Alasdair Macintosh Geddes (born May 1934) is Emeritus Professor of Infection at the University of Birmingham Medical School. In 1978, as the World Health Organization (WHO) was shortly to announce that the world's last case of smallpox had occurred a year earlier in Somalia, Geddes diagnosed a British woman with the disease in Birmingham, England. She was found to be the index case of the outbreak and became the world's last reported fatality due to the disease, five years after he had gained experience on the frontline of the WHO's smallpox eradication programme in Bangladesh in 1973. His early research included work on drug discovery and antibiotics, and the definitions and management of bacterial meningitis and pneumococcal disease. In 1975, he became Chairman of the first editorial board of the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. In the same year he was co-editor of the best seller book titled Control of Hospital Infection, later known as Ayliffe's Control of Healthcare-Associated Infection: A Practical Handbook. Following the September 11 attacks, Geddes became an adviser on bioterrorism for the UK's Department of Health, his chief role being in the national smallpox plan and in biodefence training. In 2015, he retired from his position as Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, having served the journal for the previous 10 years. His recollections of smallpox in Birmingham inspired Mark Pallen to write The Last Days of Smallpox: Tragedy in Birmingham, published in 2018. Early life and education Alasdair Geddes was born in Fortrose, near Inverness, Scotland, in May 1934, to Angus and Isabella Geddes. His early education was at the Fortrose Academy, the local school. In 1957 he graduated in medicine from the University of Edinburgh, where his interest in antibiotics later originated. Medical career He completed his early medical posts at the Royal Infirmary in Edinburgh and then in Perth, following which he spent two years completing National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, and rose to the rank of captain. Subsequently, he gained experience in infectious diseases and general medicine first at Edinburgh and then as a medical registrar at Aberdeen and began research on antibiotics, with publications in the British Medical Journal and The Lancet. After a visit to the United States, he returned to Britain and took up a post as one of two consultants in infectious diseases at the East Birmingham (now Heartlands) Hospital in May 1967, at