The NobleDentist Blog

This article recently appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald and The Brisbane Times – Australia.

Geoffrey Molyneux, 1926-2009

ONE day in London in the early 1950s, Geoff Molyneux, a young Australian trainee dental surgeon, was called upon to give an injection to June Kerr, another young Australian. She was so impressed by his painless technique that they were married in 1954.

Molyneux went on to enjoy both a long marriage and a distinguished career as a dentist, oral and maxillofacial surgeon and academic.

Geoffrey Stuart Molyneux, who has died aged 83, was born in Sydney, the only son of Roy Molyneux, an accountant, and his wife, Rita May Welch. He went to Marcellin College, Randwick, then the University of Sydney.

After graduating with a bachelor of dental surgery in 1949, he practised for a year in Sydney then, as did so many young dentists at that time, went overseas.

He became a dental surgeon in London in 1951 and attended lectures at the Royal College of Surgeons, leading to the primary examination for the fellowship of dental surgery. After two years’ more work and study he completed the fellowship and worked in Hammersmith.

Back in Sydney after five years, Molyneux took the job as graduate assistant to the director of the Institute of Dental Research and was soon appointed clinical pathologist at the Sydney Dental Hospital.

In 1958 he also began lecturing in the department of histology and embryology at University of Sydney and became a senior research officer at the Institute of Dental Research, Sydney.

In 1962 he was appointed senior lecturer in anatomy in the University of NSW.

He moved to the University of Tasmania as reader in anatomy in 1967 and took the chair of anatomy at the University of Queensland in 1971. He remained there until he retired in 1991 as emeritus professor and never wavered from his determination to make the department a centre of excellence for professional and science teaching and research.

He spent a sabbatical year as visiting professor in anatomy at Harvard, and six months as visiting senior scientist in the CSIRO laboratories of animal physiology at Prospect.

Although the main area of Molyneux’s research was the arteriovenous anastomoses (the microscopic blood vessels that connect the arterial and venous systems) and their role in the regulation of body temperature, his interests extended to oral pathology, bacteriology, experimental surgery, zoology, neuroanatomy and the function of the temporomandibular joint (the jaw joint). Results of his work were published in 14 scientific journals, and he was author or co-author of eight book chapters.

Molyneux served as the honorary secretary and treasurer of the Australian chapter of the International Association for Dental Research and was a member of the council of the Dental Health Education and Research Foundation.

At the University of Sydney he was on the research foundation and was chairman of the research committee of the Dental Health Foundation.

He was also president of the Royal Society of Queensland, president of the Microscopical Society of Australia, president of the Anatomical Society of Australia and New Zealand, and a member of the executive of the Australia and New Zealand Microcirculation Society.

After he retired, the Molyneuxs toured Australia then moved to Hobart. Molyneux enjoyed reading and woodwork for as long as he was able but his desire to build a boat and get back to sailing was frustrated by health problems.

Geoff Molyneux is survived by June and their children Tony, Damian, Suzanne and Virginia. Another daughter, Michele, predeceased him.