Sher Mallick was born in Raiwind in Northern India, and his father was a land owner. He graduated from the King Edward Medical College in Lahore in 1924. After holding house posts at the Mayo Hospital, Lahore, he joined the Indian Medical Service in 1927. Having taken the MRCP, he was transferred to the medical research department of the Government of India in 1928, and soon became the assistant director of the Central Research Institute at Kasauli, where he was to work with Christopher and then with Sinton, particularly on the transmission and epidemiology of malaria. He assisted in uprating the new Glancy Medical College in Amritsar, and later became its principal and professor of medicine. Many of his students were to join the IMS and the IAMC as war-clouds gathered and then burst over India.

At the time of the partition of India, he opted for Pakistan, and soon became the principal and professor of medicine at the King Edward Medical College, Lahore. In 1952, he gained his FRCP, having the distinction of being the first Pakistani to be so elected. He had also helped in founding the new Fatima Jinnah Medical College for Women, in Lahore. He was then appointed principal and professor of medicine at the Dow Medical College in Karachi. During his term, a large number of new, young, highly trained consultants were appointed.

In 1953, he was one of the speakers in a plenary session at the First World Congress of Medical Education. He became a member of the scientific advisory panel of the Ciba Foundation. In 1955, he went back to Lahore as principal of the King Edward Medical College, and in 1956 became the first director of medical services of the whole of West Pakistan. During his term in this office, he founded the Nishtar Medical College in Multan and the Liaqat Medical College in Hyderabad.

In 1964, he was one of the founding fellows of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Pakistan, and later became its senior vice-president. On retirement, he set up a medical research unit at the Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in Lahore, investigating the natural history of diabetes, hypertension and amoebiasis in West Pakistan, resulting in a number of published papers.

In spite of all these activities, he found time for cricket, shooting and gardening.

Sher Mallick had an amazing capacity for thinking big, and firing the imagination of all around him to greater deeds. There must be few fellows who have presided over the birth of four medical colleges and a research institute. He always had willing and devoted workers to help him; he asked for total loyalty, and he gave the same in return.

In 1927 he married Ivy Mary, daughter of Albert Taylor, and had a son and a daughter.

RB Khambatta