Emmanuel Ciprian Amoroso, 16 September 1901 - 30 October 1982

Emmanuel Ciprian Amoroso, or ‘Amo’ as he was affectionately known to his thousands of friends and acquaintances around the world, is the only Trinidadian, indeed the only West Indian, to have been elected into the Fellowship of the Royal Society— a signal achievement. That he was able to overcome the prejudices of race and colour, so prevalent in British society particularly in the earlier decades of this century, is a tribute to his great personal charisma, his ability to speak in many tongues and so endear him self to people in nations and cultures very different from our own, and to the sheer force of his intellect. His studies on the formation, structure and function of the mammalian placenta and its role in the evolution of viviparity form the basis of his international scientific reputation. He will be remembered m ore for his ability to absorb a mass of factual information scattered throughout the world’s scientific literature over the last few centuries and to produce a concise, succinct summary of the present state of the art, than as an experimentalist. His skills lay more in observation and interpretation, in the correlation of structure with function, than in the design and execution of planned experiments. But it is as a speaker, indeed as an orator, and as a teacher that he will be best remembered throughout Europe, Australasia, Africa and the Americas. Listening to him deliver a lecture on a formal occasion, one had the distinct impression that if he had not succeeded as a scientist he would have becorme a great actor, or even an inspiring preacher; in a bygone age he would have been one of those great storytellers who could have held his audience enthralled. As Professor Courtenay Batholomew said of him , ‘He had a charisma and an aura about him w hereby when he walked into a gathering one had to enquire: “who is this man?” ’