Ashley A. Miles and the prevention of infection following surgery. Presidential address.

Professor Sir Ashley A. Miles, CBE, MD, FRCP, FRCPath, FRS, was born in Yorkshire, England, the son of Harry Miles and Kate Elizabeth (nee Hindley) on March 20, 1904. He attended St Peter's and the Bootham Schools in York, where he was a commemoration scholar. He graduated from King's College, Cambridge University, in 1925 and took his medical training at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London, and became a member of the Royal College of Physicians. Miles was appointed professor of bacteriology at the University of London's University College Hospital Medical School in 1937. Following a series of important posts in the Medical Research Council and the National Institute for Medical Research, he was appointed director of the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine and professor of experimental pathology at the University of London in 1952. It is his work at the Lister Institute that has made his most important contributions to the