Field studied medicine at the
University of Durham, UK. Previously lecturer and then reader in anatomy at the
University of Bristol, he moved to Newcastle as invited by
Henry Miller to become a consultant neuropathologist at
Newcastle University. The university awarded him a personal chair in experimental pathology. His subsequent pioneering work on
multiple sclerosis,
scrapie and
kuru, during which he discovered the beginnings of the mechanics of
prion diseases, attracted attention from the
Medical Research Council who appointed him honorary director of a new demyelinating diseases research unit. Field's work on the kuru was the subject of a 1970
BBC Horizon documentary in
New Guinea. Field was a prolific researcher and author, having published almost 300 academic papers, including 14 in
Nature, 54 in
The Lancet and 40 in the
BMJ. He was also a fellow of the
Royal College of Physicians. His children with his wife Dereen are
David, a distinguished physicist, and
Judith, an expert in art and mathematics. ==References==