Editing Peter Medawar (section)

== Early life and education ==
Medawar was born in [[Petrópolis]], a town 40 miles north of [[Rio de Janeiro, Brazil]], where his parents were living. He was the third child of [[Lebanese people|Lebanese]] Nicholas Agnatius Medawar, born in the village of [[Jounieh]], north of [[Beirut]], Lebanon, and British mother Edith Muriel (née Dowling).<ref name=new>{{cite journal |last1=Temple |first1=Robert |title=Sir Peter Medawar |journal=New Scientist |date=12 April 1984 |issue=1405 |pages=14–20 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Kd_RDty8ft0C&q=peter+medawar+maronite&pg=PA14 |access-date=27 February 2014 }}{{Dead link|date=April 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref><ref name="Medawar, Peter Brian">{{cite book | title=Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia | publisher=[[John Wiley & Sons]] | author=Manuel, Diana E. | year=2002 | doi=10.1002/9780471743989.vse10031 | chapter=Medawar, Peter Brian (1915–1987) | title-link=Van Nostrand's Scientific Encyclopedia | isbn=978-0471743989 }}</ref> He had a brother Philip and a sister Pamela. (Pamela was later married to Sir [[David Hunt (diplomat)|David Hunt]],<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=Younes-Ibrahim|first=Maurício|date=2015|title=Brazilian Nephrology pays homage to Peter Brian Medawar|journal=Jornal Brasileiro de Nefrologia|language=en|volume=37|issue=1|pages=7–8|doi=10.5935/0101-2800.20150001|pmid=25923743|doi-access=free}}</ref> who served as Private Secretary to prime ministers [[Clement Attlee]] and [[Winston Churchill]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-sir-david-hunt-1170946.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220526/http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/obituary-sir-david-hunt-1170946.html |archive-date=26 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Obituary: Sir David Hunt|date=1998-08-11|work=The Independent|language=en|access-date=2020-02-16}}</ref>) His father, a [[Christian Maronite]], became a naturalised British citizen and worked for a British dental supplies manufacturer that sent him to Brazil as an agent.<ref name="Medawar, Peter Brian"/> (He later described his father's profession as selling "false teeth in South America".<ref name=paida>{{cite journal|last1=Paidagogos|title=Just a Human Being|journal=[[The Expository Times]]|date=1986|volume=97|issue=11|pages=352|doi=10.1177/001452468609701133|s2cid=170954307}}</ref>) His status as a British citizen was acquired at birth, as he said, "My birth was registered at the British [[Consulate]] in good time to acquire the status of 'natural-born British subject'."<ref name="new" />

Medawar left Brazil with his family for England at the end of [[World War I]],<ref>{{Cite web |last=Glorfeld |first=Jeff |date=2020-02-23 |title=Peter Medawar solves rejection |url=https://cosmosmagazine.com/health/science-history-peter-medawar-solves-rejection/ |access-date=2024-10-08 |website=Cosmos |language=en-AU}}</ref> in 1918<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ribatti |first=Domenico |date=2015-10-01 |title=Peter Brian Medawar and the discovery of acquired immunological tolerance |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0165247815300109 |journal=Immunology Letters |volume=167 |issue=2 |pages=63–66 |doi=10.1016/j.imlet.2015.07.004 |issn=0165-2478 |pmid=26192442}}</ref><ref name=":3" /> and he lived there for the rest of his life. According to other accounts, he moved to England when he was 13 (i.e., 1928–1929)<ref name=":0" /> or 14 (i.e., 1929–1930).<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Mesquita |first1=Evandro Tinoco |last2=Marchese |first2=Luana de Decco |last3=Dias |first3=Danielle Warol |last4=Barbeito |first4=Andressa Brasil |last5=Gomes |first5=Jonathan Costa |last6=Muradas |first6=Maria Clara Soares |last7=Lanzieri |first7=Pedro Gemal |last8=Gismondi |first8=Ronaldo Altenburg |date=2015 |title=Nobel prizes: contributions to cardiology |journal=Arquivos Brasileiros de Cardiologia |volume=105 |issue=2 |pages=188–196 |doi=10.5935/abc.20150041 |issn=1678-4170 |pmc=4559129 |pmid=25945466}}</ref> He was also a Brazilian citizen by birth, as dictated by the [[Brazilian nationality law]] ([[jus soli]]). At 18 years, when he was of age to be drafted in the Brazilian Army,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://leonardomalves.wordpress.com/category/international-relations/|title=Diploma revalidation in Brazil: abandon all hope ye who need it|date=31 January 2013|website=Leonardo M Alves's Blog|access-date=13 July 2014}}</ref> he applied for exemption of [[military conscription]] to [[Joaquim Pedro Salgado Filho]], his godfather and the then Minister of Aviation. His application was denied by General [[Eurico Gaspar Dutra]], and he had to renounce his Brazilian citizenship.<ref name=":0" /><ref>{{cite web|title=Brazilian Nobel|url=http://www.brazzil.com/rpdnov96.htm|website=brazzil.com|access-date=13 July 2014}}</ref>

In 1928, Medawar went to [[Marlborough College]] in Marlborough, Wiltshire.<ref name="Medawar, Peter Brian"/> He hated the college because "they were critical and querulous at the same time, wondering what kind of person a Lebanese was—something foreign you can be sure",<ref name="NewSci profile">{{cite journal | url=http://www.robert-temple.com/articles/NewScientist_PMedawar.pdf <!--or https://books.google.com/books?id=Kd_RDty8ft0C&pg=PA14&lpg=PA14#v=onepage&q&f=false --> | title=Sir Peter Medawar | author=Robert K. G. Temple | journal=[[New Scientist]] | date=12 April 1984 | volume=102 | issue=1405 | pages=cover, 14–20| author-link=Robert K. G. Temple }}</ref> and also because of its preference for sports, in which he was weak.<ref name="Medawar, Peter Brian"/> An experience of bullying and racism made him feel the rest of his life "resentful and disgusted at the manners and mores of [Marlborough's] essentially tribal institution," and likened it to the training schools for the Nazi SS as all "founded upon the twin pillars of sex and sadism." His proudest moments at the college were with his teacher [[Ashley Gordon Lowndes]], to whom he credited the beginning of his career in biology.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Medawar|first=Peter|title=Memoir of a Thinking Radish: An Autobiography|date=1986|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-217737-0|location=Oxford|pages=27–43|oclc=12804275}}</ref> He recognised Lowndes as barely literate but "a very, very good biology teacher".<ref name="NewSci profile" /> Lowndes had taught eminent biologists including [[John Z. Young]] and Richard Julius Pumphrey.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal|last=Anon.|date=18 February 1960|title=Professor P. Medawar: A profile – A leader in the biological science|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bXjjkFAYAq0C&pg=PA404|journal=New Scientist|volume=7|issue=170|pages=404–405}}{{Dead link|date=April 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> Yet Medawar was inherently weak in dissection and was constantly irked by their dictum: "Bloody foolish is the boy whose drawing of his dissection differs in any way whatsoever from the diagram in the textbook."<ref name=":1" />

In 1932, he went on to [[Magdalen College, Oxford]], graduating with a first-class honours degree in zoology in 1935.<ref name="Medawar, Peter Brian" /> Medawar was appointed Christopher Welch scholar and senior [[Demyship|demy]] of Magdalen in 1935. He also worked at the [[Sir William Dunn School of Pathology]] supervised by [[Howard Florey]] (later Nobel laureate, and who inspired him to take up immunology) and completed his doctoral thesis in 1941.<ref name="mphd">{{cite thesis |degree=DPhil |first=Peter Brian |last=Medawar |title=Growth promoting and growth inhibiting factors in normal and abnormal development |date=1941 |url=https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/permalink/44OXF_INST/ogbd98/alma990202738050107026 |publisher=University of Oxford |id={{EThOS|uk.bl.ethos.673279}} |access-date=13 November 2017 |archive-date=28 April 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200428070037/http://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/primo-explore/fulldisplay?vid=SOLO&docid=oxfaleph020273805&context=L&search_scope=LSCOP_OX |url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1938, he became Fellow of Magdalen through an examination, the position he held until 1944. It was there that he started working with J. Z. Young on the regeneration of nerves. His invention of a nerve glue proved useful in surgical operations of severed nerves during World War II.<ref name=":2" />

The [[University of Oxford]] approved his [[Doctor of Philosophy]] thesis titled "''Growth promoting and growth inhibiting factors in normal and abnormal development''" in 1941,<ref name="mphd" /> but because of the prohibitive cost of supplication (the process by which the degree is officially conferred), he spent the money on his urgent [[appendicectomy]] instead.<ref name="paida" /> The University of Oxford later awarded him a [[Doctor of Science]] degree in 1947.<ref name="mitchison2009">{{cite ODNB|last=Mitchison|first=Avrion|title=Medawar, Sir Peter Brian (1915–1987)|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/printable/40016|access-date=27 February 2014|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/40016|date=2009|orig-year=2004}}</ref>