Dr Gerald Moss was one of the most distinguished physicians to have served the Royal Perth Hospital. He did so from 1938 until 1955, apart from four years in the AAMC in the Middle East during the Second World War, emerging with the rank of lieutenant-colonel. He was the first to foster clinical neurology in Western Australia. In 1949 when James Ainslie, FRCS, established a neurosurgical unit at the Hospital, Gerald Moss was its honorary senior neurologist. He retained the post of honorary senior physician. In 1955 he resigned these posts and left private consultant practice to become neurologist to the Mental Health Services.

It was ironic that increasing awareness of his value as a neurologist forced his departure from the Royal Perth Hospital because recognition in financial terms for this time-consuming discipline was totally lacking in the Perth community of 1956. It was no accident that his departure gave immediate impetus to some financial support for neurology in the Hospital. Sadly, he was not consulted about the form it was to take for he was a man easy to underestimate, modest and self-effacing, and totally uninterested in medical politics. He was a clinician, not an organisation man. It would never have occurred to him to lobby anyone and it was an exasperating exercise to lobby him. He was not a member of a single important hospital committee and he did not move in the corridors of power. He was cherished as a skilled and dedicated physician.

His flair for neurology was recognised when he was invited to become a foundation member of the Australian Association of Neurologists and elected to serve on its council. He was a skilled mimic of neurological movement disorders and of gait disturbances, and in discussing such problems in the ward or even in the car park he might, totally engrossed and unselfconscious, suddenly turn on a demonstration, often with predictable impact on his listeners and bog-eyed bystanders. One had to know Gerald Moss to realise there was nothing clownish about this for he would be utterly serious. He never scored at anyone else’s expense nor played to the gallery. His kindness, his courtesy and his charity were absolute.

He was a natural scholar with a love of words, the classics and languages. The reduced tempo of his clinical load in 1955 allowed part-time study at the University of Western Australia for an arts degree which he achieved in 1960 with first-class honours in Greek. Meetings of the fledgling neurology service at the Royal Perth Hospital which he attended until a few days before his death were enriched by references to philology or to the Julio-Claudian emperors or quiet, almost apologetic, diagnostic coups.

Gentleness and personal and intellectual integrity were his hallmarks. He was fortunate in the enjoyment of family life with his wife Peggy and their three children. Their home was always a quiet haven for visitors. In 1971, a year before his death, his neurological colleagues in Perth were delighted when he was made emeritus member of the Australian Association of Neurologists in the distinguished company and presence of Raymond Adams and John Walton.