After qualifying, David spent almost his whole professional life in Liverpool, apart from periods, some prolonged, as Associate Professor in France, and as Research Fellow in USA, Holland, and Scandinavia. These visits strengthened his interest in the central nervous system mechanisms of pain sensation, to which he devoted most of his working life. It was in Liverpool that he joined two colleagues, Sam Lipton and John Miles, to set up the Pain Relief Foundation, a charity devoted to pain research, and its research laboratory which he led until 2000. He was a founder (eventually Honorary) member of the International Association for the Study of Pain, and first Honorary Secretary and second Chairman of its British and Irish Chapter. His main interest was in the mechanisms of chronic neuropathic pain and he became a world-renowned expert on central pain. To date his database of hundreds of patients with central post stroke pain remains one of the largest collected. His meticulous studies on somatosensory abnormalities in various chronic pain conditions, especially those involving the nervous system, were groundbreaking in innovation and among the first to corroborate in the human what was suspected on the basis of experimental pain models. He was an accomplished author with over 200 peer reviewed publications to his name, and gave numerous invited lectures over the world. He also taught extensively, and at one early period in Liverpool, taught everything neurological from first year anatomy to final year clinical studies. His little textbook on the anatomy and physiology of the nervous system ran into 5 English editions and a number of foreign translations.
He served as Vice-Chairman of the BMA’s Medical Academic Staff Committee in 1981-2, as Chairman of the Liverpool Branch of the BMA in 1984-5, and as President of the North of England Neurological Association in 1987-8, as well as on many other University and medical research organisation Committees. He was awarded a Doctor of Science by Cambridge in 2000 and made a Citizen of Honour in Liverpool in 2010.
David received a good classical education, and from an early age was an achiever. He was widely known for his wit, logic and erudition; but when needed he did not hesitate to criticize conventional wisdom or show irreverence toward intellectual laziness. He had a particular skill for hyperbole but never erred on the side of exaggeration or untruth. He never stopped educating himself. His passions included comparative philology, history and travel, and books in his office on these topics outnumbered those on science. He had a good command of several languages, among them French, Italian, and Swedish, and he kept improving his Welsh until his death. His last first-author peer reviewed scientific paper was published when he was 81 years of age.
He is survived by his wife Doreen, his son and daughter in-law, and his granddaughter.