Hans Frederick Bettinger was born in Breslau in 1897, educated locally and graduated with honours in 1920. Choosing pathology for a career and having Beneke and Henke as his mentors, he might have expected steady advancement in his specialty – but not in Germany with the rise of the Nazi Party. In 1935, Hans with his wife Vera, the daughter of Mr Justice Fuchs, set off on the first of their journeys – to China where he was to be professor of pathology in the Military Medical College in Canton.

In China, Germanic administrative skills and planning experience helped him modify building plans, establish a museum and create a slide collection. However, this apparently stable, professional world was shattered by the Japanese invasion of China. In 1939, the Bettingers moved to Australia where they were eventually to find peace, self respect and, in the case of Hans, professional dignity.

Although originally intending to work in Sydney with Professor Keith Inglis, who was generously kind to him, he was almost immediately offered the directorship of the newly built pathology department at the Royal Women's Hospital in Melbourne. He spent the rest of his professional life there where he met up with Vera Krieger and Hildred Butler, two very remarkable Doctors of Science of the University of Melbourne. With these women, he set up one of the finest pathology departments ever to be attached to a specialist hospital.

Professionally he was held in high regard, and gained local and international distinction for his work on early invasive cancer of the cervix. However, his unusual insight into the problems of those afflicted with sexual anomalies made him emphasise the personality factors in management, rather than the scientific minutiae of their chromosomes. A teacher, until some four months before his death, his heavy Germanic accent clouded communications with the undergraduates who would have been amazed to learn how his knowledge of English and rare sense for grammar could often shame their other teachers.

As a man, Hans remained untouched by former vicissitudes, although even in Melbourne it was not easy to be a German in the 1940s. Widely read in several languages, he was also a lover of good music and a particularly privileged one as he had the gift of pitch memory. He had an eye for beauty wherever it was to be found, and was a gourmet even in his allergy – he delighted in crayfish and oysters, but rapidly developed puffy lips if mundane fish were presented to them. Hans was a man of great personal charm who in his younger days resembled the German singer of romantic songs, Richard Tauber. He died on 20 September 1975.