Leishman was born in
Glasgow and attended
Westminster School and the
University of Glasgow and entered the
Royal Army Medical Corps. He served in
India, where he did research on
enteric fever and
kala-azar. He returned to the United Kingdom and was stationed at the Victoria Hospital in
Netley in 1897. In 1900 he was made assistant professor of pathology in the
Army Medical School, and described a method of staining blood for
malaria and other
parasites—a modification and simplification of the existing
Romanowsky method using a compound of
methylene blue and
eosin, which became known as
Leishman's stain. In 1901, while examining pathologic specimens of a
spleen from a patient who had died of kala azar (now called "
visceral leishmaniasis"), he observed oval bodies and published his account of them in 1903.
Charles Donovan of the Indian Medical Service independently found such bodies in other kala azar patients, and they are now known as
Leishman–Donovan bodies (not to be confused with Donovan bodies, which are found in Granuloma inguinale, which is caused by
Klebsiella granulomatis) and recognized as the
protozoan that causes kala azar,
Leishmania donovani. Leishman's name was engraved into the history of parasitology by Sir
Ronald Ross, who was impressed by Leishman's work and classified the etiologic agent of kala azar into the separate genus
Leishmania. The parasitic organisms from this genus were described earlier by
Peter Borovsky in 1892. Leishman also helped elucidate the life cycle of
Spirochaeta duttoni, which causes
African tick fever, and, with
Almroth Wright, helped develop an effective anti-
typhoid inoculation. He was president of the
Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene in 1911–1912 and Director General of the
Army Medical Services from 1923 to 1926. He was promoted to lieutenant general in July 1923. He is buried on the eastern side of
Highgate Cemetery. == Recognition ==