initiated by the British government atan orphanage in Harpenden starting in 1948. While the study had originally been planned to study the effects of malnutrition on children, Tanner charted and photographed the growth of the children in...