Autar Paintal was a distinguished physiologist from India. With an MD from Lucknow University, he came to Edinburgh as a Rockefeller Fellow in 1951 and conducted PhD research there under David Whitteridge. He established that it was possible to record from nerve fibres, and dissect them under liquid paraffin – a major advance in experimental technique. His research also shed light on many aspects of vagal innervation and included the discovery, in 1955, of the J receptor in the lungs. He subsequently returned to a research position in Kanpur, at the Indian Army Medical Centre, and later became head of the Indian MRC.

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