The test gave doctors a critical tool for improving patient care, and remains a standard. Meanwhile the paper, cited 750 times over 50 years, served as a foundation for Wrong’s subsequent study on acquired and hereditary forms of renal tubular acidosis, a condition in which the kidneys harden and bones become brittle.

He also described a hereditary disease in which the kidney’s tubules fail to function properly, leading to kidney stones, rickets and renal failure, naming it “Dent’s disease” after his mentor Professor Charles Dent. In more than a dozen publications on this disease, all produced after Wrong had officially retired in 1990, he broadened understanding of the condition, which many feel should rightfully be re-baptised “Dent-Wrong disease”.

Wrong worked under Dent and Professor Max Rosenheim at London’s University College Hospital (UCH) until 1961, when he was made senior lecturer at the Hammersmith Hospital. The family moved to Dundee in 1969 when Wrong was awarded the chair there, but returned to UCH in 1972, when he was appointed Professor of Medicine. He remained there for almost two decades.

While his intellect and sardonic sense of humour could make him seem intimidating, Wrong was a gentle, compassionate physician, conscious that his breakthrough moments as a scientist were always rooted in clinical experience. “The link with the patient is absolutely vital,” he said.

Oliver Wrong married, in 1956, Marilda Musacchio, a teacher from the Italian Alps. She survives him with their two daughters.

Professor Oliver Wrong, born February 7 1925, died February 24 2012

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