“I’d rather be remembered for my work in neurology than my running. If you offered me the chance to make a great breakthrough in the study of the autonomic nerve system, I’d take that over the four minute mile right away. I worked in medicine for sixty years. I ran for about eight.”
Sir Roger Banister retired from athletics in 1954, at the age of 25, to pursue a medical career.
He became a distinguished neurologist specialising in the autonomic nervous system. He was a consultant to the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London and to St Mary’s Hospital and Medical School, London.
His first paper in The Lancet was published in 1959, ‘Acute anhidrotic heat exhaustion’. He published more than eighty papers and edited two books.
In 2005 he received from the American Academy of Neurology their first ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ for his work on Autonomic Disorders.
Two testimonials, describing his career and work, were given by medical colleagues at the dedication of his memorial stone in Westminster Abbey on 28th September 2021. They are reproduced in this section.