Dr Everton Rowe Trethewie, known as Rowe to his friends and family, and as "Treth" to his colleagues, was born in Launceston, Tasmania on 15 April 1913, the youngest of the four children of Arthur and Emily Trethewie. The various branches of the Trethewie family lived on pastoral properties in the Tamar Valley region near to the town of White Hills. The father died when Rowe was about four years old. His mother brought him and the other children, two boys and a girl, across to Melbourne when Rowe was quite young.

As he grew it became clear that he was very bright intellectually. His secondary education was completed at University High School where he finished Leaving at the age of fourteen, to then do two years Leaving Honours. His name is listed on the exhibition board at University High School for the year 1929. He entered the University of Melbourne in 1930 at the age of sixteen and did exceptionally well during his medical course, graduating in 1935. Amongst his academic achievements were first class honours in physiology in third year and second class honours in each of the three final year subjects.

After completing resident terms at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, the Royal Women's Hospital and the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne he commenced his research career under Charles Kellaway (qv 1) with an appointment at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, between 1938 and 1941, when his experimental work contributed to the discoveries of slow reacting substance of anaphylaxis (SRS-A) and bound acetylcholine. He began there also his work on the effects of snake venoms, and over a period of thirty years he published about fifteen major papers dealing with this subject. Eventually he made the first attempts at detecting snake venom by immunological means.

During the Second World War, although trying apparently on three occasions to gain enlistment for active service overseas, this was blocked under the Manpower Scheme and he continued working at the University of Melbourne and at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, with secondment to the Chemical Defence Unit of the Australian Army. Many years later, in 1979, it came to light that he had at that earlier date, in collaboration with Major JM Moore of the USA, made observation on the suppressive effect of mustard gas exposure on bone marrow function in guinea pigs. This information had helped trigger off the development of this agent for use in cancer chemotherapy.

Between the years 1944 and 1950 he was the director of the Institute of Medical and Veterinary Science in Adelaide, and professor of experimental medicine at the University of Adelaide. In 1950 he came back to Melbourne and was appointed again as a senior lecturer in the deparment of physiology under Professor RD "Pansy" Wright (qv), becoming a reader in 1958. For the remainder of his career, until his death in 1984 at the age of 71, he had wide-ranging interests in experimental physiology, toxicology and pharmacology as well as a special interest in sports medicine. He maintained his clinical interest through an appointment as an assistant physician at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

Being thoroughly competent in mathematics and physics, he applied this ability to the problems of electrocardiography. In 1968 his Atlas of ABC Electrocardiography was published. This book demonstrates the theory and clinical observations of the simplified electrocardiographic technique he had developed, using three leads to assess electromotor force variation in three planes at right angles to each other, thus covering all possibilities in three dimensions with a minimum of leads. In his medical interactions he was always enthusiastic and very skilled at discussion and repartee, being possessed of a reasonable knowledge beyond the field of medicine. His fluency in reading and speaking German enabled him to gain a command of the scientific literature in this language, adding another dimension to his own investigations and publications. He greatly enjoyed informal interaction with medical students.

He was married twice with three sons and a daughter resulting from the first marriage. One of these graduated in medicine, another in agricultural science, another in law and the youngest in civil engineering. His sister, who had been matron at St Ives Hospital, East Melbourne, and then at the Bairnsdale Hospital and the Box Hill Hospital until her retirement, owned a property at Kalorama in the Dandenongs which Rowe delighted to visit with his family during the 1950s. He pursued swimming as a recreation more or less throughout his life. When he was at school and university his chosen sport was lacrosse at which he was very adept. He also maintained a great interest in music. He died of a heart attack, having suffered angina for some years. Rowe Trethewie was a very bright, quick thinking man who had come from a somewhat deprived background as a child, without the benefits of a father in his growing years. Teaching and basic research in medicine constituted his calling. He had an almost passionate commitment to doing work properly and thoroughly.